Question:

▼ How does culture contribute to people’s vulnerability and capacity?

▼ What can be learned from the way local communities help each other in times of disaster?

Presentation Outline▼ Introduction ▼ Evacuation behaviour - perceptions of risk▼ Framing of calamity - ownership of disaster▼ Conclusion

IntroductionMt. Merapi eruption 2010:▼ 2 provinces and 4 districts affected▼ 309 died▼ 396,407 evacuated▼ 716 evacuation “shelters”

Evacuation Behaviour & Perception of Risk

Perception of risk

“People calculate risks...in various cultural and individual ways...people construct their vulnerability, including at times the denial of it.”

Oliver-Smith, Anthony and M. Hoffman, Susannah. 1999. The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective. London: Routledge

City and the mountain

Image source: www.jogjapedia.com (from the book “Keraton Jogja”)

How do people perceive the mountain?

▼ Mountain as a living being

▼ Eruption is an acceptable risk

▼ Cattle = lifetime saving

Lack in disaster preparedness

• Evacuation shelter built within 10 km zone

• Ad-hoc decicions in using public spaces for evacuation

Framing of Calamity

• Mediacreates new myths by blaming “myth” victimhood

• Presence of the state

• State VS common people

Video: TV reporthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDH1spDiedk&feature=related

Ownership of Disaster

Holopis Kuntul Baris

▼ People opened their doors for evacuees

▼ Wrapped rice movement

▼ Digital natives (Prensky, 2003)built from informal interactionsthe stranger factor

Conclusions:• Local value perceptions of risk must be understood and

utilized for public education • Preemptive planning: evacuation shelter, warning information

flow

• Local coping strategy: safe residential areas as alternative

• Engage community radios, social media groups for information-sharing and mobilizing resources in emergencies

“The crucial point in understanding why disasters happen is that...they are also the product of social, political and economical environments.”

Wisner, Blaikie, Canon and Davis. 1994. “At Risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters” London: Routledge.

Anthropological approach to disaster:

“Cultural systems (the beliefs, behaviors, and institutions characteristic of a particular society or group) figure at the center of that society’s disaster vulnerability, preparedness, mobilization, and prevention.” Henry, D Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Disasters. In Disciplines, Disasters and Emergency Management: The Convergence and Divergence of Concepts, Issues and Trends From the Research Literature . D. McEntire and W. Blanchard, eds. Emittsburg, Maryland: Federal Emergency Management Agency.

http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/edu/ddemtextbook.asp

Evacuation Behaviour• Centralized evacuation shelters VS “sporadic”

evacuation to residential areas

Preemptive Planning (Miho Mazareeuw)• Not to rely on singular measure of defense • “You can’t prevent things by management and

engineering... people need to know where to evacuate, and it has to be a community-based effort.”

Preemptive planning based on local people’s coping strategy could have improved the disaster response

Define public spaces as evacuation shelter Safe residential areas as alternative