After the tsunami : the remaking of everyday life in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Samuels, A. (2012)

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation addresses the question of what it means to remake everyday life in the shadow of disaster. Focusing on the city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in the years after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004, it explores how tsunami survivors have been remaking the everyday ever since that moment. Based on ethnographic research in the post-disaster years, the five chapters of this dissertation discuss various dimensions of the remaking of everyday life that were important to the tsunami survivors, including the reconstruction of houses, interactions between survivors, international organizations and the state, the narrative experiences of the tsunami, the process of grieving and its entanglement with Islam, the creation of collective memory and forgetfulness in urban space, and ideas about the future that build on notions of moral and socio-economic improvement. In these chapters the concept of subjectivity is used to show how individuals creatively shape their lives in the context of tremendous social, economic, and political changes. The dissertation concludes that the anthropology of disaster, that has up to now predominantly focused on post-disaster social change and continuity and on structural historical patterns of vulnerability and resilience, can be enriched by ethnographic studies of subjectivity.

• Aceh
• Disaster
• Emotions
• Indonesia
• Islam
• Memory
• Narrative
• Reconstruction
• Subjectivity
• Time

• All authors: Samuels, A.
• Supervisor: Spyer, P.E.
• Committee: Good, B.J.; Schulte Nordholt, H.G.C.; Barendregt, B.A.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University
• Date: 2012-11-29
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden