To cite this article: Angela Pennisi di Floristella (2016) Dealing with natural disasters, The Pacific
Review, 29:2, 283-305, DOI: 10.1080/09512748.2015.1013498
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2015.1013498
Risk society and ASEAN: a new approach to disaster management
Angela Pennisi di Floristella
Abstract
Over the past two decades, natural disasters have severely hit the
Southeast Asian region causing dramatic environmental, economic and social
consequences. Through the lens of Beck’s risk society framework and the theory of
reflexive modernization, this article attempts at empirically taking stock of how the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is addressing disaster risk
through the creation of new regional institutions and mechanisms. In particular, it
argues that the accumulation of the experience of catastrophes is leading ASEAN
members towards the development of new precautionary initiatives to deal with
disasters, and to forge a new way forward for the promotion of disaster cooperation
and joint emergency response. The article is divided into five sections, which will
only consider initiatives endorsed within the ASEAN framework. The first
introduces risk societies as forms of modern societies and of the insecurities of the
present world. In the second section attention is drawn to natural disasters as a
paradigmatic example of Beck’s risk society. The third section explores how
ASEAN normative governance is evolving to include the issue of disaster
management within its security and social agenda. Then the main institutional and
operational innovations and tools through which ASEAN is preparing to deal with
disaster risk are explored. Finally, the article suggests that despite ASEAN overall
institutional innovations, the practice of cooperation still is effected by several
factors, above all the lack of adequate resources and the difficulty of reconciling
principles of solidarity with national sovereignty, which hinder ASEAN
effectiveness in this area.
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to suffer from
a range of natural disasters. Over the last years, earthquakes, typhoons, the
Angela Pennisi di Floristella is a post-doctoral fellow at the Research College of the Transfor-
mative Power of Europe, at the Free University of Berlin and research fellow at the Depart-
ment of Political and Social Studies, at the University of Catania (Italy).
Address: Freie Universit€at Berlin, KFG, Ihnestr. 26, 14195 Berlin. E-mail: angela.pennisi@
fu-berlin.de; angelapennisif@gmail.com
Department of Political and Social Studies, University of Catania, via Vittorio Emanuele, 49,
I – 95131 Catania (Italy).
� 2015 Taylor & Francis
The Pacific Review, 2016
Vol. 29, No. 2, 283�305, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2015.1013498
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mailto:angela.pennisi@fu-berlin.de
mailto:angela.pennisi@fu-berlin.de
mailto:angelapennisif@gmail.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2015.1013498
rise of the sea level, volcanic eruptions, droughts, heat waves and tsunamis,
are becoming more frequent and severe (Letchumanan 2010: 52), and they
are aggravated by relentless urbanization, rapid population growth,
increasing economic exposure and climate change. In the period from 2001
to 2009, disaster events in this region have accounted for 14% of the
world’s total number of disasters during the same period. Since 2000, they
have detrimentally affected the security and well-being of Southeast Asian
communities, with more than 100 million people in ASEAN (Association
of Southeast Asian Nations) member states affected by catastrophic events
(EM-DAT International Disaster Database), and each year, on average,
the region suffers damage in excess of US$4.4 billion as a consequence of
natural hazards (The World Bank 2012).
As in other regions of the world, disasters as a constant threat on an
entirely new scale have posed ‘a new necessity to reinvent political institu-
tions and invent new ways of conducting politics at social sites that we pre-
viously considered un-political’ (Beck 1999: 93). Thus, despite the ASEAN
states’ unique approach centered on the commitment to solidarity, infor-
mality, minimal institutionalization and non-interference (Acharya 2009;
Narine 2008; Caballero-Anthony 1998), policy makers in Southeast Asia
have started to re-think traditional modalities of cooperation to develop
new forms of multilateral partnerships based on the creation of common
institutions and, new cooperative regulatory systems to better deal with
disasters.
Differently from European studies where there is currently a lively
debate on new regional and international initiatives in response to emer-
gency events of populations hurt by natural disasters (Boin, Ekengren and
Rhinard 2013; Boin and Ekengren 2009; Attin�a 2012), conventionally
defined as a serious disruption � caused by hazards that are of natural
origin � of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread
human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the abil-
ity of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources
(United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction � UNISDR
2009: 9), studies on ASEAN have surprisingly paid limited attention in
analyzing how Southeast Asian governments have come to cooperate on
disaster issues at a regional level under the auspices of ASEAN. Main
exceptions are the studies of Guilloux (2009) who started to explore
regional responses to disasters and the related implications for regional
governance mechanisms, Collins’s contribution (2013), which placed
ASEAN disaster policy among one of the new dimensions of ASEAN peo-
ple-oriented rhetoric, and Caballero-Anthony’s works (2009, 2012) calling
for the responsibility to protect approach, to cope with humanitarian emer-
gencies and crises. In general, scholars studying this regional institution
have mostly explored the securitization of a number of man-made disas-
ters, typically described as any large-scale human violence, anthropogenic
threat involving human intent, negligence, or error, and failure of a
284 The Pacific Review
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human-made system causing huge sufferance and loss of life and property
to people (UNISDR 2009: 9), such as pandemic diseases, terrorism and
trans-national crime, interstate and domestic conflicts, climate change and
energy (Emmers 2003; Caballero-Anthony et al. 2006; Caballero-Anthony
2008; Elliot and Caballero-Anthony 2013), as well as a ASEAN possible
move towards a responsibility to protect populations facing genocide, eth-
nic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity (See Seng 2011;
Sukma 2012).
Against this backdrop and given the need for more up-to-date research
on ASEAN’s new efforts in the arena of disaster management, the aim of
this study is to empirically take stock of how ASEAN is addressing disaster
risk through its various regional institutions and mechanisms. It is worth
noting that in the context of this paper, the clear demarcation between nat-
ural and man-made disasters is not so evident. In the contemporary world,
in fact, natural disasters cannot be considered as truly natural, because the
ways in which populations, governments and economic actors have manip-
ulated the environment all inform the intersection between natural hazard-
ous events and human-related activities. Human intervention in the forms
of uncontrolled growth of urban areas with their high concentration of pop-
ulation, industry and infrastructure, land degradation, deforestation, global
warming and climate change are today recognized as among the global
trends that affect the severity, if not the cause of natural hazards.
Based on these premises, the article deals with the following important
questions: how does the anticipation of a multiplicity of natural disasters
and their risky consequences affect the institutions of Southeast Asia?
How is ASEAN recalibrating its institutional architecture, and to what
extent is the Association, through new arrangements getting ready for
preparation, prevention and disaster response?
The article will attempt to answer these questions through the lens of
Beck’s risk society framework, which provides an alternative entry point for
examining how societies are reacting and reorganizing themselves to
respond to new risks. In particular, in accordance with Beck’s core argu-
ment, that global societies and their foundations are shaken by the anticipa-
tion of global catastrophes (Beck 2009), it is argued that on the basis of the
lessons learned from the experience of disasters, new regional efforts have
been initiated. To put it differently, the accumulation of catastrophic natural
events in Southeast Asia, compounded by the need to cope with uncertainty
is opening the path towards the institutionalization of new mechanisms;
these are intended to prevent and mitigate risks, prepare and respond to
emergency situations, and provide for recovery. Yet on the other hand, the
article finally argues that despite important efforts which have been under-
taken over the last decade, ASEAN’s new mandate in the field of disaster
cooperation is still affected by several factors, above all the lack of adequate
resources and the difficulty of reconciling principles of humanitarian solidar-
ity with respect for national sovereignty and non-interference.
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 285
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The article will illustrate these dynamics in the following five sections,
which will only consider initiatives endorsed within the ASEAN frame-
work. The first will present risk societies as forms of modern societies and
increased insecurities of the present world. In the second section, attention
is drawn to natural disasters as a paradigmatic example of Beck’s risk soci-
ety. Under the lens of reflexive modernization, the third section explores
how ASEAN normative governance has evolved to include the issue of
disaster management within its security and social agenda. Next, drawing
on first person selected interviews conducted by the author in February,
2014, in Jakarta, Indonesia we review the main institutional and opera-
tional innovations and tools through which ASEAN is preparing for disas-
ter risk, and the overall limits and challenges of its capacity in this field.
Risk societies
Before examining, why natural disasters can be included among the risks to
be faced by contemporary risk society, it is essential to comprehend what is
meant by risk society and why it can be useful to apply this theory to the
ASEAN context.
In essence, as theorized by the founder of the risk society school, the
German sociologist Beck, in Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine
andere Moderne (Beck 1986), risk societies are the result of modernity,
which has left the world more exposed to a range of unforeseen, unin-
tended and unknowable outcomes. In Beck’s eyes, the notion of risk is not
only associated with ‘the possibility of loss, injury or other adverse unwel-
come circumstances’ (Oxford English Dictionary) but more importantly,
to the side-effects of the modern era, such as pollution and environmental
problems, originating in economic and technological progress and scientific
achievements. In other words, risks are probabilities of adverse events con-
nected to the dark side of progress, capable of generating a sense of
‘ontological insecurity’ (Giddens 1991) and uncertainty that impact human
reality. In this perspective, contemporary risks are different from tradi-
tional threats. They are not fixed and certain because risks are not about
deterring foes or defending against identifiable threats but are more amor-
phous and uncertain. Furthermore, unlike security threats, defined by the
Copenhagen school (Buzan et al. 1998) in the securitization theory, risks
are not about the adoption of exceptional political measures to defend a
referent object against a threat. In risk society, exceptionality is indeed,
replaced by the need for managing risks as a way to reduce uncertainty and
limiting the possibility of harm. Termed reflexive modernization, this condi-
tion is characterized by the adoption of mechanisms to forecast and evalu-
ate risks in order to minimize and mitigate, prevent and manage the
impact of potential side effects of technological progress (Beck 2006: 332;
Beck and Holzer 2007).
286 The Pacific Review
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As a result, risks translate as the ‘the replacement of the criteria of emer-
gency and exceptional politics with a policy of longer term societal engi-
neering’ (Corry 2012: 245), centered on a precautionary logic and on
initiatives aimed at controlling risks, and building the capacity and resil-
ience to better manage their impact. Additionally, as their effects cannot
be contained and easily transfer from one place to another through spill-
over and contagion, risks demand new ways of organizing societies and
new forms of governance based on the development of cooperative plat-
forms and on the boosting of international institutions.
Given this overall picture, what then is the benefit of applying Beck’s
theory to the case of natural disasters in the ASEAN context? In the first
instance, risk society provides a useful entry point for untangling the
changing nature of contemporary natural disasters, as will be discussed in
the next paragraph. The notion of reflexivity also provides grounds for
explaining the recent efforts made by Southeast Asian leaders to face the
risk of disasters through the development of disaster risk reduction (DRR)
and management programs, and the institutionalization of new cooperative
mechanisms at a regional level. Additionally, the framework of risk society
helps to shed some light on the growing salience of ‘preparedness’ as a way
to avoid, mitigate, and manage possible catastrophic events. In this regard,
as pointed out by Ekberg (2007) a reflexive orientation towards risk implies
that an increasing number of fields are subjected to continuous processes of
monitoring and surveillance, and of decision-making adjustments founded
on risk calculations (Ekberg 2007).
Last, but not least, this framework contributes to the understanding of
the new nature of contemporary risks, underlined by the emerging link
between human-induced activities and the growing occurrence or strength
of extreme weather events. Regarding this point, climate research has
revealed that the combustion of fossil fuel, land-use changes, including
deforestation and forest degradation, and rapid urbanization affect atmo-
spheric and ocean-warming, thus leading to changes in the rise of sea-level,
and in the frequency and intensity of precipitation and cyclone activity
(UN Habitat 2011; Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mate Change (IPCC) 2012; Zhaung et al. 2013; Field et al. 2012). Several
studies have also put into evidence the direct effect of sea-level rise on
flooding, inundation, coastal erosion, landlines and obstructed drainage.
The Special Report of the IPCC (2012: 444) highlights that some extreme
weather events have changed as a result of anthropogenic influences,
including increases in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.
As a result, one cannot ignore the fact that contemporary disasters are of a
new nature, because most weather-related events now have an anthropo-
genic element (IPCC 2012). Inevitably, this new nature increasingly chal-
lenges the authority and reach of individual states, which are not always
self-sufficient in managing uncertainties on their own, thus making regional
and multilateral cooperation an essential tool to cope with these insecurities.
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 287
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In this regard, Beck argues that one of the consequences of risk society is
that ‘methodological nationalism’, which equates traditional societies with
nation-state societies, is increasingly put under question (Beck 2002: 51),
because post-traditional societies are not the realm of individualism. To be
sure, in the ASEAN context due to historical and cultural circumstances the
Westphalian state became the centerpiece around which standards of appro-
priate behavior for regional cooperation have been designed, and ASEAN
members have traditionally rejected ‘pooling’ national competences within
regional institutions, and have maintained a strictly inter-governmental
mode of cooperation. Nonetheless, there is a growing recognition that the
region needs to develop a new regional approach to solving today’s chal-
lenges. As to regards disaster management collaboration across Southeast
Asian states it is increasingly felt to be an indispensable tool, as recently
recalled by Vietnamese Prime Minister Tan Dung who expressed ‘his beliefs
that with efforts of regional countries the goal of establishing an ASEAN
Community with strong resilience in facing disasters will be fulfilled’
(Xinhua 2013).
Natural disasters in risk society
How can contemporary natural disasters be included among the risks to be
faced by risk societies? In what sense can we draw from risk society theory
the framework to describe the changing nature of today’s natural disasters?
In brief, what’s distinguishes the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2008
Cyclone Nargis and the 2013 Typhoon Hayan from disasters occurring in
the past?
Throughout several works Beck has argued that earthquakes, tsunamis,
hurricanes, fires or floods and other pre-industrial hazards ‘no matter how
large and devastating, were ‘strokes of fate’ raining down on mankind
from ‘outside’ and attributable to an ‘other’ � be they gods, demons, or
Nature’ (Beck 1992: 97�98; Beck and Holzer 2007: 4). In this sense, they
differ from modern risks since they come from external forces, and are not
based on decisions that focus on techno-economic advantages (Beck and
Holzer 2007: 4). Nonetheless, in the world of today even the nature of dis-
asters has changed, and Beck himself (2006: 332) has recently argued that
disasters appear less random than in the past, and to a certain extent, do
not seem dependent on external forces any longer (Beck 2009). As noted
in the preceding paragraph, a burgeoning number of studies call attention
to the fact that growing urbanization, deforestation, environmental pollu-
tion and degradation, coastal erosion and climate change are all factors
that can modify hazard patterns, in terms of their magnitude and fre-
quency. Parthasarathy (2013: 43) has argued that Asian cities are growingly
vulnerable to climate-change related disasters due to increasing urbaniza-
tion, high settlement density, especially in coastal areas, heterogeneity,
migration flows and poor housing. The fifth assessment of the IPCC (2014)
288 The Pacific Review
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reveals a worrying image of likely climate change impact in the region.
Across Southeast Asia temperatures have been increasing at a rate of
0.14�0.20 �C per decade since the 1960s. An increasing frequency of
extreme events has been reported in the northern parts of Southeast Asia,
droughts have intensified in the lowlands, and in Malaysia the frequency of
extreme rainfall events and rainfall intensity have increased all over the
peninsula. Likewise, the World Meteorological Organization has
highlighted how the rise of global temperatures has contributed to more
frequent extreme weather events (Ferris and Petz 2012: 54), and to the
increasing severity of storms and floods. In the same vein, a modelling
work commissioned under a study by the Asian Development Bank shows
that under high emission scenarios Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the
Philippines will experience, inter alia, higher mean temperatures, drier
weather conditions and an increase in precipitation (especially in the Phil-
ippines) (Zhaung et al. 2013: 19�20). Of no less significance, deforestation
for agricultural purposes and the destruction of mangroves and coral reefs
can, on one hand, alter root and soil systems, exacerbate erosion and
increase the chances of flooding events, while on the other hand, they can
reduce protection against tidal waves and flooding thus aggravating the
impact of tsunami events.
