Resilience in a Global Disaster: The Local in Disaster-Induced Compressed Globalization

Abstract

There is something of an axiom in the literature on disasters and post-disaster rehabilitation/reconstruction that states that the poor are the most vulnerable and the least resilient when faced with large-scale destruction caused by a sudden-onset disaster. Based on 6 months of fieldwork from January to July 2006 in Nagapattinam District, Tamil Nadu, this article argues that this ‘axiom’ is distorting and potentially harmful in those situations where the disastrous event ‘goes global’. The ‘global tsunami’ caused the disaster process to implode back on the affected countries as actors converged laden with resources, projects and policies. In many disaster situations, the convergence after the disaster gives rise to a ‘disaster boom economy’ and an (acceptable-) recipient scarcity (as opposed to resource scarcity). The post-Indian Ocean Tsunami situation saw resource abundance within some communities, while others were destitute. Based on ethnographic material from Nagapattinam District, the argument is that vulnerability, resilience and the distribution of ‘power’ after a disaster is, in cases where the disaster ‘goes global’, not simply an aspect of the ‘local’ society but of a global process that occurs in a historical, symbolic, political and economic landscape.

Keywords:

• India
• disasters
• development
• globalization
• resilience
• vulnerability

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the participants of the workshop and the anonymous reviews that helped lift the article with valuable questions and comments.

Notes

^†A draft of this article was first presented at the Norwegian Association for Development Research Conference 2010.

¹The fieldwork was part of my master's degree in social anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. This paper further explores some aspects of the MA thesis: “Rich Man Low, Poor Man High – A study of compressed globalization after the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster in Vailankanni, India.”(Lindanger, 2010).

²‘Catamaran’ in the original meaning of the word: roughly hewn logs lashed together. Etymological roots from Tamil: kattu-maram meaning tied wood (Online Etymology Dictionary).

³The southeastern coast of the Indian subcontinent.

⁴A more in-depth discussion of the process of entification and reification and of framing and managing the tsunami victim can be found in Rich Man Low, Poor Man high (Lindanger, 2010, pp. 66–117).

⁵The landscapes which inform the entification are discussed in more depth in Rich Man Low, Poor Man High (Lindanger, 2010).

⁶For a brief description of notable disasters and major institutional developments responding to these in India, see Lindanger (2010, pp. 68–70).

⁷In this case, the NCRC as the local transmitter and the local communities as ‘the local’.