This joint presentation will feature selected passages from the recently published book Collective Memory and Local Knowledge About Disaster in Central Sulawesi (April 2022) to showcase examples of naming traditions that encode knowledge about the environment. Names in local languages that loosely translate as “hit by the sea” or “stuck in the mud” are instances of disaster risk reduction encoded in language. This knowledge, we sustain, has not been sufficiently valued nor incorporated into national not local disaster risk reduction interventions. Disaster studies have long established that disasters are not natural. The ways populations interact with the environment, how they understand and create knowledge about it are at the core of how we build for or to prevent disasters.

In broad terms, this presentation aims to share how anthropological methods can be employed in an interdisciplinary context to examine/explore/learn more about the complex relationships among populations and environments. Centering this kind of knowledge helps us not only to understand the past but more importantly, has implications for our present and future. As we move into an era of increased environmental changes we ask, will we dare//Are we ready to look at traditional knowledge at eye level to prepare for the next disasters?

Interpreting the Etiology and Effects of Disasters in Indonesia: Anthropological Analyses and Interventions

It is a well accepted dictum in Disaster Studies that while hazards can be natural, disasters always are co-created in a conjuncture of natural, social and cultural factors (e.g. Kelman 2020; Hoffmann & Oliver-Smith 2002). That is, there is always an anthropogenic component in the destruction wreaked by disasters; the term ‘natural disaster’ is a misnomer. Liquefaction becomes a disaster when human settlements and other infrastructure have previously been erected in its vicinity. As such, anthropology is able to play a major role in providing analyses not only of the social effects of disasters, but of the conditions that create them and sustain their effects in the aftermath. This panel invites papers on how anthropology has contributed and can continue to contribute to analysing and facilitating interventions throughout the trajectories of various disasters in Indonesia, including such events as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, liquefaction, and disasters catalysed by deforestation, climate change, pollution practices and other drivers. Papers may focus on such topics, among others, as:

The cultural symbolism of disasters: Local interpretations of disasters and their effects;

The social organisation of disaster interventions: How they succeed and fail;

Accommodation of local knowledge and institutions in disaster interventions

Social and cultural facilitators of disaster impacts;

Differential vulnerabilities to disasters among constituencies in disaster-affected populations;

Mobilisations to mitigate disaster impacts: Local and global interconnections;

Constructions of disaster expertise, including within BNPB (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana) and related organisations;

Multi-species perspectives on disaster etiology and impact;

Designing appropriate interventions to mitigate disaster impact and facilitate recovery. Coping mechanisms of local people affected by disasters

Cultural values and local people’s strategies of resilience in areas vulnerable to multiple and/or recurring disasters

The panel invites conventional single- and joint presentations, as well as short films, short participatory discussions, and any innovative formats in keeping with the parameters set by the organising committee.

References:

Kelman, Ilan. 2020. Disaster by Choice: How our Actions turn Natural Hazards into Catastrophes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hoffman, Susanna M. and Anthony Oliver-Smith, eds. 2002 Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster. Oxford: James Currey & Santa Fe: School of American Research.