Thereby, in many respects, contemporary natural hazards bear the prin-
cipal hallmarks of Beck’s idea of modern risk. In the first instance, the
growing nexus between human activities and natural events suggests the
gradual erosion of a clear-cut boundary between natural disasters and
anthropogenic activities, as described by Giddens with the notion of the
‘scientization of nature’ (Giddens 1998).
Second, the ‘spatial, temporal and social de-bounding’, which character-
izes Beck’s uncontrollable risks (Beck 2002: 24) lies, to a certain degree, in
the results of natural disasters.
Even though one might not fully accept Beck’s argument which claims
the universality of risks, because in practice certain countries are more in
danger than others to the risk of extreme weather events (for e.g. Singapore
does not suffer from disaster risk to the degree that the Philippines,
Cambodia and Indonesia do) it is none the less true that the experience of
natural disasters cannot be geographically circumscribed, because their
impact is transmitted rapidly as a result of economic contagion, migration
and interstate tensions. Natural disasters also have a ‘temporal mobility’,
i.e. a long latency period, as our understanding of the processes affecting
their intensity and mitigating their effects depends on current scientific
knowledge. Finally, natural disasters are also socially de-bounded, as they
cannot be simply imputed to a particular agent. It is in fact the combined
effect of different components, which lie behind their severity and
magnitude.
In the third instance, as many other contemporary risks, natural disasters
are also subjected to the inability to calculate them and to non-
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 289
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compensability (Beck 2009: 294). They cannot be entirely forecasted and
their consequences cannot be completely repaired. As a consequence, the
new value on preparedness activities, based on the adoption of mechanisms
of assessment and mitigation shatters assurances of financial compensation.
Lastly, natural disasters reflect the types of risks, which are central to
Beck’s thesis because their perceived gravity may involuntary and unex-
pectedly trigger changes in policies and institutions. As a result of the
increasing futility of unilateral measures to cope with them, they can thus
open a window of opportunities for new forms of governance and create a
new awareness centered on the need to coordinate efforts also between
states, at a regional level, where negative repercussions can be particularly
felt (Caballero-Anthony 2010).
ASEAN moves towards a reflexive orientation of disasters
According to reflexive modernization, the recognition of the negative
impact of natural disasters should result in self-criticism and the question-
ing of current policies and practices. As a result, actors involved with disas-
ter issues should push for systemic changes to improve disaster
preparedness and response. Over the last decade, on various occasions,
ASEAN Heads of State and Governments, the ASEAN Secretary Gen-
eral, the Head of ASEAN Disaster Management and Assistance Division,
and the Heads of National Agencies responsible for disaster management,
forming the ASEAN Committee for Disaster Management (ACDM),
have highlighted ASEAN unpreparedness and weaknesses in addressing
such large-scale calamities, in their declarations and policy statements, and
have committed to strengthen cooperation and coordination to enhance
their capacities to better manage disaster risk.
Remarkably, in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, ASEAN
Secretary General Keng Yong (2005) recognized the failure of the Associa-
tion: The earthquake and tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004 . . . laid bare
our unpreparedness and our weaknesses in collectively addressing such large
scale calamities. He thereby acknowledged the pitfalls of ASEAN modali-
ties of regional cooperation as well as the limits of the regional security
paradigm, and urged the need for more cooperative and transnational
mechanisms of prevention and immediate relief (as quoted by Alles 2012:
157). Likewise, in the Declaration on Action to Strengthen Emergency
Relief, Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Prevention, in the aftermath of
earthquake and tsunami disaster of 2004, ASEAN Heads of State and Gov-
ernments underlined the need to step up cooperation in emergency relief;
rehabilitation and reconstruction; and prevention and mitigation.
In truth, concerns about disasters date back to 1971 when the ASEAN
Expert Group on Disaster management met for the first time (Collins
2013: 132; Guilloux 2009), and even in 1976, the five founding members of
290 The Pacific Review
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ASEAN stressed the importance of cooperation in this area, recognizing
‘that natural disasters and other major calamities can retard the pace of
development of member states’ (ASEAN 1976). With the ASEAN Decla-
ration on Mutual Assistance on Natural Disasters (1976) the need for
mutual assistance in mitigation and rescue and relief of victims of natural
disasters was further emphasized. The Declaration however, remained
only a declaratory document lacking of a programmatic vision. Coopera-
tion in this area thus remained fragmented and experts met only one time
every two years to discuss technical issues rather than the development of
a common ASEAN approach. It is only over the past decade after the
recent dramatic catastrophes, which hit the region, that the issue of coordi-
nation has been put into sharp relief (Caballero-Anthony 2010) and that
ASEAN leaders have concretely initiated the search for solutions to miti-
gate the effects of natural disasters and improve actions for rescue and
relief.
But why did ASEAN take more than thirty years to advance coopera-
tion in this area although initial steps were already taken in the Seventies?
Several factors might contribute to explaining this phenomenon. In the first
instance, during the Cold War the primary goal of the Association was to
ensure the stability of Southeast Asian states and to preserve and consoli-
date the territorial integrity and political independence of these weak post-
colonial nations, additionally the Association focused on mitigating
regional tensions and containing conflicts, as well as reducing the regional
influence of external actors and avoiding a potential domino effect of com-
munist insurgencies (Acharya 2009; Narine 2002). Inversely, in those years
non-traditional security (NTS) concerns were largely left out the ASEAN
agenda. It was only at the end of the Nineties, in a new global strategic
environment that these challenges, including disaster management,
acquired a new prominence. The severe crises from the financial and eco-
nomic meltdown, to smoke-haze pollution, which severely tested ASEAN
traditional security mechanisms might account for these changes (Wulan
and Bandoro 2007: 41�47). Indeed, fear of becoming irrelevant and of los-
ing centrality in the eyes of both the international community and civil
society, moved ASEAN to attempt to revitalize its regional institutions,
embarking on a wide array of new cooperative projects, extending to the
realm of NTS (Nesadurai 2009). Through the initiative of Indonesia it pro-
moted a new concept of comprehensive security embodied in the ASEAN
Security Community (ASC) (Wulan and Bandoro 2007: 41�47), in which
its members recognized, inter alia, that cooperation is needed to handle
concerns that might produce effects beyond the borders of the nation state.
Nonetheless, ASEAN’s growing attention to the sphere of disaster
management might, above all, be explained by functional necessities, par-
ticularly by the increasing exposure of Southeast Asian countries to disas-
ter-related events. Official data from the EMDAT database, summed up in
Figure 1, show in fact, that over the last decade the occurrence of disasters1
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 291
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has sharply increased in Southeast Asia. In recent years, only with the
exception of Singapore, ASEAN members have had to face frequent earth-
quakes, volcanic activity, droughts and other disasters of varying intensi-
ties, which have also been exacerbated by human-related activities and
climate change.
Growing exposure to hazardous events often combined with: (1) the lack
of adequate coping capacities to reduce harm and damage in the occur-
rence of an event; (2) the absence of strategies dealing with and attempting
to address the negative impact of natural hazards and climate change in
the future; and (3) the poor structural characteristics of Southeast Asian
cities have exacted high costs in terms of human security and economic
losses, as highlighted by Figure 2. Furthermore, disasters have resulted in
large-scale direct effects (injury and deaths; damage and destruction); and
indirect effects (homelessness, people requiring assistance, as well as loss
of revenue, unemployment and market destabilization). It is to be noted
Figure 1 Trend of natural disasters in Southeast Asia.
Source: EM-DAT, The International Disaster Database (CRED) Universit�e
Catholique de Louvain, Brussels (Belgium).
Numbers 2010–2013 2000–2009 1990–1999
Occurrence 159 516 339
Deaths 9,518 342,341 34,474
Total
Affected
64,011,985 121,766,266 96,617,431
Total damage
(USD)
48,552,954 28,252,874 20,399,737
Figure 2 Natural disasters in Southeast Asia.
Source: EM-DAT, The International Disaster Database (CRED), Universit�e Cath-
olique de Louvain, Brussels (Belgium).
292 The Pacific Review
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though, that over the last two decades, the number of people dying from
natural disasters has in general not increased, with the main exceptions of
the Indian Ocean Tsunami which caused the death of almost 230,000 peo-
ple, and tropical Cyclone Nargis, which killed approximately 140,000 peo-
ple. In contrast, the number of people affected by these disasters is getting
higher. Extreme weather events have regularly displaced large numbers of
people. In 2004, the tsunami compelled half a million people to migrate. In
2011, the flooding across South Thailand forced more than 40,000 people
to flee their homes (Collins 2013), and posed tensions among ASEAN
members, and with other neighboring states, particularly India and China.
More than 4 million people were left homeless and an estimated 4 million
were displaced following typhoon Hayan, in the Philippines.
It is in such a context that ASEAN members, particularly led by Indone-
sia, the Philippines and Malaysia � which are mostly exposed to probabili-
ties of hazardous events, have recognized that disasters have become a
severe risk to the people, the economy and regional stability (Interview
with High Official National Agency for Disaster Management Indonesia,
BNPB).2 However, political leadership of the individual members does not
seem to have played a crucial role in advancing cooperation in this area.
Since most ASEAN countries are experiencing either direct or indirect
consequences deriving from natural disasters, they all have a vested inter-
est in enhancing joint actions at a regional level (Interview with High Offi-
cial at the ASEAN Secretariat).3
Under these circumstances, in 2003, there was the first regional commit-
ment to create the ACDM formed by senior official heads of ASEAN
National Disaster Management Agencies, rather than by groups of experts.
Significantly, the creation of a full-fledged committee, and the decision to
hold regular meetings, once a year, boosted the level of discussion and
opened the path for the development of a more programmatic approach.
This was first initiated with the adoption of the ASEAN Regional Pro-
gramme on Disaster Management (ARPDM) (2004�2010), endorsing
some priority projects, including the ASEAN Response Action Plan, which
can be considered as the embryonic idea of the ASEAN Agreement on
Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER).
At the same time, ASEAN’s priority for disaster management was reaf-
firmed by the ASEAN leaders in the Bali Concord II of October 2003.
With the agreement of the ASEAN Political Security Community (APSC,
at that time ASC), ASEAN members have for the first time, widened the
traditional concept of security, subscribed to the principle of comprehen-
sive security and recognized that more intra-regional cooperation is
needed to handle: ‘concerns that are trans-boundary in nature, and there-
fore shall be addressed regionally in a holistic, integrated and comprehen-
sive manner’ (ASEAN 2003). Although disasters are not directly
mentioned among the sources of contemporary insecurities facing the
region, it is clear that they implicitly belong to the security dimension of
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 293
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the ASEAN Community, as shown by the fact that the same APSC Blue-
print (ASEAN 2009a) calls for the strengthening of ASEAN Cooperation
on Disaster Management and Emergency response to overcome new disas-
ter risks by identifying a number of actions.4 Of no less importance, coop-
eration in the field of disaster management has been inserted among the
competences of the ASEAN Defence Ministerial Meeting, which has
adopted concept papers to advance humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief.
Meanwhile, disaster management has also been included among the
components of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), whose
primary goal is to contribute to realizing a people-centered and socially
responsible community with a view to achieving enduring solidarity and
unity among the peoples and member states of the ASEAN. In this regard,
as noted by Collins (2013), if we agree with the idea that ASEAN is evolv-
ing to foster ‘caring societies’ and to become a provider of security, there
are fewer and more striking expressive measures than responding to natu-
ral disasters. The necessity to intensify regional cooperation in the arena of
disaster management was, indeed, conceived as a way ‘to enable individual
members to fully realize their developmental potential and to enhance the
mutual ASEAN spirit’ (ASEAN 2003). To this end, the ASCC Blueprint
has set a number of strategic objectives: strengthen effective mechanisms
and capabilities to prevent and reduce disaster loss of life, and in social,
economic, and environmental assets of ASEAN Member States and to
jointly respond to disaster emergencies through concerted national efforts
and intensified regional and international cooperation. This has clearly
been identified as a set of actions to build disaster resilient nations and
safer communities (ASEAN 2009b:11).
While these documents are only a declaration of intent, they prepare the
way for a truly comprehensive security approach, and importantly, they
include in their scope concerns like disaster management, traditionally
seen as domestic problems dependent upon national solutions and
responses (Sukma 2010). Viewed in the context of ASEAN history, which
has traditionally pursued an individualistic security approach and has
refused joint undertakings, these statements also suggest a departure from
a dominant security discourse, characterized by the state as the primary
security referent, and appear to be in tune with Beck’s core argument,
focused on the idea that since we are living in risk society, cooperation
beyond the national state level is deemed to be essential (Beck 2006: 343).
Southeast Asian leaders called, in fact, for the adoption of common actions
and more intrusive measures. At the 19th ASEAN Summit in Bali, Heads
of State and Governments resolved to: promote disaster resilient nations
and safer communities, and stressed the need to promote partnership,
strengthen efforts to address climate change adaptation, enhance civil-mili-
tary coordination in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief
(HADR), and facilitate regional cooperation in DRR (ASEAN 2012). The
294 The Pacific Review
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23rd Summit in Brunei agreed on the Declaration on Enhancing Coopera-
tion in Disaster Management and stressed the necessity for expanding and
nurturing cooperation and coordination among ASEAN members and
with relevant international organizations in promoting collaboration in
disaster management and emergency response (ASEAN 2013).
Within this framework, disaster cooperation has thus expanded from soft
law declarations to include specific proposals aimed at the development of
regimes of control, emergency management, harm reduction and disaster
relief. In summation, under the emergence of growing disaster risk,
ASEAN has responded by attempting to regionalize joint efforts and envi-
sioning principles of precaution, in the form of risks assessment, monitor-
ing, prevention and mitigation, as well as response. Still, the real question
that needs to be discussed is to what extent ASEAN’s new mandate on dis-
asters has been followed by concrete achievements. In the next sections,
we will discuss the main institutional innovations, in terms of policies and
new operational mechanisms, undertaken by ASEAN and the overall lim-
its of these efforts.
Major institutional innovations to cope with disaster risk
Besides the above-mentioned ASEAN’s statements on the need for coop-
eration in the area of disaster management, the question is to what extent
is the Association getting ready for the preparation, prevention, response
and execution of the action plans developed by the senior officials? Since
the establishment of the ACDM in 2003, which assumes overall responsi-
bility for coordinating and implementing regional activities in this area,
there is some evidence of policy outcomes and institutional innovations to
prepare for disaster risk.
Three weeks before the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, in a
meeting held in Cambodia, the ACDM endorsed the idea of developing a
regional agreement on disaster management. The following tsunami, which
hit four out of ten ASEAN members, expedited the start of the negotiation
process by the ASEAN Heads of State and Governments and already led
in July 2005, to the signing of AADMER by the Foreign Ministers of
ASEAN, in Vientiane. The fact that AADMER came to be known as ‘one
of the fastest-negotiated agreements in ASEAN’s history, having gone
through a mere four months of negotiations’, as has been reported by the
former ASEAN Secretary General Pitsuwan (Xinhua 2009) is a clear mani-
festation of ASEAN’s, at least rhetorical, commitment to jointly respond-
ing to disaster emergencies, and to giving priority to precautionary
measures to prevent, monitor and mitigate disasters, as well as DRR
efforts. It also shows the attempt to go beyond the existence of purely bilat-
eral agreements dominating disaster cooperation, such as those between
Indonesia and Malaysia and Malaysia and Singapore (Interview no. 2 with
High Official at the AHA Center).5
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 295
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It is also worth noting that unlike other areas of cooperation with the adop-
tion of AADMER, which finally came into force in 2011, ASEAN members
opted for a binding agreement. This choice marks, to a certain extent, a step
beyond traditional resistance to the procedural norms of the ASEAN way,
characterized by a preference for a flexible modus operandi based on cau-
tious diplomacy, personal ties and informal style, sharply contrasting with the
Western legalistic criteria of cooperation. Meanwhile, it is also true that
AADMER cannot be fully considered as a departure from ASEAN tradi-
tional modalities, as it does not entail any sanctions or punishment in cases of
non-compliance. And its added value mostly consists in inducing member
states to bring their national legislations in line with the regional agreement,
and in creating a solidarity clause, that is, a kind of moral commitment to
assist countries in trouble within the ASEAN community.
