Cultural Norms and Practices in Resilience of Indonesians’ Natural Disaster Survivors

Abstract

As a country located between two rings of fire, Indonesia experiences lots of natural disaster: earthquake, tsunami and eruption. It is expected that people in areas often affected have an ability to live with disasters that can happen anytime. This article reports a series of study aiming to identify the cultural norms and practices associated with the resilience of the natural disaster survivors from Bogor (Sundanese ethnic), Mount Lokon (Minahasa's ethnic), Mount Merapi (Javanese ethnic), and Mount Sinabung (Karonese ethnic) area. Two hundred fiftyfive participants from these four areas took part in this study, using interviews or focus group discussion. Results show that for all, belief in God's sovereignty and gotong royong (working as a team) are prevalent. But across cultures, there are differences as well, reflecting each culture's uniqueness. For Sundanese, surrender to God, endurance, and stay with families are important while for Minahasanese and Batak Karonese, doing good is seen as paying respect to Mount Lokon and Mount Sinabung, respectively. For Javanese, paying respect to elders, nrimo and ikhlas (accepting difficult conditions), and safety rituals, are important cultural norms and/or practices. One implication for this study is that understanding the cultural norms and practices of each culture is important for helping disaster survivors get healed from traumatic experiences and resume into normal life.