ŽIVELNÁ POHROMA AKO MULTIDIMENZIONÁLNY JAV

The aim of the article is to demonstrate a multi-dimensional character of the social aspect of disaster. The author examines people’s reflections of the events linked to disaster and its impact on the local community that are interpreted in accordance of the theoretical perspective of an American anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith. Disaster is characterized as a specific background, a natural laboratory, where particular forms of social behaviour as well as tensions between social norms and economic interest are highlighted. The author pays attention to search for a guilty party related to disaster, and to the subsequent changes and impacts of the disaster. The data were obtained by means of ethnographic interview and participant observation. The field work was located in a rural area affected by flash flood in 2011. This event significantly changed an environmental situation of the village. The thesis brings ethnographic material contributing to the better understanding a nexus human – environment.