Given this picture, it can thus be argued that cooperation on disaster
management appears to more easily overcome the ASEAN states’ long
standing mutual suspicions, and moves it away from its usual processes,
which have circumvented any form of institutionalization to endorse
‘problem solving measures involving more coordinated responses, among
other things: the sharing of information, the development of certain types
of regional surveillance systems for early warning, the provision for relief
and assistance in disaster management, rehabilitation and reconstruction,
and even more significantly, working towards more coordinated responses’
(Caballero-Anthony 2010: 7)
ASEAN members have also agreed on a common definition of disaster,
which ‘means a serious disruption to the functioning of a community or a
society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental
losses’ (ASEAN 2005: art. 1.3). They have also converged on a broad under-
standing of disaster management, the so-called full-disaster cycle, including
activities ‘prior to, during and after the disaster’ (ASEAN 2005: art. 1.4).
In tandem with this political agreement, it is also important to recall, rec-
ognizing that – as noted by Adelina Kamal (2012) Head of the ASEAN
Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Division � ‘one of
the main lessons to be learned from experience of disasters is the need to
be prepared for the unthinkable’ ASEAN members embarked on a wide
array of concrete initiatives aimed at adapting ASEAN regional arrange-
ments to better face disaster risks and accomplish the Work Programme
(2004�2010).6 These are among others:
1. In 2008, a standard operating procedure (SASOP) has been adopted to
guide the actions of the parties in the establishment of the ASEAN
Standby Arrangements for Disaster Relief and Emergency Response
(i.e. the capacities that countries can allocate to support countries
affected by disasters); the procedures for the facilitation and utilization
of military and civilian assets and capacities; and the methodology for
the periodic conduct of simulation exercises.
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2. ASEAN has also activated the ASEAN emergency rapid assessment
teams (ERAT) composed of members of national disaster management
organizations (NDMOs) to conduct rapid assessments, coordinate with
local authorities for the deployment of regional disaster management
assets, and provide logistic support to the affected countries. As first
mobilized in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (2008), ERAT has been
deployed in several real disaster emergencies such as during the earth-
quake, which struck Mandalay and Sagaing, in typhoon Boopha, during
the massive floods in Bangkok and typhoon Hayan.
3. Regular emergency simulation exercises, known as ARDEX, have been
organized to enhance member countries’ capabilities.
4. Activities have been conducted to build a culture of disaster-resilience
such as the three-year program on the ASEAN safe school initiative
and the ASEAN day for disaster management supported by civil society
organizations, notably the AADMER Partnership Group (APG).
Besides these, the set-up of the ASEAN Coordinating Center for
Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center) in
Jakarta, in 2011, as the operational engine of AADMER is one of the most
concrete operational achievements in this area. AHA, which currently
focuses only on the components of disaster monitoring and emergency
response is tasked with ‘facilitating cooperation and coordination among
the parties and with relevant United Nations and international organ-
izations’ (ASEAN 2005: art. 20). The Center, with an office in every mem-
ber country conducts disaster risk monitoring on a daily basis. Significantly
since 2012, it is equipped with a Disaster Monitoring and Response System
(DMRS) serving as a key platform for real time, multi-hazard situational
awareness and decision-making support; and with a regional stockpile of
relief items and capacity building, the so-called ASEAN Disaster Emer-
gency Logistics System (DELSA), located in Subang. The main purpose of
this system is not to replace the activities carried out by the NDMOs, which
have their own disaster monitoring capacities, but to facilitate information
sharing between ASEAN members, so that each state is informed of events
happening in the region and, can use that information to make decisions on
whether to provide assistance, and eventually in what forms, to a disaster-
affected country. In other words, the DMRS serves, not simply to track
disaster events but more importantly, to log information related to these
events into a central system (for e.g. the number of people affected, the
local needs, and the assistance that has been requested and/or offered). In
so doing, the AHA Center aims to establish itself as the broker of the
regional disaster management system, and to ensure the inter-operability
between the regional platform and NDMOs’ (Interview no. 2 with High
Official at the AHA Center).7
In brief, ASEAN institutional innovations to cope with disaster risk
demonstrate a new approach to the problem of natural disasters, which
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 297
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resulted in important policy and operational outcomes. ASEAN members
have indeed not been resistant to institutional reforms and have been dis-
posed to adhere to a binding agreement, and to put concrete operational
tools on the ground. However, to what degree have humanitarian consider-
ations taken precedence in practise over the sacrosanct principles of
national sovereignty and non-interference?
Challenges ahead
Beck’s risk society postulates that under the emergence of new risks socie-
ties reorganize themselves thus recalibrating their policies and institutions,
and giving new salience to the adoption of precautionary mechanisms. As
discussed above, the analysis of ASEAN activities has shown that under a
disaster risk paradigm ASEAN members have made efforts to retool their
institutional framework and formulate common positions, a binding agree-
ment and new tools to increase cooperation to try to resolve this multiface-
ted dilemma. Of note is that ASEAN documents have emphasized the
importance of precautionary principles and of activities aimed at identify-
ing mechanisms to prevent and assess disaster risks as well as the mecha-
nisms to cope with them in cases of emergency. The real problem,
however, is that policy initiatives and institutions risk remaining empty
statements and only give the impression of process without progress, if
they are not properly implemented.
Illustrating this point, recent ASEAN disasters, have shown that despite
growing institutionalization, ASEAN efforts are still hampered by several
factors. A primary problem continues to be the mobilization of resources.
The length of time taken in the ratification process of AADMER resulted
from the difficulty in achieving a compromise on the budget destined for
cooperation in this area. The original idea that each country should have
contributed an amount of US$100,000 a year, was water-downed especially
by smaller and less-developed countries, such as Lao PDR because of
insufficient economic resources (Interview with high official of the
National Agency for Disaster Management, Indonesia).8 Furthermore, as
highlighted by Mathison (as quoted by Booth 2012) the fundamental prob-
lem of the big diversity of risk within the region, has created a natural
antipathy to risk sharing, particularly in those countries that have a lower
perceived risk of catastrophe than others. No wonder therefore, that the
ACDM finally agreed that countries will equally contribute the yearly
amount of US$30,000. But inevitably, such a limited total yearly budget of
US$300,000 renders the development of regional activities mostly depen-
dent upon external support from dialogue partners.9 For example, the
establishment of DELSA was financed through the Japan-ASEAN Inte-
gration Fund (JAIF) in the amount of US$12.2 million, the US supported
the ASEAN DMRS, and the EU assists knowledge development in various
areas of the ASCC, including DRR, with a budget of 7.3 million euro
298 The Pacific Review
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through the ASEAN-EU Dialogue Instrument (READI) Facility. The
constitutive value of equality among ASEAN members acts here as an
impediment to raising sufficient resources to fund ADDMER activities,
given the wide disparity in member incomes (i.e. some members are high
income nations, as Brunei and Singapore, upper-middle income such as
Malaysia and Thailand, while others such as Cambodia and Myanmar are
lower income nations).
A second problem is how to reconcile ASEAN’s new cooperative
approach with the traditional security approach of the ASEAN way, cen-
tered on the core principle of respect of national sovereignty and non-
interference, thus limiting ASEAN in what it can and cannot do. Accord-
ing to several officials participating in the AADMER negotiation process
it was difficult to convince ASEAN members to ratify the agreement
because of national fears of sharing their sensitive data, concerns which are
particularly high given the fact that in most ASEAN countries disaster
issues are in the hands of the police and military forces. Unsurprisingly
therefore, in the case of Cyclone Nargis, ASEAN governments maintained
that Myanmar must not be coerced into accepting humanitarian assistance,
and rejected the possibility of delivering aid without the junta’s consent
(Bellamy and Beeson 2010: 272). Still today a complete and transparent
sharing of information is one the most evident challenges for ASEAN. In
this regard, despite ACDM’s interest in adopting a system comparable to
the European Union Common Emergency Communication and Informa-
tion System (CECIS), which facilitates communication and exchange of
information and experience between authorities responsible for Civil Pro-
tection and Marine Pollution, difficulties in sharing sensitive data still hin-
der the establishment of a similar procedure for the exchange of
information, particularly with respect to the quality of information flows
(Interview no. 1 with High Official at the AHA Center, and Interview with
an official of the Crisis Response Unit at Commission’s European Commu-
nity Humanitarian Office, ECHO).10
Additionally, the fact that, on the one hand, countries affected by disas-
ters often find it difficult to request regional support, and on the other
hand, countries offering aid prefer to bypass regional mechanisms of coop-
eration and continue to offer ‘help’ via bilateral agreements, further shows
a certain reluctance to put into place the very spirit of regional solidarity.
For example, during typhoon Hayan, only Malaysia and Brunei used the
AHA Center to offer assistance to the Philippines, while Indonesia only
worked informally with AHA, and other ASEAN members relied on bilat-
eral agreements.
Third, there is the problem of risk assessment. Indeed, many disaster
relief agencies are not yet capable of assessing a disaster situation (Boon
and Lai 2012). Furthermore, one has to note that the level of capacities of
ASEAN members largely differ spanning from the advanced Singapore to
Lao PDR and Cambodia, whose respective National Disaster Management
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 299
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Office and National Committee for disaster management are still in an
embryonic stage. Too many limited efforts have also been undertaken at a
regional level in the advancement of DRR programs, particularly in the
light of climate change adaption mechanisms, growing urbanization and
the relatively poor infrastructure of Southeast Asian cities. On this point,
although the ACDM has initially tasked the AHA Center with DRR, the
components of prevention and mitigation have so far remained beyond the
scope of the Center, due to the lack of available resources and capacities.
As a result, DRR efforts are mostly carried out by the Member States and
their partner agencies at the national level, and unfortunately a truly
regional approach and integrated planning for DRR are finding it hard to
emerge.11
Fourth, while one cannot ignore that from the Indian Ocean tsunami to
typhoon Hayan, ASEAN has equipped itself with new tools; its relief
capacities are still inadequate. During Typhoon Hayan, the AHA Center
based in Jakarta, deployed logistical personnel to Manila and Tacloban to
share its assessment with ASEAN member states, and coordinate relief
efforts with national authorities. However, comments attributed to the
Thai and Indonesian foreign ministers at a joint press conference in Bang-
kok on November 14, 2013 suggested some frustration was felt that
ASEAN’s response had materialized more slowly than assistance from
Britain and the USA (Graham 2013). The scarcity of staff, the lack of com-
mon technical standards, low inter-operable resources and situational
awareness and even difficulties in language communication further add to
the perceived weakness of deployed teams.
Finally, but no less importantly knowledge of regional institutions and
operational mechanisms has to be better diffused at national state levels.
Collaboration between national and regional authorities in the various
aspects of disaster management requires in the long run greater familiari-
zation with AADMER and AHA tools, in order to avoid an incompatible
response and to aid in the development of synergic partnerships.
Conclusion
Modernity rather than creating a world less prone to risks is triggering to
what Beck has defined as a ‘world risk society’. In this society, even natural
hazards are less random, more frequent and severe, and regulations based
on national borders become increasingly impotent to deal with disasters
appropriately. Cooperation is thus crucial for risk management, to provide
for effective preparation and response at an operational level.
In the course of the last decade, Southeast Asia has experienced an
ample dose of catastrophic natural disasters, which rendered the problem
particularly urgent and led to political attention at the highest levels, giving
new impetus to the development of cooperative measures in the region.
Particularly, ASEAN heads of state and governments and the
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representatives of NDMOs have emphasized the importance of precau-
tionary principles and have initiated efforts to define agreements and
mechanisms aimed at identifying, monitoring and preventing disaster risks,
as well as the mechanisms to face them in emergency situations. Accord-
ingly, the ASEAN approach of dealing with disaster management has
become not just a way of responding to disastrous events when they occur
but also making communities more resilient in the future (Collins 2013:
131).
Using Beck’s words, the adoption of these measures seems to corre-
spond to a process of reflexivity, which lays behind the reorganization of
ASEAN in an attempt to prepare itself for possible harmful consequences
deriving from disaster-related events in the future. Then, as is argued by
the former ASEAN Secretary General Pitsuwan, ‘if the risk of disasters is
not addressed, ASEAN’s efforts to boost Southeast Asian economies,
enhance their competitiveness, and make the region attractive to investors
would be endangered’ (Pitsuwan 2010).
Yet despite these efforts, it is obvious that Beck’s postulation concerning
the replacement of nation-state traditional societies with post-traditional
cooperative societies has yet to be fulfilled. The fact that ASEAN as a
regional bloc operates mostly as a club of national governments means
that ASEAN as an institution has limited power in what it can and cannot
do. Meanwhile, regional cooperation is often hampered by national gov-
ernments fearing to lose control of relief operations and hesitating to share
sensitive data with their partners, which frustrate the development of a
community approach. Nonetheless, one cannot underestimate the way in
which ASEAN members have defined precise targets and measures, which
illustrates that disaster management is a promising area, going beyond a
mere declaration of good intentions. The joint instruments adopted also
reveal that despite the above-mentioned obstacles the compelling need to
respond to humanitarian disasters can, to some degree, prevail over con-
cerns about national sovereignty (Caballero-Anthony 2009) and allow in
turn, for a more flexible understanding of non-interference. This is the
hope for the future.
Acknowledgment
I wish to thank the officials at the ASEAN Secretariat, AHA Center and
NDMOs of ASEAN members, who have agreed to be interviewed in
Jakarta in February 2014 as those interviewed asked for confidentiality,
their names will not be mentioned. I finally wish to thank Irene Le Herissier
for editing assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 301
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Notes
1. According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) an event is consid-
ered to be a disaster if at least one of the following criteria is fulfilled: ‘10 or
more people reported killed; 100 people reported affected, declaration of a state
of emergency, or an appeal for international assistance’. Countries included are
as follows: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam.
2. Interview with High Official of the National Agency For Disaster Management
(BNPB), Indonesia, 25 February 2014, Jakarta.
3. Interview with High Official at the ASEAN Secretariat, 20 February 2014,
Jakarta.
4. These actions include: enhance joint effective and early response at the politi-
cal and operational levels in activating the ASEAN disaster management
arrangements to assist affected countries in the event of major disasters;
enhance civilian�military coordination in providing effective and timely
response to major natural disasters; finalize the SOP for Regional Standby
Arrangements and Coordination of Joint Disaster Relief and Emergency
Response Operations for establishing joint operations in providing relief aid to
disaster affected areas of Member States in line with the AADMER; work
towards an effective interface on disaster management between ASEAN and
other ASEAN-related bodies such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF),
ASEAN Plus Three and East Asia Summit (EAS) in a manner that will
enhance ASEAN’s disaster management capacities; and develop ARF strategic
guidelines for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief cooperation.
5. Interview no. 2 with High Official at the AHA Center, 20 February 2014,
Jakarta.
6. Following the 16th Meeting of the ACDM in May, 2010 in Makari, the Philip-
pines, the ACDM launched the AADMER Work Programme (2010�2015)
and announced 14 flagship projects in the areas of: preparedness and response;
risk assessment, early warning and monitoring; prevention and mitigation;
recovery; outreach and mainstreaming; training and knowledge management
systems.
7. Interview no. 2 with High Official at the AHA Center, 20 February 2014,
Jakarta.
8. Interview with High Official of the National Agency For Disaster Management
(BNPB), Indonesia, 25 February 2014, Jakarta.
9. The ASEAN budget is integrated by the AADMER Fund that welcomes vol-
untary contributions from member states and external parties.
10. Interview no.1 with High Official at the AHA Center, 20 February 2014,
Jakarta; and Telephone Interview with an official of the Crisis Response Unit
at ECHO, 4 June 2013.
11. Apart from the initiatives aimed at increasing public awareness on disaster risk,
such as the three-year program on the ASEAN Safe School Initiative, and the
annual commemoration of the ASEAN Day for Disaster Management, the
only initiative carried out at a regional level in the area of DRR is the Disaster
Risk Financing and Insurance Roadmap, which has been adopted in November
2011, financed by the World Bank and the UNISDR.
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A.P. di Floristella: Dealing with Natural Disasters 305
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Abstract
Introduction
Risk societies
Natural disasters in risk society
ASEAN moves towards a reflexive orientation of disasters
Major institutional innovations to cope with disaster risk
Challenges ahead
Conclusion
Acknowledgment
References
Peace in the wake of disaster? Secessionist
conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami
Philippe Le Billon* and Arno Waizenegger**
This paper explores the impact of ‘natural’ disasters on armed conflicts, focusing on
the evolution of secessionist conflicts in Aceh and Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami. Most studies suggest that ‘natural’ disasters exacerbate pre-existing
conflicts. Yet whereas conflict did escalate in Sri Lanka within a year of the tsunami, in
Aceh hostilities unexpectedly ended within eight months. Drawing on a comparative
analytical framework and semi-structured fieldwork interviews in Aceh, the study
points to the importance of spatial dimensions in explaining diverging political
outcomes in Aceh and Sri Lanka, focusing on the reshaping of governable spaces
following the tsunami.
key words
natural disaster war conflict resolution political geography
Aceh Sri Lanka
*Department of Geography and Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2,
Canada
email: lebillon@geog.ubc.ca
**Department of Geography, University of Cologne, Albertus Magnus Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany
revised manuscript received 19 February 2007
Introduction
On 26 December 2004, a sub-marine earthquake
150 kilometres west of Sumatra triggered a tsunami
that directly affected about 2 million people (TEC
2006). Among the estimated 227 000 people who
lost their lives in the disaster, nearly 90 per cent
lived in Aceh or Sri Lanka. Structural poverty,
profit-driven coastal exposure and a criminal neglect
of disaster prevention had increased vulnerability
along many coastal areas of the Indian Ocean
(Glassman 2005). In Aceh and Sri Lanka,
vulnerability also reflected decades of civil war
and military repression (Lawson 2005), and the
tsunami raised hopes of peace for both places
(Renner and Chafe 2006). Disasters can bring about
political transformation (Pelling and Dill 2006), but
they appear to be more frequently followed by
political unrest than peace (Olson and Drury 1997;
Brancati and Bhavnani 2006), and the conflict
resolution effects of ‘disaster diplomacy’ are rarely
lasting (Kelman and Koukis 2000; Kelman 2006).
Whereas hostilities escalated in Sri Lanka within
a year of the tsunami, the conflict in Aceh ended
eight months after the disaster. Taking a geographical
perspective, this paper examines these diverging
paths.
Political violence and ‘natural’ disasters are
intensely geographical phenomena, in both their
material and imaginative spatialities (Pelling 2003;
Wisner
et al.
2004; Flint 2005; Gregory and Pred
2006). Geographers have studied various aspects of
the relationships between environment and conflict,
but ‘natural’ disasters and armed conflicts have
received limited attention (see Dalby 2002). Similarly,
geographers studying hazards and vulnerability
have given only limited or recent attention to
armed conflicts (Pelling 2003; Korf 2004), with the
notable exception of wartime vulnerability to
drought (see Wisner
et al.
2004), and the politics of
humanitarianism (Hyndman 2000). Few studies
have bridged these two literatures, although political
ecology suggests interesting approaches and areas
of convergence (Watts and Bohle 1993; Pelling
2003). Drawing together these literatures and polit-
ical sciences studies suggesting that pre-disaster
political trends play a major role in the outcome of
disasters, we suggest a conceptual framework to
examine the impact of ‘natural’ disasters on armed
conflicts and present a geographically focused
analysis of the cases of secessionist conflicts in
Aceh and Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami.
We first outline debates on disaster-related conflict
transformation, and then present a geographically
informed framework engaging with the impact of
disasters on conflict transformation, with a focus
on its spatial dimensions. The conceptual approach
first distinguishes between different types of
conflicts and disasters and then analyses disaster
effects through three lines of inquiry: the location-
specific spatialities of disasters and conflicts (i.e.
which areas and populations were affected by
conflict and/or disaster); the transformation of
‘governable space’ (i.e. shifts in territorialized
power relations); and the transformation of public
discourse about disaster-struck and conflict-affected
areas. We do so through three main dimensions:
military, socio-political and socio-economic. In the
second section, we draw on this framework to
explain divergence in conflict transformation in
Aceh and Sri Lanka. Drawing on 62 field-based
interviews, the study focuses on the ‘Acehnese’
exception and examines Sri Lanka for comparative
purposes (see methodology note below).
Our findings confirm that pre-disaster political
trends played a major role in post-disaster conflict
outcomes, but we also suggest that the specific
spatialities of conflicts and disasters, as well as the
reshaping of governable spaces and public dis-
courses in the wake of disaster influenced the
diverging political fallouts of the tsunami in Aceh
and Sri Lanka.
Political fallouts of ‘natural’ disasters and
conflict transformation
The political character of ‘natural’ disasters
and
disaster-related activities is well documented
(Birkland 1998; Olson 2000; Wisner
et al.
2004).
Disaster risk has ‘political roots’, notably (unequal)
power relations and (under) development processes
(Peacock
et al.
1997; Pelling 2003). Hurricane
Katrina, for example, renewed attention to inter-
racial and class-based inequalities, prejudices and
tensions in the United States (Bakker 2005; Frymer
et al.
2006). Politics, rather than the strict ‘needs’ of
disaster victims, also influence responses to disasters
(de Waal 1997; Fielden 1998; Drury
et al.
2005).
Interpretations of disasters represent political
choices with political impacts, particularly from a
gender perspective (Enarson and Morrow 1998),
and for disaster recovery or future risk mitigation
(Harwell 2000).
Two main arguments are generally presented
regarding the political fallouts of disasters. First,
disasters can foster political change (Birkland 1998;
Prater and Lindell 2000), notably because they
result in grievances among the affected population
and a more acute sense of identity. Disasters offer
possibilities of enhanced legitimacy for the political
leadership, and generally result in greater scrutiny
over dominant institutions and development
policies, a repositioning of political actors at multiple
scales, and ‘spontaneous’ post-disaster collective
action (Pelling and Dill 2006). Collective action can
also result from the mobilization and representation
of place-based and disasters-affected populations
by external ‘contentious supporters’ eager to leverage
grievances to challenge the political status quo
(Shefner 1999). Post-disaster collective action faces
a risk of repressive backlash by authorities (Drury
and Olson 1998; Pelling and Dill 2006). Conflicts
also undermine disaster prevention and mitigation
by eroding the trust between citizens and their
government, and have enduring effects on the
vulnerability of politically marginalized groups
(Wisner
et al
. 2004). If disasters are found to gener-
ally aggravate ‘political unrest’, especially so in
countries already affected by conflicts (Drury and
Olson 1998; Wisner
et al
. 2004), disasters are also
perceived as a ‘window of opportunity’ for peace,
notably through the alteration of value structure
among survivors, the need for mutual relief assistance
and collaboration between belligerents, enhanced
local political socialization and mobilization, as
well as international involvement and ‘disaster
diplomacy’ (Quarantelli 1978; Kelman 2006; Renner
and Chafe 2006). In this respect, early studies
observed much variability in outcomes but noted a
higher prevalence of conflicts during ‘reconstruction’
than ‘emergency’ phases of disasters (Quarantelli
and Dynes 1976).
Second, the political fallouts of disasters largely
reflect pre-disaster contexts and trends (Hoffman
and Oliver-Smith 2002; Lindell and Prater 2003).
Post-disaster conflict transformation would thus
represent an acceleration and amplification of
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
pre-disaster social and political dynamics, rather
than a ‘new departure’ brought about by a devastating
disaster. Economically, the higher the pre-disaster
Gross Domestic Product and income inequality in a
country, the less political systems seem affected
by a disaster (Drury and Olson 1998). Among low
and middle-income countries, democracies tend
to face higher levels of violent unrest following
disasters than autocracies (Drury and Olson 2001).
Studies based on rational-choice conflict resolution
bargaining models, however, give relatively limited
attention to context beyond elitist politics, macro-
economic indicators and third party interventions
(see Sundberg and Vestergren 2005). In contrast,
theories of conflict transformation – arguing that
transforming interests, social relationships and dis-
courses are key to ending violent conflicts – engage
with a broader contextualization (Miall
et al.
2005).
Geographical approaches can contribute to this
contextualization, notably with regard to spatialized
identities and spaces of vulnerability (Watts and
Bohle 1993; Cutter 1996; Wisner
et al.
2004; Rigg
et al.
2005; Stokke 2005). Pelling and Dill (2006)
emphasize the greater risk of tensions resulting
from the pre-disaster political marginality of
affected regions and post-disaster exacerbation of
pre-existing inequalities. Hyndman (forthcoming)
stresses the importance of overlapping geographies
of war, disaster and relief resulting in new spaces
of solidarity, hatred, hope and fear transforming
conflicts. Simpson and Corbridge (2006) also
demonstrate how the politics of ‘place-making’ in
Kachchh-Gujarat following the 2001 earthquake
challenged established authorities by reasserting
regional political identities and projects. So far,
geographical approaches have not been systematically
incorporated in research (see Greenhough
et al.
2005; Sidaway and Teo 2005), and the spatialities of
conflicts and disasters often remain under-specified.
Early sociological studies of disasters and conflicts,
for example, often considered ‘natural’ disasters as
‘consensus building crises’ compared to divisive
‘technological’ or ‘social’ disasters (Quarantelli
1978). Systematic specification of types of conflicts
and disasters helps to determine whether different
types of disasters (e.g. catastrophic or chronic)
have different impacts in specific conflict types
(e.g. territorial/successionist or governmental). For
example, the combination of drought and seces-
sionist conflict has proved particularly deadly, as
demonstrated in Sudan in the late 1980s (Keen
1994). Inquiries into the conflict and disaster
nexus can also specify the location of conflicts and
disasters. Taking the spatiality of disasters and
conflicts into account should improve the robust-
ness of analyses (Buhaug and Lujala 2005), and
allow hypothesis testing (Waizenegger and Le Bil-
lon 2007). Beyond location, spatial attributes
should also include place-based, scalar and discur-
sive dimensions. Drawing on Michael Watts (2004),
we use the concept of ‘governable spaces’ – defined
as spaces of territorialized rule (see also Rose 1999)
– to engage with processes through which spaces
are made governable, or not, by some social networks
rather than others. Although an emphasis is placed
on governmental rule, this definition acknow-
ledges multiple networks, scales and temporalities
at which rule can, or cannot, be territorialized and
exercised.
Like armed conflicts, ‘natural’ disasters can
dramatically affect the territorialization of rule.
Materially, catastrophic disasters can destroy infra-
structures critical to the enactment of governmental
territorialization, such as communication infra-
structures, and affect the spatial distribution and
‘governability’ of populations. Institutionally, disasters
can result in international interventions challenging
domestic territorial sovereignty through the creation
of ‘humanitarian’ space, or more broadly trustee-
ships (Debrix 1998). Disasters can also contribute to
the transformation of public discourse on conflict-
affected areas. The representation of the ‘enemy’
population and territory as ‘victims’, for example,
may strengthen support for peace within the con-
stituency of the opposing party (Evin 2004). The
victimization of the disaster area and disaster-
affected population, however, can also reinvigorate
sectarian interpretations and nationalist calculations of
suffering and injustice, notably with regard to bias
in territorialized aid allocation. In this regard, tran-
sition from a political economy of war to one of ‘recon-
struction’ also often entails a re-territorialization
of rule, following for example the registers of
democratization and ‘neo-liberal’ re-regulation
prescribed by international donors and development
agencies.
Building on this conceptual approach, we refine
our analytical framework through the articulation
of three dimensions of the reshaping of governable
spaces during ‘post-disaster’ conflict transforma-
tion: military, socio-political and socio-economic.
Rather than being discrete, these dimensions are
often closely related and embedded or revealed
through particular spaces.
Two main conditions are generally required to end
armed conflicts. The ‘ripeness’ of the conflict and
the ‘willingness’ of belligerents to end it as a result
of a ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ are often perceived
as a precondition (Zartman 1989). The second is the
resolution of incompatibilities, distrust, and lack
of commitment preventing negotiations and their
successful implementation, between conflicting elites
and within society more generally (Wallensteen
2002), addressing territorial incompatibility being
crucial to secessionist conflicts. These two main
conditions in turn relate to military, socio-political
and socio-economic transformations.
The military dimension of post-disaster conflict
transformation is, at first glance, obvious: disasters
can kill or incapacitate military personnel (physically
or psychologically), destroy military equipment
and infrastructures, as well as disrupt transporta-
tion networks and supply channels. Military forces
can also be redirected to disaster relief efforts,
rather than combat. A reduction in fighting capability
may affect all or only some of the armed groups,
with two main possible consequences: the intensity
of hostilities may decline as forces attempt to cope
with the impact of the disaster; or hostilities may
increase as the warring parties opportunistically
seek to benefit from the relative weakness of the
adversary. As a hypothesis, we suggest that stronger
forces are more likely to act opportunistically and
seek to escalate the conflict, while weaker ones
will attempt to reconstitute their forces, using the
post-disaster context as a ‘cease-fire’ period to
achieve political gains and possibly re-arm. As
such, the spatiality of disasters can directly and
selectively affect territorialized military rule in a
conflict.
The socio-political effects of disasters, and more
specifically the transformation of civilian rule and
political relations, can also reshape governable
spaces. Disasters can affect the perception of those
affected through trauma and the psychology of the
‘near miss’, while more pressing issues of survival
take precedence over broader struggles (Quarantelli
1978). Disaster-induced suffering might also help
to overshadow and alleviate previous suffering
inflicted by war. At an interpersonal and inter-
communal level, ‘goodwill’, mutual assistance
across a conflict’s fault-lines, and work towards
common tasks can reduce prejudice and contribute
to the emergence of ‘therapeutic community’ (
Barton
1969), changing the socio-political dynamics of
conflict (Renner and Chafe 2006). At an institu-
tional level, as discussed above, there is much
evidence that disasters can destabilize political
systems, thereby offering opportunities of conflict
transformation (Cuny 1983; Albala-Bertrand 1993).
Many governments have exploited disasters to
increase their strength, improve their image and
maintain the status quo, notably through major
foreign contributions to relief efforts and occasionally
under false pretence of post-disaster ‘transforma-
tion’ of society rather than the ‘reconstruction’ of
previous inequalities (Brown 2000). In turn,
increases in legitimacy potentially enable authori-
ties to contribute more decisively in negotiations
and peace building.
By reducing the capabilities of governments
while increasing the number of citizens’ demands
on the political system, disasters can create a
‘highly charged, politically embarrassing environ-
ment’ (Birkland 1998, 57). External assistance can
help local authorities in this regard, but windfalls
in relief and reconstruction aid can also increase
the risk of (perceived) fraud, corruption, misman-
agement and dispossession by the government and
its cronies, aggravating the plight of the most
vulnerable and grievances against authorities. By
enhancing local political socialization and mobili-
zation, disasters also frequently strengthen civil
society and social movements for peace, at least
momentarily. How government and rebel authorities
react to such opening up of ‘political space’ affects
in turn the relative level of tensions: a repressive
backlash is likely by authorities perceiving political
change as subversive (Drury and Olson 2001;
Pelling and Dill 2006). Disasters also transform the
international geopolitical context of a conflict by
directing attention to the disaster- and conflict-
afflicted region. The deployment of domestic and
international civil society groups, the support of
donors, as well as public mobilization through
demonstrations, can also open up and broaden
‘public space’ in which ‘civilian rule’ thrives. This
new context may open the political system, making
it more inclusive (Fuentes 2003). Critics, however,
point to the opportunistic instrumentalization of disasters
to pursue ideologically driven or self-interested
agendas with negative effects on vulnerability of
local populations (Duffield 2001; Wisner 2001).
Moreover, interventions in disaster-affected areas
often entail processes of identity construction (e.g.
‘Internally Displaced Persons’) and territorialization
(e.g. ‘refugee camps’ and ‘resettlement programs’),
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
with ambivalent political consequences (Hyndman
2000).
A third aspect of governable spaces relates to
socio-economic processes, most notably the
transformation of endowments and entitlements,
such as the allocation of relief and reconstruction
assistance (e.g. territorialized processes of aid
‘beneficiaries’ selection, resettlement, reconstruction
planning or reshaping of the ‘war economy’).
Spaces of military repression, disaster, relief and
reconstruction all differ in how rules shaping the
political economy are defined and territorialized.
Disasters and disaster-related activities are prone
to causing or deepening inequalities along pre-existing
fault lines in societies, increasing grievances and
disaffection and possibly heightening the risk of
(renewed) conflict (Cuny 1983; Wisner
et al.
2004).
Post-disaster changes in endowments and entitle-
ments, including land and land holding, as well the
allocation of relief and reconstruction assistance,
frequently proves a source of conflict, especially
when landmarks have been changed, property
knowledge and titles destroyed, and disaster
mitigation and adaptation processes manipulated.
Indirect economic effects such as inflation in rents
and food prices increase hardships and discontent-
ment among vulnerable households, while benefiting
particular segments of the population. Moreover, relief
assistance has occasionally sustained belligerents,
thereby prolonging the conflict (Keen 1998).
Tsunami and conflict transformation in
Aceh and Sri Lanka
All Aceh people really yearn for peace in the wake of
the natural disaster.
1
Both Aceh, Indonesia’s most northern province,
and Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka’s northeast claimed
as Tamil ‘homeland’, have been the territorial
objects of secessionist conflicts over the past three
decades. The Acehnese struggle for independence
dates back to 1873, when the Dutch first took con-
trol of the sultanate. Post-independence, hostilities
opposed Acehnese pro-Islamic forces against the
centralized and secular Indonesian regime during
the late 1950s and early 1960s. Initiated in 1976, the
contemporary phase of the conflict has opposed
the Free Aceh Movement (
Gerakan Aceh Merdeka
–
GAM) to Indonesian security forces, resulting in
the death of an estimated 15 000 people and wide-
spread human rights abuses (Reid 2006). In 1998,
the ‘metaphorical economic quake’ affecting Southeast
Asia precipitated the fall of President Suharto and
brought hope of peace and greater autonomy for
the Acehnese (Sidaway and Teo 2005, 1; Reid 2006).
Special autonomy legislations by the Government
of Indonesia (GoI) fell short of GAM’s expecta-
tions, however, and cease-fire agreements had twice
broken down when President Megawati declared
Martial Law in Aceh in May 2003. The Indonesian
security forces then embarked on the largest
military operation since East Timor, with 40 000
military troops (
Tentara Nasional Indonesia –
TNI)
and 12 000 national police (POLRI) present in
Aceh, closing the province and severely affecting
the living conditions of the Acehnese people (Tapol
2004). By the time the tsunami struck, this latest
period of hostilities had displaced at least 125 000
persons (see Figure 1a; IOM 2004; Mahdi 2006a).
The contemporary Tamil secessionist conflict in
Sri Lanka was also initiated in the mid-1970s, follow-
ing failed negotiations over a federal system dividing
power between the majority Sinhalese and minority
Tamil populations, sectarian riots, and liberalization
reforms supplanting a politics of redistribution between
classes with one based on ethnicity (Stokke 1998;
Wilson 1999; Hyndman 2003). The conflict escalated
into civil war in 1983, opposing the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the Sinhalese-
dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), while
also affecting Muslim communities (notably those
evicted from LTTE-controlled territories in 1990).
An estimated 60 000 lives were directly lost to the
conflict until both parties agreed to a cease-fire in
2002. Despite a drastic reduction in the level of hos-
tilities, an estimated 375 000 persons remained dis-
placed by the conflict when the tsunami struck. Six
districts in the north were largely under control of
the LTTE, while another four in the northeast had
significant LTTE presence (see Figures 1b and 2b).
Against a background of civil war and widespread
poverty, the 9.2 submarine earthquake and ensuing
tsunami physically, materially and psychologically
affected about two-thirds of the population in
Aceh. An estimated 167 000 people died (or 4 per
cent of Aceh’s population) and about half a million
people were displaced (BRR and International
Partners 2005; GoI 2005; TEC 2006). Although the
tsunami nearly exclusively affected Aceh and the
neighbouring island of Nias, recently elected Indo-
nesian President Yudhoyono declared the catastrophe
a ‘national disaster’ on the following day, and
called for ‘those who are still fighting to come out
’ (Siboro 2004, emphasis added; GoI
2006). The consequences of this ‘national disaster’
for the Acehnese ‘nationalist struggle’ were not
immediately clear, however, as Indonesian military
forces collected the bodies of tsunami victims on
the coast while boasting about the killing of seces-
sionists in the hills (Acehkita 2005).
Figure 1a,b Conflict and post-tsunami population displacement per district
Sources: 1a: Ramly (2005); 1b: UNHCR (2005)
Figure 2a,b Tsunami dead and missing persons per district
Sources: 2a: Aydan (2005), NAD (2005); 2b: PDMIN (2005)
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
The tsunami also brought much devastation to
many coastal communities in Sri Lanka, with 39 000
deaths reported (0.2 per cent of the population) and
also about half a million persons displaced (2.8 per
cent of the population). Yet, whereas in
Indonesia
the tsunami disproportionately affected the seces-
sionist region and minority group, it affected much
of the country and all communities in Sri Lanka
(see Figures 1 and 2). Spatially, the tsunami almost
exclusively struck Aceh and the Acehnese. In Sri
Lanka, the tsunami affected two-thirds of the
coastal areas in Sri Lanka, including areas ‘pre-
dominantly’ Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim (see 2001
Sri Lanka census results; Stokke 1998). There was
also greater overlap between conflict-affected areas
and tsunami-affected areas in Sri Lanka than in
Aceh, some of the worst tsunami-struck areas in
northeastern Sri Lanka being also the most severely
affected by prior hostilities. Finally, there were
tsunami-affected areas directly under the control of
the LTTE, while there were none in Aceh (GAM’s
presence being limited to remote interior areas
affected only by the earthquake).
Conflicts evolved differently in Aceh and Sri
Lanka, both before and after the tsunami, despite
some similarities in the immediate aftermath of the
disaster. The conflict in Aceh was largely single-sided
and characterized by government repression and
counter-insurgency, yet taking place in a broader
process of state transformation characterized by
democratization and decentralization. Immediately
after the tsunami, GAM committed to a unilateral
cease-fire to facilitate relief operations, and Yud-
hoyono requested the TNI to ‘restore safety in a
more defensive way’ (GoI 2005). Yet hostilities – and
in particular Indonesian military operations against
GAM – continued until a comprehensive settle-
ment was reached (see Figure 3).
One month after the tsunami, the GoI and GAM
launched official negotiations, following on informal
talks under Vice-President Jusuf Kalla initiated
prior to the tsunami and during which both parties
had already agreed to meet for peace negotiations
facilitated by former Finnish President Martti
Ahtisaari (Aspinall 2005c). GAM dropped its demand
for independence and conceded ‘self-rule’, and
obtained an EU-led monitoring of the transition
process (interviews 37, 62). After GAM and the GoI
officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) on 15 August 2005, the Indonesian House
of Representatives endorsed a new Law on the
Governing of Aceh (LoGA). While armed conflict
has stopped, the number of ‘local’ conflicts, includ-
ing tsunami-related conflicts, demonstrations, as
well as religious and ethnic vigilantism increased,
although the number of conflicts involving violence
remained relatively low and stable (Clark 2006). In
December 2006, regional Acehnese parties (newly
authorized under LoGA) won provincial elections,
with a former GAM member becoming the first
democratically elected governor and promising to
renegotiate unfavourable LoGA clauses.
Figure 3 Battle-related deaths and major events in Aceh and Sri Lanka6
In Sri Lanka, the 2002 cease-fire agreement had
suspended the ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ of civil
war, but the focus of the peace process was placed
on ‘post-conflict’ reconstruction and development
rather than substantive negotiations over core political
issues (Goodhand and Klem 2005). The immediate
aftermath of the tsunami was characterized by
‘good will’ from the leadership on both sides and
marked by spontaneous local cooperation between
the GoSL and the LTTE forces (Uyangoda 2005a).
Some belligerents even initially perceived the tsu-
nami as a ‘blessing in disguise’,
2
but hostilities
escalated within a year (see Figure 3). The politici-
zation of disaster relief also undermined the pre-
existing, but already collapsing cease-fire agreement
(Stokke 2005). Later negotiations resulted in the crea-
tion of a coordination mechanism ‘independent’
from both the GoI and GAM in the case of Aceh,
while in Sri Lanka international NGOs channelled
much of the aid in the absence of a joint-mechanism
(Stokke 2006), and were later denied access to some
areas due to renewed fighting.
Explaining divergent outcomes in Aceh
and Sri Lanka
Much of the divergence in conflict transformation
between Aceh and Sri Lanka can be explained by
the pre-disaster political and military context and
its implications for disaster relief and peace
negotiations. Indonesia was in the midst of a favourable
process of democratization and decentralization.
The disaster struck Aceh only three months after
Yudhoyono’s victory in Indonesia’s first direct
democratic presidential election, and the new
leadership was committed to end the conflict, if
possible through negotiations. In Sri Lanka, an older
democracy remained in the stranglehold of a unitary
and centralizing constitution, and both the Sinhalese
coalition in power and LTTE frustrated the on-going
peace process. Militarily, GAM was at its weakest
following Martial Law and counterinsurgency. By
the time the tsunami struck, GAM was already
eager for a political exit (ICG 2005; Reid 2006;
interviews 37 and 62). In contrast, the tsunami hit
Sri Lanka after nearly three years of a cease-fire
between the LTTE and the GoSL under the
Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission
(SLMM), but the peace process had stalled. The
LTTE also had to address increasing dissent,
notably by the ‘Karuna’ faction in the east, and a
return to war was politically expedient. Such
diverging political and military contexts help to
explain different political outcomes in Aceh and Sri
Lanka after the tsunami, but they do not explain if,
and how, the disaster itself possibly transformed
these conflicts. We now seek to do so by using the
framework outlined above.
Governable space: military dimensions
The spatiality of military control in Aceh largely
determined the relative impact of the tsunami on
the belligerents. The effects of the disaster heavily
affected both the GoI security forces and GAM,
but to a different degree and in different ways. TNI
and POLRI were largely stationed in coastal areas
and were more severely affected than GAM forces
located in the hills, with 2698 security personnel
killed against 70 GAM combatants (GoI 2005;
interview 40). A hundred GAM members, among
approximately 2000 jailed at the time, also drowned
while in prison (Merikallio 2005). Yet GAM was
militarily weakened after the death of up to one
quarter of its combatants and many others leaving
the province over the past two years (Reid 2006;
interviews 4 and 62). Moreover, whereas the TNI
could draw on its nation-wide resources, GAM’s
lines and support systems were further undermined
by the disaster, and GAM’s willingness to fight after
the tsunami was also reduced psychologically
(Prasodjo 2005).
Space continued to be ruled through the military
following the tsunami. About 80 per cent of the
TNI were initially redirected to humanitarian and
security tasks, while 20 per cent continued combat
operations against GAM (Laksamana 2005a; inter-
view 4). Yet three weeks after the tsunami only
5 per cent of security forces were still officially
assigned to the ‘humanitarian’ effort, mostly in highly
media-visible Banda Aceh and as humanitarian
military escorts (Davies 2005; Sukma 2006). The
GoI also sent 6173 more troops to Aceh, a move
interpreted by a US security analyst as guarantee-
ing Yudhoyono the ability ‘to clean [GAM] out . . .
if GAM does not agree to settle the problem peace-
fully’ (Roberts 2005). Indonesian military control of
‘humanitarian space’ in Aceh undermined GAM’s
ability to participate in relief, with GoI forces
portraying GAM as a criminal and terrorist organi-
zation in order to undermine its legitimacy, justify
continued counter-insurgency and control move-
ments by relief agencies until the MoU was signed.
GAM repeated its commitment to a cease-fire to
facilitate aid provision, while denouncing repeated
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
assaults on their units by the TNI. Continued
militarization also constrained GAM to the ‘space
of political negotiation’ and reduced its bargaining
power by further reducing its military leverage.
The discursive impact of this violent territorializa-
tion of ‘humanitarian space’ was more ambivalent,
however, with many aid organizations recognizing
an historical pattern of military propaganda and
coercion – thereby giving GAM greater political
legitimacy for its negotiations with the GoI (Flor
2005; Laksamana 2005b).
While some in the LTTE initially perceived the
tsunami as a ‘blessing in disguise’ that could
consolidate a failing peace process, others in the
GoSL perceived it as a military opportunity, wrongly
assessing that the tsunami significantly weakened
the LTTE (Uyangoda 2005a). To sum up, the tsunami
weakened the military capacity of some of the
belligerents but did not challenge military rule. Yet
whereas GAM and the GoI seized the opportunity
of a political exit negotiated under TNI ‘military
pressure’, the Sri Lankan parties acted opportun-
istically, by seeking to improve their relative
bargaining position by military means.
Governable space: socio-political dimensions
Three major tsunami-related socio-political processes
influenced the evolution of the Acehnese conflict
following the tsunami: the moral imperative of
peace, domestic political transformation and
internationalization of conflict resolution. These three
dimensions, in turn, transformed public discourse
on, and governable space in Aceh. These were
ambivalent processes, however, when considering
that the victimization of the Acehnese as a result of
a ‘natural’ disaster and the recasting of disaster
as a ‘historical opportunity’ obscured questions of
responsibility, impunity and political instrumentalization
for Acehnese suffering.
The tsunami killed ten times more people in
Aceh than three decades of conflict. Compassionate
interpretations of this disaster and acts of solidarity
transformed the Indonesian public discourse on
Aceh from a space of threat and danger into one
of ‘national’ commiseration and solidarity. A year
before the tsunami, 50 per cent of Indonesians
supported ‘some form of military intervention in
Aceh’ (Valentino and Sharma 2003). Following the
tsunami, a military ‘solution’ to the conflict became
widely opposed by Indonesians and Acehnese.
Indonesian television was full of tears and prayers,
under such titles as ‘Indonesia is Weeping’ (
Indonesia
Menangis
), with prominent politicians and business
tycoons opportunistically seizing this shift (see
below).
The widespread interpretation of the tsunami as
a divine act provided another moral dimension
reshaping governable space in Aceh, giving impe-
tus to end the conflict. In the words of an Acehnese
aid worker, ‘as followers of Islam, we believe that
with every event, even more so a calamity, Allah
always gives us a
hikmah
[lesson]; among other
things, this is a way used by Him reminding us to
return to the right path’ (interview 38). According
to Acehnese sociologist Humam Hamid, the second
‘bitterness’ brought upon people in Aceh by the
tsunami might also help to overcome the ‘first
bitterness’ of war, thereby contributing to reconcili-
ation (Prasodjo and Hamid 2005). The implications
of these moral arguments were that military means
and conflict-related grievances had to be left
behind. There remains the risk, however, that the
tsunami adds to the victimization process of the
Acehnese population, creating one more layer of
‘martyrdom’, especially in light of past government
responsibility in their vulnerability.
The second socio-political dimension resulted
from the interplay of Acehnese disaster victims and
a ‘democratizing’ and ‘decentralizing’ Indonesian
political and civil society. Victims in Aceh relied
predominantly on other individuals for help,
receiving minimal support from the government,
NGOs or religious and community organizations
in the first 48 hours, especially when compared to
victims in Sri Lanka and India (Thomas and Rama-
ligan 2005). Unsurprisingly, victims in Aceh were
also the most dissatisfied with relief services in the
immediate aftermath of the tsunami (IOM 2005).
The catastrophic impact of the tsunami on many
infrastructures and administrative organizations
explains in part why many coastal areas in Aceh
were ‘ungovernable’ in the immediate aftermath
of the tsunami. This collapse, however, also reflected
the broader disorganization and competition within
the post-Suharto bureaucracy (Aspinall 2005a),
giving further impetus to demands of governance
reforms in Aceh.
In contrast, Indonesian political leaders benefited
from media reports of their handling of the crisis
– with 83 per cent of Indonesians assessing the
response of the GoI as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ –
thereby contributing to their popularity (IFES
2005). Civil society groups, mostly from religious
or business backgrounds, also (re)developed
expressions of ‘national’ solidarity. Domestically,
the tsunami thus transformed governable space in
Aceh in two main ways. At the local level, the
tsunami exposed the failings of a discredited and
militarized rule by Indonesian authorities, calling
for greater Acehnese autonomy. At the national
level, the tsunami enabled the engagement of a
more diverse and thriving civil and political
society calling for enhanced Indonesian ‘national’
solidarity (Aspinall 2005a). This tension was in part
expressed and addressed through the governable
space negotiated under the MoU: that of a ‘self-ruled’
Aceh firmly remaining within a more ‘democratic’
and ‘decentralized’ Indonesia.
The third major dimension was the international-
ization of the disaster response, which, beyond the
disaster’s scale, resulted from its mediatization and
instrumentalization. The tsunami was a ‘perfect
media event’ reaching international coverage equiva-
lent to ‘9/11’ during its first 45 days (Jones 2005).
Like ‘9/11’, the tsunami dwarfed other disasters in
part because of the large number of ‘white deaths’
(Olds
et al.
2005). Although few reports emphasized
the conflict-related suffering of the Acehnese, inter-
national public sympathy affected the ‘geopolitical’
significance of the conflict and governance in the
province. In turn, the GoI and GAM were put
under greater pressure and scrutiny to achieve a
negotiated end to war and efficiently manage relief
and reconstruction (interview 4). Despite TNI’s
efforts at maintaining its rule over Aceh – in part
due to weariness of an ‘East Timor scenario’ fol-
lowing foreign intervention – the disaster opened
up political space within Aceh. Civil society and
international relief organizations stepped into and
broadened the governable space of ‘civilian rule’
between local populations and (military) rule from
Jakarta (Tjhin 2005; Eye-on-Aceh and Aid Watch
2006; ICG 2006). The creation of an ‘independent’
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BR
R
–
Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi
) not only
secured more easily foreign assistance, but also
insulated the GoI from conflicts induced by aid
misallocation, mismanagement or fraud (Kuncoro
and Resosudarmo 2006).
International presence was crucial to conflict
transformation in Aceh, notably by providing
GAM a favourable bargaining position and hopes
of agreement implementation that could not be
wasted. Before the agreement on the MoU, there
was little sense that foreigners significantly improved
the security of GAM members, while the Acehnese
feared that continued fighting could lead foreigners
to leave. After the MoU, and in light of previous
failures, many Acehnese feared that once foreigners
departed ‘suffering of the Acehnese will increase
again’ (Vltchek 2006). The presence and intents of
foreigners nevertheless proved controversial, most
notably with critics of opportunistic US and EU
involvement, as well as religious proselytism by
Christian organizations (Prasodjo 2005; Tjhin 2005;
Sukma 2006). Critics denounced the ‘self-interest’
characterizing some of the international solidarity,
notably the ‘opportunistic use of Asian suffering by
US leaders’ (Glassman 2005, 169 – 70). Secretary of
State Colin Powell publicly argued that disaster relief
dries up those pools of dissatisfaction that might give
rise to terrorist activity . . . [and] . . . does give to the
Muslim world . . . an opportunity to see American
generosity, American values in action . . . [so that] . . .
value system of ours will be reinforced [in the region].
(Aljazeera 2005)
This exposure reportedly reduced opposition to the
US and support for Osama bin Laden in Indonesia
(Sukma 2006). The EU also sought to gain visibility
as a ‘world actor’ capable of taking over large
peace-building responsibilities in cooperation with
other regional associations such as the ASEAN
(interview 44). Hence, the disaster not only
reshaped Aceh as a local and national governable
space, it also enabled foreign actors – particularly
the US, EU and IFIs – to more directly consolidate
their governance of the ‘borderlands’, in this case a
petroleum-rich and ‘Muslim’ province strategically
located near the Malacca Straight.
3
Socio-political setting differed between Aceh and
Sri Lanka.
4
Although there was little prospect for a
rapid peaceful settlement of the conflict in Aceh
before the disaster, many expected that conflict in
Sri Lanka would shortly resume (Ganguly 2004).
No progress had been made towards bringing
flexibility to the unitarist Sri Lankan constitution,
thereby making any power-sharing agreement
unconstitutional – including that necessary for aid
allocation (see below) (Uyangoda 2005b). Rather,
political discourses of homeland ‘purity’ and the
necessity of force and a state of exception against
the ethno-religious ‘rogue others’ remained prevalent
in political discourses despite the official cease-fire
(Korf 2006). Moreover, while popular support for
GAM in Aceh had receded after the failure to
obtain a referendum for independence and the
imposition of martial law, support for the LTTE in
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
the North had remained relatively strong (Human
Rights Watch 1999; Orjuela 2003). On the govern-
ment side, decade-long president Chandrika
Kumaratunga was succeeded in November 2005 by
her former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who
took a harder line against the LTTE (Ratnayake 2004).
The political consequences of the tsunami also
diverged significantly. In Aceh, many civil society
organizations focused their activity on political
issues, including human rights, freedom of speech
and organization, as well as self-government, with
the encouragement of foreign agencies and tacit
acceptance of the GoI and GAM. The legal authori-
zation of regional, rather than nation-wide, political
parties in Indonesia also constituted a precedent
that many Indonesian provinces want to emulate,
thereby consolidating demand for decentralization.
In comparison, on-going rights-based work and
political activities were reported as more severely
repressed in Sri Lanka (TEC 2005), and a pattern of
political assassination started in 2006.
At an international level, both Aceh and Sri
Lanka received attention and relatively similar
levels of international assistance (TEC 2006). The
tsunami, however, provided a ‘new’ opportunity
for peace-building in Aceh, especially so for the
European Union, while in Sri Lanka, the involve-
ment of the Norwegian-led peace process was
already approaching its third year, without political
progress. Latter negotiations since the disaster
have all stalled and the EU’s threat of listing the
LTTE as a ‘terrorist’ organization in May 2006
jeopardized the Norwegian-led cease-fire monitor-
ing mission (SLMM) as the LTTE demanded the
withdrawal of all EU monitors and refused further
negotiations in June 2006. The SLMM also contrasted
with the AMM through its numbers and mandate.
Covering a roughly similar area, SLMM’s monitors
numbered 65 compared with a 226 person strong
monitoring force including both EU and ASEAN
officers tasked with a much broader mandate
relating to the MoU implementation and better
adapted to deal with conflict and disaster issues
(Sundberg and Vestergren 2005).
Governable space: socio-economic dimensions
The tsunami had major socio-economic effects on
Aceh. Productive losses were estimated at US$1.2
billion and reconstruction needs (including upgrades)
at about US$7 billion, with assistance pledges
reached $8.8 billion (BRR and International
Partners 2005; Mahdi 2006b). This burden and the
benefits of reconstruction were not equally shared
amongst the Acehnese, with those on northern and
western coastal areas being the most heavily
affected. Balancing tsunami losses and windfalls is
a precarious exercise, with high risks of corruption,
unfair allocations and mismanagement, potentially
aggravating the conflict given its economic dimensions
(Ross 2003; Athukorala and Resosudarmo forthcoming).
More optimistic scenarios hoped that the disaster
would provide the opportunity for ‘rebuilding a
better Aceh’, and improve governance (World
Bank 2005). Overall, the economic dimensions of
the tsunami did contribute to promoting a resolution
of the conflict, notably by offering major business
and political opportunities for the local and some
national elites that rely in part on peace to be
sustained, while reducing (but not ending) TNI’s
lucrative activities (Schulze 2004; Reid 2006).
5
Allegations of fraud and corruption in recon-
struction projects, along with inflation, poverty
and inequalities, are exacerbating grievances and
tensions (Diani 2006; Eye-on-Aceh and Aid Watch
2006). Wealthier and more educated people have
benefited from reconstruction, while many of the
poorest mostly bear induced costs such as inflation
(Oxfam 2005; Athukorala and Resosudarmo
forthcoming). Demonstrations in front of the
BRR
office have repeatedly raised these issues and
politically sensitive variations in the geography of
aid allocation have contributed to grievances
(Acehkita 2006). Problems relating to land and
ownership also constitute a major difficulty and
potential source of conflict. In addition, exclusionary
and top-down practices and approaches in the
design and implementation of projects (e.g. hous-
ing) have led to disempowerment, frustration and
anger against implementing agencies and donors
(Eye-on-Aceh and Aid Watch 2006).
As noted above, there was a stronger and more
divisive politicization of aid and disaster mitiga-
tion policies in Sri Lanka than Aceh. Prior to the
tsunami, donors had politicized their assistance by
making it conditional upon progress in the peace
process (Goodhand and Klem 2005; Sriskandarajah
2005). The ‘peace conditionality’ imposed on
US$4.5 billion pledged in June 2003, however, had
failed to influence the political decisions of the
GoSL and the LTTE (Uyangoda 2005b). This
strategy further collapsed as a massive influx of
unconditional aid reached Sri Lanka following the
tsunami, but aid politicization remained. About
70 per cent of the dead or missing (which included
an estimated 7000 Muslims) were located in predo-
minantly Tamil areas, and up to 30 per cent in
areas under LTTE control – a contested figure since
the GoSL was in control of ‘cleared’ coastal strips in
several districts otherwise controlled by the LTT
E
such as Batticaloa (PDMIN 2005). Relief and
reconstruction assistance was politicized through
accusations of GoSL discriminating against Tamil
victims of the tsunami. On one side, devastation in
LTTE-controlled areas slowed down relief provision
as the GoSL set up a centralized relief mechanism
and opposed any bypassing of its authority (Uyan-
goda 2005a). On the other, the LTTE requested
more direct control of foreign assistance, and
thereby political recognition. A joint mechanism
agreement to share US$2.5 billion of foreign aid
was reached after six months of delay and its
territorial application restricted to tsunami-affected
areas within a 2-kilometre-wide coastal strip in the
six districts under (partial) LTTE control. The
agreement triggered a major political crisis in
government and was blocked by a defecting coalition
party through Supreme Court suspension on grounds
of partial unconstitutionality (Uyangoda 2005b).
Disaster mitigation and prevention policies also
proved controversial and politicized, most notably
the initial Buffer Zone policy creating ‘exclusion
zones’ of 200 metres from the shoreline in the East
and North (Tamil areas) and 100 metres in the
South (Siriwardhana
et al.
2005). Buffer zones were
perceived as discriminative and punishing mostly
Tamil coastal populations, even though the LTTE
at one point advocated for an even wider buffer
zone (Uyangoda 2005b; Hyndman forthcoming). In
short, spaces of relief and reconstruction in Sri
Lanka were deeply and antagonistically politicized,
both parties fearing that letting the other side terri-
torialize ‘its’ aid would undermine their broader
political struggle. Unlike GAM, LTTE’s pre-tsunami
territorial control gave it the capacity to territorialize
rules of relief provision and reconstruction within
its areas, while the GoSL was able to do so with the
rest of the country and to some extent in its dealings
with the international donor community. It is argu-
ably in response to the failure of territorializing
an alternative ‘sovereign’ and truly ‘humanitarian’
space that the logic of war ultimately prevailed.
Conclusion
The tsunami was an undeniably tragic ‘window
of opportunity’ for conflict transformation in Aceh
and Sri Lanka. This paper confirmed that pre-
disaster political trends were crucial in shaping the
divergent conflict outcomes of this disaster, but it
also pointed at the impacts of the disaster itself and
their spatial dimensions. Rapid and lasting transition
to peace would have been less likely in Aceh
without the tsunami, even if GAM was at its
weakest militarily and both parties were seeking to
end the conflict in a context of democratization and
decentralization (Ellwein 2003; Aspinall 2005b
2005c). Pre-disaster political transformation was
necessary for this transition to occur, but democracy
in Indonesia may not have been already powerful
enough to bring about peace, notably because of
the marginalization of civil society and autonomy
of the army (Mietzner 2006; Tornquist 2006; Abidin
Kusno, pers. com. 2006). In turn, sustained peace in
Aceh will be an indicator of Indonesia’s performance
in its transition to democracy (Prasodjo 2005), and
more research is required to assess the impact of
the tsunami disaster on Indonesian politics. In
contrast, the escalation of political violence in
Sri Lanka was likely, even in the absence of the
tsunami. Nationalist interpretations and calculations
around the tsunami further undermined an already
failing peace process, as the GoSL and LTTE
reasserted ‘exclusive’ sovereignties over contested
territories, thereby accelerating a return to war.
These divergent political outcomes, we suggest,
reflected different representations of the disaster
and the calculations of belligerent parties, as
well as the specific spatialities of the ‘dual
disasters’ of war and tsunami (Roosa 2005;
Hyndman forthcoming).
Although both conflicts in Aceh and Sri Lanka
are secessionist, the geographies of the conflicts
were different. At the time the tsunami struck, the
LTTE, or some of its factions, was in control of
several districts where it ran a
de facto
government.
In contrast, GAM was confined to remote forest
areas and had lost much of the governing capacity
it had gained prior to the imposition of martial law.
The geography of the disaster was also distinct. In
Indonesia the tsunami mostly affected Aceh and the
Acehnese, while in Sri Lanka it affected about two-
thirds of the coastal areas of the country and all
three major ethno-religious communities. In return,
these two characteristics influenced the geography
of aid provision and the dynamics of the conflict.
Whereas the LTTE leveraged this territorial
control to consolidate claims of ‘sovereignty’ over
Tamil Eelam by demanding a direct channelling of
Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
international aid through its administration, GAM
was unable to territorialize aid delivery for such
political advantage. The challenge to Indonesian
sovereignty over Aceh thus remained confined to
political negotiations with GAM, and engagements
with domestic civil society and international relief
organizations. In Sri Lanka, despite an initial
consensus for cooperation at the local level and
between the Sri Lankan President and LTTE, party
politics and nationalist agendas quickly challenged
the exclusive sovereignty of both parties, as well
as the marginalization of the Muslim community.
Both governable space and public discourse
reflected these tensions. In Aceh public discourses
of compassion and solidarity remained dominant
in Acehnese and Indonesian politics, and governable
space was reshaped through ‘civilianized’ and
reformed territorial practices and institutions,
especially after the MoU. The disaster created a
context within which both GAM and the GoI
compromised on a political exit to the conflict,
while international scrutiny created a favourable
environment for its negotiation and implementa-
tion. In Sri Lanka, sectarian public discourses long
promoted by nationalist parties were exacerbated,
and governance was once again territorialized
through physical violence.
Disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
not only create a historical necessity for facilitating
relief provision and opportunity for negotiating
peace, they also challenge the discourses and prac-
tices of belligerents through the material impacts,
institutional changes and moral interpretations
brought about by the devastation. As such, disasters
reshape ‘governable spaces’ within which the
legitimacy, sovereignty and impunity of belligerents
are transformed, if only momentarily. International
relief and civil society responses, for example,
influence the territorialities of belligerent parties,
by opening-up political and public spaces. This
reshaping of the spatiality of conflicts, as a function
of disaster-related perceptions and activities,
remains highly contingent upon the political
context, interpretations, and calculations of bellig-
erents and intervening parties. In this respect both
Aceh and Sri Lanka confirm the two main arguments
in the literature: disasters can foster political
change, and change largely reflects the context in
which disasters take place. The politicization of
overlapping or disjointed geographies of war, dis-
aster and relief can exacerbate conflict, for example
through discriminatory processes of disaster
mitigation. The transformation of public discourse
on conflict-affected areas through the disaster may
strengthen ‘political will’ for peace by ‘humanizing’
the enemy and its territory. But it can also reinvig-
orate sectarian interpretations and nationalist
calculations of suffering and injustice. These ambiv-
alent effects imply the need for context-sensitive inter-
ventions in disaster-struck and conflict-affected
regions.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Aceh Institute, AcehKita
and PDRM for valuable print sources and research
assistance, Renate Korber, Klaus Schreiner and Tim
Bunnell for accommodation, Eric Leinberger for
graphics, and Karen Bakker, Abidin Kusno, Jim
Glassman, Jennifer Hyndman, Potter Pitman, Jon
Tinker, as well as four referees for their comments
on earlier drafts. Hampton grant (University of
British Columbia) and the Asia Pacific Foundation
of Canada supported this research.
Notes
1 Father Severi, cited in http://www.cathnews.com/
news/508/100.php (Accessed 15 February 2007).
2 Seevarathnam Puleedevan, Secretary General of the
LTTE Peace Secretariat, 22 November 2005, cited in
Sundberg and Vestergren (2005, 45).
3 See, for example, Luft and Korin (2004), published in
Foreign Affairs
a few weeks before the tsunami and
associating al-Qaeda threat and GAM ‘piracy’.
4 Religious difference between the vast majority of
Tamils (i.e. Hinduism), Sinhalese (i.e. Buddhism) and
Muslims is noted but falls beyond the scope of this
study.
5 Negotiations led by Kalla with GAM prior to the tsunami
had already mostly focused on economic incentives
and an amnesty for GAM members (ICG 2005; Schulze
2005).
6 Two datasets are used for Aceh: 2000 to December
2004: Koalisi HAM, Crimes against humanity journal
in Aceh, pers. com. 2006 (figures probably underesti-
mated); January 2005 to August 2006: Clark (2006). Sri
Lanka: SAIR (2006). Figures for 2000 to 2003 are
annual monthly average.
Methodology note
The study included 62 formal interviews conducted
in English or Bahasa Indonesia in Aceh (Banda
Aceh and cities on the east coast), as well as in
Medan, Singapore and Vancouver between May
and September 2006, with a broad range of inform-
ants selected for their role as participants or
observers in conflict transformation. Voices remained
‘elitist’ and ‘masculine’ (58), reflecting in part the
gender bias of the peace process in Aceh itself
(Felten-Biermann 2006). These included representa-
tives of Acehnese and Indonesian civil society
organizations (13), provincial and national tsunami-
related government agencies (5), political movements
including GAM (14), foreign governments and
international agencies (12), and Acehnese academics
(9) and journalists (5). Informal discussions were
also held with ‘ordinary’ people, and four formal
interviews conducted with tsunami-affected fisher-
men and plantation workers. Interviews focused
on perceptions of conflict transformation, with a
focus on tsunami-related factors, and used open-ended
questions tailored to the background and mandate
of informants. Only 26 interviews were taped due
to self-censorship concerns. The study focused on
Aceh, and interviews were not conducted in Sri
Lanka for budgetary and security reasons. The
comparative part of the analysis thus draws on
secondary sources, including international and
domestic media and policy reports, as well as aca-
demic literature.
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Interviews
Interview 4: executive editor, local news magazine, Banda
Aceh, 15 May 2006
Interview 37: academic and peace-talks observer, Singapore,
1 June 2006
Interview 38: programme manager, local aid monitoring
NGO, Banda Aceh, 4 June 2006
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2006
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Interview 62: GAM negotiator at Helsinki peace talks, 21
September 2006
Welcome to AIS 5337:
Disaster Management, Development and Regional Governance in Asia
Danny Marks
Course Introduction
Myself
Syllabus
Course Rules
No question is a stupid one! Please raise your hand and stop me at any point
No chit chat!
Yourself
Let’s start with some polls
https://www.polleverywhere.com/my/polls
Why should we care about disasters?
In 2018, there were 315 natural disaster events recorded with 11,804 deaths, over 68 million people affected, and US$131.7 billion in economic losses across the world.
The burden was not shared equally: Asia suffered the highest impact and accounted for 45% of disaster events, 80% of deaths, and 76% of people affected.
And why study them?
1) We are rushing headlong into a calamitous future – The future is uncertain and the evidence that we have predicts apocalyptic scenarios if we do not change course but rather continue to over-consume and destroy our only world. This gives a massive sense of urgency to the research field.
Think of recent forest fires in Australia
2) It is a pathway to protect the vulnerable – Disasters are about people at risk. Those most affected by disasters are the most marginalised, discriminated against, dispossessed and displaced in our society. They need to have a platform for their voices to be heard. A disaster researcher has a great opportunity to connect human IMPACTS to ROOT CAUSES, and make evidence-based arguments for change.
3) Complex, extreme conditions are not well understood – Most conventional knowledge is built on what we can predict and, ever more widely, what we can model. Outliers are not recognised in our computations and as a society we are broadly ignorant of disaster risk. We need more complete, more straightforward and more challenging data.
4) It is an outlet for activism – Disasters are political! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The biggest challenges in communicating truths about disaster are myths and misconceptions, widely held in our society. BUT people are interested, and they do care. Convincing arguments can be made and turned into action in this field that certainly grabs the attention.
5) The current system is not working – The status quo is creating risk, not reducing risk. Our leaders are either blind to the dangers of maintaining the social/economic/political order or are owned by special interests in rejecting the consideration of alternatives. The study of disasters provides a perspective on this dilemma.
6) Disasters highlight socio-economic inequality and injustice – This is a unique place from which to critique the many structural failures in our society. As we investigate why people are at risk, how they are impacted and how they can avoid future calamity, we have the opportunity to collaborate with other disciplines to develop more holistic responses to injustice.
What is a disaster?
https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZXNcli9suo
What’s your reaction to the clip?
Given this course, is on disasters – how would you define one? Any guesses?
How is it different than a hazard?
Hazard is a natural phenomenon that could but may not trigger a disaster
Examples include volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and storms
Movement of Earth’s crustal plates triggers earthquakes and tsunamis.
Variation in solar radiation entering the atmosphere and oceans triggers storms in the summertime and blizzards in winter.
The movement of energy in Earth’s system is what drives these natural processes.
7
So how is a disaster different from a hazard?
Disasters occur because of the intersection of hazard with exposed people and assets that are vulnerable to the hazard.
A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources.
Vulnerability is the “characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard” (Wisner et al 2004)
Are disasters on the rise?
Yes!
Quadrupled (400% more) in last 40 years
And even more than in last 100 years
Number of Disasters: 1900-2011
More frequent & intense extreme weather events
Criteria for inclusion as disaster. Any guess?
10 or more people dead
100 or more people affected (which means people requiring immediate assistance during a period of emergency, i.e. requiring basic survival needs such as food, water, shelter, sanitation and immediate medical assistance.)
The declaration of a state of emergency
A call for international assistance
Why do you think many more disasters & increased damage/injury from them today?
Increased population – greater number of people exposed to them
But also greater concentration – more people live in cities so if these cities are hit, higher damage and losses
Better reporting technology/information – before some parts of globe couldn’t report (e.g., were isolated)
Climate change
Environmental change within country.
Can think of any examples?
Cutting down of mangrove forests – worse waves/erosion
Cutting down trees – more flash foods
Concretization and filling in of waterways – more runoff for floods
Building in hazardous areas, e.g., upon hill or mountain -> landslides
Climate emergency and disasters
Climate Change & Extreme Weather Events/Disasters
Greenhouse Gas Effect
Of GHG: carbon most abundant followed by methane and then ozone
C02 is a major player; without any of it in the air, Earth would be a frozen wasteland
The gas has increased 43% above the pre-industrial level so far
When did human start having a big impact?
Humans started having a big impact during the Industrial Revolution due to the invention of the steam engine and production of coal.
One of the keys to the Revolution was the invention of the coal-powered steam engine because it freed up energy constraints that had previously limited the scale of economic production in the past.
The downside is that the burning of coal and other fossil fuels emits additional carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the air.
Deforestation too increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere because it weakens the capacity of sinks. As a result of these two trends, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has skyrocketed from its pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to today’s level of 407 ppm, over 40%
Warming of the Earth’s Surface
The climate has increased 2.0ºF (1.1ºC) since 1880 (when records began at global scale) with the majority of this increase, 1.2ºF (0.7ºC), occurring in the past 30 years
Most regions of the world are warmer now than at any other time since at least 900 CE
In the last 10 years, we have recorded 9 warmest ones
2016 was so far warmest year on record – 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean
The number may sound low, but as an average over the surface of an entire planet, it is actually high
How do we know humans are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide?
Hard evidence, including studies that use radioactivity to distinguish industrial emissions from natural emissions, shows that the extra gas is coming from human activity.
More plant-based isotopes in atmosphere due to fossil fuels (which mainly come from old plants) being burned
Carbon dioxide levels rose and fell naturally in the long-ago past, but those changes took thousands of years.
Geologists say that humans are now pumping the gas into the air much faster than nature has ever done.
Could natural factors be the cause of the warming?
In theory, they could be. If the sun were to start putting out more radiation, for instance, that would definitely warm the Earth.
But scientists have looked carefully at the natural factors known to influence planetary temperature and found that they are not changing nearly enough.
The warming is extremely rapid on the geologic time scale, and no other factor can explain it as well as human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Why climate emergency/climate?
You can think of global warming as one type of climate change. The broader term covers changes beyond warmer temperatures, such as shifting rainfall patterns
Other changes besides warming
Sea level rise: predicted 18-60 cm rise by 2100 -> currently about 3 mm/year worldwide
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide
Ocean acidification: increase in 30% acidity – 30% of emissions absorbed by oceans
Most of Them Hydrometereological
Hurricanes & typhoons get their energy from warm ocean waters, and the oceans are warming because of the human-caused buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
The strongest hurricanes have gotten stronger because of global warming.
Over the past two years, we have witnessed the most intense hurricanes on record for the globe, in both hemispheres: the Pacific and now, with Irma, the Atlantic.
More Heat Waves
In July 2016, Mitribah, Kuwait reached 129.2 °F (54 °C) and Basra, Iraq reached 129 °F (53.9 °C).
These are the highest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere and on planet Earth outside of Death Valley
It is virtually certain that there will be more frequent hot and fewer cold temperature extremes over most land areas on daily and seasonal timescales as global mean temperatures increase.
It is very likely that heat waves will occur with a higher frequency and duration. Occasional cold winter extremes will continue to occur
Some places could become inhabitable
Wildfires
Wildfires are increasing and wildfire season is getting longer (e.g., US & Australia).
Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snow-melt result in forests that are hotter and drier for longer periods of time.
This makes it easier for wildfires to ignite and spread
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGx6P2UR8Ig
So who is responsible?
We are!
There is no such thing as a natural disaster – all disasters are manmade
If better building structures, fewer losses and deaths from earthquakes
Better city planning, fewer losses from floods
More mangrove forests, fewer losses from typhoons
But also us for emitting greenhouse gases (burning fossil fuels & cutting down forests)
But there is good news…
Why is this the case?
Richer countries have fewer losses: better infrastructure, better warning systems, better building codes
And there have been improvements in some countries, such as Philippines – better warning system there now
Disasters in Asia
Since 1970 a person living in the Asia-Pacific region has been five times (500%) more likely to be affected by disasters than a person living outside the region.
Between 1970 and 2016, Asia and the Pacific lost $1.3 trillion in assets. Almost all of this was the result of floods, storms, droughts and earthquakes including tsunamis
From 2020-2030: predicted that 40%of global economic losses from disasters will be in Asia
Greatest losses in the largest economies – Japan and China, followed by the Republic of Korea and India
2000-2015: low- and lower middle-income countries experienced by far the most disaster deaths, and lost more people per disaster event
More than 8,000 people died per disaster – almost 15 times the average toll in the region’s high-income countries
Since 1900, 9 of 10 biggest disasters in terms of death toll were in Asia
Big disasters since 2000:
India earthquake in 2001: 20,000 deaths Asian tsunami in 2004: 165,000 deaths
Pakistan earthquake in 2005: 73,000 deaths
Sichuan earthquake in 2008: 87,500 deaths
Cycle Nargis in Myanmar: 138,000 deaths
Thailand floods in 2011: $45 billion in damage
Japan tsunami/earthquake in 2011: 20 killed and $162 billion
Typhoon Haiyan in Philippines in 2013: 7,350 deaths
Women particularly vulnerable in Asia
Some countries are more vulnerable than others
Disasters and development
There has long existed a strong correlation between the magnitude of disaster consequence that affect a country and the levels of poverty that are experienced by its population.
The cost of mitigating significant hazard risk can be extremely – even prohibitively – high. From preparing the land for resistant construction, to building resistant structures, using resistant materials and practices, and maintaining resilience, all come at a cost to the private and public sectors
“Development” is the gradual improvement of a nation’s infrastructure, access to services, institutions, public health, foreign debt, and many other development indicators
It is well documented that countries repeatedly faced with catastrophic (capacity-exceeding) disasters tend to experience stagnant or even negative rates of development over time
So in Asia, lot of poverty but also disasters worsening poverty and hurting development in some countries (e.g., Philippines, Bangladesh)
Week 3
Social vulnerability to disaster: myth of community, gender, and ethnicity
Last week what did we discuss?
The theories about disasters
The dominant paradigm and criticisms of it
The alternative model: political ecology
PAR model
This week we will discuss
Disaster justice
Social vulnerability to disasters:
Myth of community
Causes of differences in social vulnerability:
Gender
Race/ethnicity
Others
Culture and vulnerability
Disaster justice
Linkages to Environmental Justice
Hillman (2006, 695) explains that “environment justice as a political movement and research programme originated amidst concerns over the unjust distribution of environmental hazards primarily in, or close to, disadvantaged or marginalised communities.”
Most scholars trace the origin of the environmental justice movement to a protest in 1982 against the dumping of PCB-laden dirt into a waste landfill in Warren County, North Carolina. The county was 65 percent Black.
This protest marked one of the first times when civil rights and environmental groups collaborated. Studies in the 1980s and early 1990s which demonstrated linkages between not only environmental risk, namely the location of toxic waste sites, waste dumps, and power plants, and poverty but also between environmental risk and race in the US further empowered these activists,
Also, only starting in the 1990s, has the environmental justice framework been applied outside of the United States.
It is still not widely used in Asia as a framework academically but there are increasing movements for environmental justice (e.g. in China, Vietnam, and Thailand)
Regardless, of the location, as Schroeder et al. (2008) assert, at the core of environmental justice struggles are universal and part of broader patterns of injustice of a global significance.
Schlosberg’s 3 types of injustices
What are they?
distributive (how environmental goods and harms are unevenly distributed)
procedural (whether different groups have equal access to decision-making)
lack of recognition (whether groups have been discriminated against due to their identity).
2 key questions
1) what patterns of social inequality exist in relation to the environmental good or bad?
This question is a distributional one in which a contextual process claim of injustice is being made.
Such a claim analyses a specific situation, such as the distribution of floodwater in Bangkok in 2011, and historically traces patterns of urban development and decision-making and how these patterns produced injustices.
Questions that also need to be asked are how inequalities are being produced, who is responsible for them, how decisions have been made have, and how are government policies and practices created and enacted
2) The second series of questions are procedural ones, examining how a society operates: how power is distributed, and how uneven environmental outcomes arise as a consequence?
A basic insight of the movement is that “distribution of environmental goods and harms,” e.g. has a tendency to “follow that of economic goods and harms” (MacCallum et. al 2011)
Paavola and Adger (2006) valuably add that a just response to disaster risks must first incorporate the principle of prioritising the most vulnerable. This group is comprised of those most in need in terms of redistribution, but also these people’s rights must be recognised so their voices are included in decision-making processes.
Disaster Justice
Applying the environmental justice framework to disasters emerged in 2006 as Hurricane Katrina revealed that environmental injustices arose largely due to pre-existing structural inequalities
Since then, a small but growing body of literature has framed disaster risks in the US and elsewhere as a question of environmental inequality and injustice.
By emphasising inequalities in vulnerability, one can assess what constitutes justice and fairness for those at risk to disasters, rather than treat them as a ‘given’ or as problems that need to be managed
Group exercise
Please give example of the 3 types of injustices which could arise from the following environmental problems:
1) urban flooding in a) Jakarta and b) Bangkok
2) typhoon in a) Philippines and b) Myanmar
3) earthquake in a) China and b) Indonesia
4) drought in a) India and b) North Korea
To begin
What is social vulnerability to disasters?
How did we define vulnerability last week?
“The characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard”
Though remember there is no such thing as a natural hazard!
What are the key words in this definition?
“person” “group” and “capacity”
So how does society affect vulnerability?
Social and economic attributions/characteristics such as poverty, race, class/caste, ethnicity, gender, age, physical ability, and housing affect vulnerability to disasters in all phases of the disaster cycle (preparation, response, relief, recovery, etc.)
But also cultural beliefs affect vulnerability too
Last week we discussed some about the link between poverty and vulnerability. This week we will discuss other characteristics
Disaster research and projects
Lot of disaster research and projects in Asia to reduce vulnerability focus on the community level
“‘Community’ has become the badge of honour that enables the organizations which receive funds to claim that they are doing the right thing”
The World Bank alone has invested or granted US$ 85 billion in the past ten years to local participatory development activities
NGOs, Red Cross Red Crescent and others dedicating to supporting vulnerable communities
What are some definitions, markers, or examples of communities in your country?
In Thailand, urban communities are recognised as legal entities and receive a small monthly budget from the municipality, or, in the case of Bangkok, the district office.
In each community, a community leader and committee members are elected every two years.
Why focus on the community?
Over the past 40 years or so, there has been a major shift in much development work from ‘top-down’ policies towards a much greater focus on ‘grass-roots’ and participatory activities.
This change has given rise to a greatly increased role for NGOs (local, national and international) – including those engaged in DRR and CCA – as major agents for development.
Community is mostly seen as a location or geographical space, often a village or an urban neighbourhood, because this is how the organizations involved give a clearly defined boundary.
Within this boundary goals are set, recipients of aid defined, activities carried out and budget spent
the definition of ‘community’ that organizations end up with is that it is merely ‘where we work’
Some value in this approach?
Includes diverse groups who may or may not have a common interest
Working at the local scale can help to identify local problems and come up with local solutions
Positive intervention which doesn’t challenge existing social relations within the community
But what’s wrong with this approach?
The Myth of Community: Four major problems
Communities are NOT a uniform, homogenous entity lacking internal conflicts and divisions
Power systems at the local level
The problem of participation as a method of engagement with communities
Differences within households (gender, age, disability, etc.)
1. Divisions and conflicts within communities
Communities are “a romantic idea”
Notion of community falsely implies unity, collaboration, cooperation and sharing
Uniformity is rare in terms of class, ethnicity, livelihood, or wealth
But in reality, the ‘community’ in most cases is a collection of different class groups arranged in a structure of power relations linked to which group has more or less ownership of land.
“Communities are complex and often not united. There will be differences in wealth, social status and labour activity between people living in the same area and there may be more serious divisions within the community” – Twigg (2009)
In many cases, no social cohesion and collaboration but conflict, friction, and intra-community exploitation
E.g., in ‘community’ in a city in India: rich had created boundary walls which pushed water to poorer households
Class/caste
Social discrimination: don’t feel same part of community
E.g., in project in India, volunteer from higher caste said there was no point talking to people from lower castes as they are unable to grasp key concepts being discussed and provide meaningful input
Another example: those from higher caste, don’t want to work together with those from other castes because didn’t want to participate as ‘equals’
Urban communities
Often in developing Asia, many migrants -> lack of social cohesion/trust
Second, in rural areas: villagers work together (e.g., farming together) which lead to shared values and more social cohesion. In contrast, wage laborers or work informally – but not together. So also less cohesion
Third, in poor urban communities, evicted or some forced to move -> new groupings of people -> less social cohesion
2. Power relations within communities
Some groups and individuals within groups have more power
Internal divisions are related to power systems
Power systems create unequal vulnerabilities to disasters
For example, land tenure: the ways that land (especially rural land) is owned and controlled by different classes.
Most landless and land-poor households have to labour on other people’s land. Landowners have a lot of power
E.g., following disaster, commons for land owners to give credit/loans to landless people.
This can lead to the poor being effectively tied to the landlord for many years, in a form of debt bondage.
Highly unequal access to land debunks simplistic ideas about community.
Land and the power it gives or takes away create diverse patterns of vulnerability
Elite Capture
Local elites within communities: community leaders, landowners, etc.
Those who have power are able to use it (either during the project or after it is finished, or both) to acquire the assets or other benefits of the project activities
E.g., in Pakistan, poor and landless peasant households lost crops and homes, while their absentee landlords were able to claim large sums of compensation from the government for damage.
Threatens pre-existing patronage systems
In India, project would popularize water-harvesting in four neighbourhoods (or ‘communities’) that were facing water scarcity.
Would bring substantial benefit to people in these neighbourhoods
Their elected representative had a very negative attitude towards the project
he allegedly provided water tankers in the summer for political allegiance and electoral funds in local elections
Another example from India
Project organized volunteers to collect and dispose garbage to protect drains from blockage and to help get rid of storm water to prevent flooding.
This change threatened the existing, malfunctioning system of waste management that was allegedly a source of kickbacks for the local politician
So local elites could either benefit from project, sabotage it, or stop it from continuing afterwards
So overall, DRR projects may disturb (or worsen) the existing power relations
Examples from my research in Bangkok
North vs South: 1) northern community leader used money from government to develop the north while south remained a slum but still same community
He and others in north opposed project to upgrade housing in community and move community away from canal because he would lose his ‘land’ from it from which he encroached
Southern side wanted to split into two communities but district office in Bangkok opposed it saying there were too many communities
Mayor in Bang Bua Thong, a town on outskirts of Bangkok, gave more relief packages and boats to households who voted for him. But also compensation
Problems with participation
Any ideas?
Participatory exercises are often public events that are open ended regarding target groups and programme activities. Thus, such events are inherently political and the resulting project design is often shaped by local power and gender relations.
Outside agendas are often expressed as local knowledge. Project facilitators shape and direct participatory exercises, and the ‘needs’ of local people are often shaped by perceptions of what the project can deliver.
Participants may concur in the process of problem definition and planning in order to manipulate the programme to serve their own interests. Although their concurrence can benefit both project staff and local people, it places consensus and action above detailed planning.
Participatory processes can be used to legitimize a project that has previously established priorities and little real support from the community.
Have to work with oppressive local leaders
Need to contact (and get the approval of) the local government officials and local ‘leaders’
In village in India, DRR researcher found that ‘head of the village’ had murdered 2 field laborer union leaders because they asked for higher wages from him
After that, unlikely poor people and others would express own views if different than his
4. Differences within households
What are some differences?
Differences within households: gender, age, disability,
Need to take into account these differences in terms of vulnerability to disasters
Group exercise #1
Please discuss differences in vulnerability to disasters of these groups and the reasons why
Think about the different phases of the disaster cycle: preparedness, impacts, emergency response/relief, and recovery
1) Women
2) Minority race/ethnicity
3) Children
4) Elderly
5) Disabled (blind, deaf, etc.)
Women
Cannot be understood outside of patriarchy and global capitalism
E.g., men migrate to find work and leave women behind in rural environment or risky urban settlements
Primary resource users, many depend on natural resource based livelihoods
Responsible for dependents in households
Gender inequality due to unfair barriers to education and achievement, cultural devaluation of women, gender division of labor, and gender violence
Gendered vulnerability to disasters
The “digital divide” in cyberspace (unequal access to computers and the Internet) is a limiting factor in many cultures – constrains access to warnings
studies of major destructive events in the developing world, girls and women are highly vulnerable to the effects of environmental disasters and are the majority of those killed
Reasons: family care, physical health, and reproductive status
But also gendered division of labor is a powerful explanation – puts adult women and men in physically different locations.
E.g., when 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami wave came ashore in many Sri Lankan villages, men out fishing survived more often than women waiting on the beach to prepare and market the day’s catch
Women’s access to health care before disasters can deteriorate further in the aftermath, as was reported of low-income Katrina survivors who depended upon diabetes clinics
Women have lower caloric intake than men, partially due to social inequalities, especially impoverished ones, makes them physically weaker and more prone to injury/death
But also difficult for pregnant women
women at greater risk of post-disaster stress
Higher risk of emotional abuse and violence in aftermath of diseases
Caregiving responsibilities – must take of children – puts them more at risk
Gender bias in recovery programs may also deter women’s recovery -> e.g., Women more likely to denied small-business loans and access to disaster-relief programs
Securing relief falls largely to women
Women’s group actively involved in crisis period
However, women are less involved in decision-making and planning processes -> often excluded
E.g., small minority of emergency managers in Australia
But also women have disproportionate burden to care for victims
Women’s economic status and family roles are formidable barriers in the race for affordable housing, making women more dependent on temporary accommodations
More positively
Women organize at grassroots levels to manage risk and respond to disasters
Following Hurricane Katrina, many women who were community activists prior to the storm stepped into advocacy roles for equity in disaster relief and recovery
A network of women’s organizations, called Rise Together for Women in East Japan Disaster, united to promote the rights of women and other vulnerable populations who were affected by the “triple disaster” of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in 2011.
Racial/ethnic minorities and disaster
Language barrier (warnings, talking to emergency agencies, filling out forms afterwards, etc.)
Less trust in authorities
Different degree of social networks (e.g., some minorities would have fewer)
Often higher fatalities: rate of blacks injured from hurricanes much higher in the US
Higher degree of emotional stress/injury
Racism in response – e.g., response workers in US restored power first to white communities
Media bias: media focuses on majority communities -> contributes to their recovering quicker
Racism in relief/compensation: government gave less relief and/or compensation money to minorities
In Thailand: government agencies only gave relief to Thai citizens not overseas workers, such as Cambodians Burmese, even though millions work there
Cultural differences/misunderstanding: don’t take into account native culture and lifestyle
E.g., American government rebuilt houses for Inuits in Alaska with small kitchens and large living rooms but their family life centered on kitchens
Similar to women, less access to finance
More positively
Racial groups have formed community groups, political coalitions and pushed for change after discrimination experience during and after disasters
Some coalitions were successful in improving living conditions of minorities in the US
Also can open political dialogues about racism/discrimination
Elderly
Researchers have found that the elderly, which are people aged 65 and over, constitute a group especially at risk to disasters.
This intensified risk is due to their lower likelihood to receive warnings, higher reluctance to evacuate, and higher probability to become physical casualties as a result of disaster
In comparison to those who are younger, elderly are more susceptible to injury, economic losses, employment interruptions, and accruement of large debts
Number of characteristics of the elderly, such as living alone, smaller social circles, and fewer resources, causes them to be more vulnerable, psychologically and physically, to disasters
There is differential vulnerability within this group: the old-old (75 years and older) are more vulnerable than the young-old (65-74 years old) because on average, the old-old are less affluent, active, and independent
Post-Katrina demographic analyses found that rather than race, old age was the most accurate predictor of the likelihood of death from the hurricane
Richard Blewitt, the head of HelpAge International, an NGO focusing on assisting older people, stated, “In an emergency, older people’s lives are affected by many factors. These include inaccessible food distribution points, rations that are too heavy to carry or too difficult to digest and a tendency to share their rations with family members. Also, relief agencies often fail to recognise the needs of older people, even when they are caring for children”
Thailand 2011 Floods
The elderly were highly vulnerable to the floods for a number of reasons
First, many elderly decided not to evacuate because they never thought the water level would rise as high as it did. Such high-level flooding had never occurred during their lifetimes.
Second, many were worried about having their property stolen if they left their houses
Third, it was physically more difficult for the elderly to venture out into flooded areas to receive relief supplies
Those who didn’t evacuate had trouble accessing sufficient healthcare – roads blocked, had to use boats -> some died as a result
Higher rate of illness: flood-related stress was either a trigger for their illnesses or they became sick because of the dirty stale water and difficult living conditions
Limited incomes -> government doesn’t give much pension
Children
Any other groups with vulnerabilities?
Disabled: both mentally and physically
Sexual minorities: gay, lesbian, transsexual
Group exercise #2
Develop a disaster risk reduction plan in a community (which doesn’t have elite capture) for these groups in an Asian country:
A. Women
B. Ethnic minority
C. Elderly/children – you pick
D. Disabled (blind/deaf/mentally disabled)
1) Pick the type of disaster
2) Pick the country
How could community-based DRR work?
The interventions being proposed can take place for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable without needing to change existing power relations.
Powerful people and institutions are incorporated into the DRR and CCA process, and have a common interest in supporting the measures being taken.
Because they recognize the common dangers of worse disasters and climate change, the powerful realize they need to transfer resources or raise poor people’s income so that vulnerability and poverty are reduced.
The DRR and CCA interventions challenge the status quo in a way that is unacceptable to the powerful, who may pretend to cooperate while subverting the process or capturing its benefits (during or after the project).
Culture and disasters
What is culture?
Culture is the pattern of ideas, values, and beliefs common to a different group of people.
So includes religion, traditional values/customs, folklore, superstitions, folklore, etc.
How does it affect vulnerability/risk to disaster?
Cultural factors play a large part in determining perspectives, influencing whether people decide to make changes that will minimize current and future vulnerability
But little attention has been paid to how cultural systems influence society’s perceptions of and responses to natural hazards, even though these influence choices about livelihoods, priorities, and values
Reviews of DRR and adaptation activities show that cultural issues continue to be poorly addressed in policy and science.
Examples
Can you think of any?
In 1963 at Mount Agung in Bali, Indonesia, more than 1,000 people were killed in a procession heading towards lava flows, believing the flows were their gods descending to greet them
In Central America, the more fatalistic and individualistic Evangelical Protestants were less likely to be involved in DRR projects, because their religious doctrine dictated that humans have no power over such divine forces
Most Pacific island people consider that their devotion to God is sufficient to protect them from harm
In Kenya, traditional ceremonies are forms of coping strategies. The community response to drought includes prayer. Praying often involves other actions, which bring together the community. This makes them better prepared mentally, and sometimes physically, to deal with hazard.
Many Filipinos believed that disasters are acts of God
How does this affect vulnerability to disasters?
Therefore must take account of people’s own beliefs and attitudes to the hazards that are embedded in their lives
Studies have shown that strongly held sociocultural values, such as those embedded in caste systems, do shift as the need arises
Acknowledgment that culture is not stationary in time, but, rather, that it is dynamic and can adapt to changes in environment and society
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