4.1.3 “Javanese” Psychologies 6
4.3 Selection and Characteristics of our Research Sites
(Law No. 24),15 which emphasizes coordination between different governmental bodies (Hamengku Buwono X2008). The bill promotes an integrative approach to disaster management, demanding equal participation for all parties involved, from the private sector, civil society, and the local and national governments. It strengthens the role of the community in disaster risk management. Focus is put on development, prevention, empowerment, and avoiding harm alongside the provision of help. The law paved the way for the National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction (NAP-DRR) 2006–2009, which is designed to integrate risk reduction and development planning on all administrative levels (PDRSEA2008).16For the first time, a gender perspective was also taken into account (Sastriyani et al.2008).
Table 4.1 Indicators for Economic and Sociopolitical Characteristics
Mulya Sari Sido Kabul Sendang
Populationa about 670 about 590 about 610
Households below poverty line (desa)b
6.01 % 10.24 % 13.35 %
Average percentage of households owning a motorbikea
64 % 62 % n/a
Total number of cars/trucks per hamlet (dusun)a
5 6 3
Civil servantsa 11 21 8
Police/Military personnela 0 3 5
Religious affiliationa Majority Islam Majority Islam Majority Islam 3 Christian
households
1 Christian household
15 Christian households
Number of mosquesa 1 1 4
aVillage field notes 2011
bESCG (2006) citing Satkorlak DIY
the poorest, with 13 % of its population living below the poverty line. This is followed by Sido Kabul, with 10 %, and the village encompassing Mulya Sari with the lowest percentage of only 6 % (see Table4.1).17The livelihood in all three of our research sites was based on agriculture, supplemented by micro-businesses (see Sect. 4.1.5),18 each with a small number of factory workers and government employees, such as civil servants, police, or military personnel. As we will discuss in Chaps. 9 and 10, civil servants not only have an elevated socioeconomic status, but also played an important role in the disaster aftermath for the acquisition of aid, since they were familiar with government procedures and formal requirements, such as proposals.
Police or military personnel were often stationed outside the villages, but could mobilize aid drops or volunteer “troops” from afar. Comparing our research sites, Sido Kabul had 21 civil servant residents, more than twice the number that Sendang had (8), even though both villages were approximately the same size. Sendang, on the other hand, had five police or military employees, in comparison to Sido Kabul which had three and Mulya Sari with none. Another indicator of wealth in the villages and practical resources for emergency self-help were the number of vehicles.
More than 60 % of the households (in Mulya Sari and Sido Kabul) had motorbikes, whereas the total number of households per hamlet owning a truck or a car ranged between three and six. From these figures and our qualitative data, generalizations about the socioeconomic characteristics of the three research sites are difficult, since an increased poverty rate in combination with a high number of civil servants and cars does not tell us about the average economic level in the village. It may point to
17Within the Bantul district these figures range from 4 to 22 %.
18These livelihoods and businesses are hardly captured by statistical surveys. The availability of detailed demographic data also varied between our research sites, depending, for example, on the implementation of specific vulnerability analysis programs, such as in Sido Kabul.
a gap between rich and poor; however, the indicators available seem too weak for such a conclusion.
As social criteria, we had planned to sample according to religious and political affiliation as well as cultural orientation. While data on nominal religious affiliation (agama) were easily attained, the varieties of Islam, as portrayed in Sect. 4.1.2, were impossible to assess or even survey. Similar difficulties in operationalization were related to other sample criteria of sociopolitical differences. In our subsequent qualitative interview data, religious or political self-positioning was mainly implicit, or simply absent. Therefore, we would only be able to position a few interviewees with regard to their religious or political attitudes, and are reluctant to formulate religious or political village profiles based on incomplete data. If relevant, we chose to indicate individual interviewee’s positions in our data analysis in Chaps. 9–16.
If we compare the number of mosques in our three village sites, Sendang stands out for having four, whereas the other similarly sized hamlets had only one each.
This was despite Sendang being the village with the largest Christian minority. This quantitative marker points to Sendang as an active field of competing religious lead-ers, especially if we consider the fact that before the earthquake, Sendang had only two mosques and one prayer house.
4.3.2 Disaster Impact
The level of physical destruction in our research sites correlates to their geographic proximity to the epicenter of the tremor. Almost all houses were destroyed (declared as uninhabitable) in Sendang and Sido Kabul, both located about 2 km from the epicenter.19In Mulya Sari, 10 km from the epicenter, destruction was vast, but com-parably less (see Table4.2). As the statistical data provided by the local government (desa) confirm, the majority of the houses were classified as uninhabitable, but about one quarter was deemed as still habitable. Subjective accounts of the level of destruc-tion in the three villages roughly match the government-provided data. These data refer to one administrative level higher (desa) than the units of our research (dusun) and shows some (traceable) inconsistencies20, but it can still serve as a rough indi-cator for comparison of our three villages. In addition to the differences in homes destroyed, the number of casualties in the villages was also affected by distance from
19Most houses had been simple one-story brick constructions. But size and quality of pre-disaster housing varied significantly, relative to socioeconomic status. In Sendang, for example, a wealthy government employee had lived in an impressive two-story building, the only such construction in the village. A widow’s humble dwelling was described by her neighbors as a “chicken stall”, worth a maximum of 300,000 IDR (about 320 US$). Only three buildings had the old iconic Javanese architecture of a joglo, which are strong wooden constructions.
20The logically impossible percentage of destroyed houses above 100 % points to the difficulties of sound statistical data in this research context. It shows that more households reported the destruction of their houses than registered to even exist. This fact probably points to incomplete pre-disaster data and the increase of household claiming reconstruction funds in the disaster aftermath.
Table 4.2 Disaster Impact and Recovery Aid
Mulya Sari Sido Kabul Sendang
Distance to epicentera (km)
About 10 About 2 About 2
Geographic risk zonea Tsunami, earthquake Earthquake Earthquake
Level of destructiona Medium high–high High High
Uninhabitable houses (desa)b(%)
77 108 106
Fatalitiesa 2 7 16
Reconstruction aida Gov. reconstruction, JRF, no further programs
Gov. reconstruction, JRF, additional programs
Gov. reconstruction, JRF, additional programs Increase of
householdsa(%)
13 11 24
Increase of households (desa)b(%)
−2.42 18.76 31.09
Livelihood recovery programsa
No NGO involvement
High NGO involvement
Low NGO involvement
aVillage filed notes 2009
bCalculation based on data from ESCG (2006) citing Satkorlak DIY and Province of Yogyakarta Statistics Office
the epicenter. Sendang mourned 16 community members, Sido Kabul 7, and Mulya Sari 2.
The villages’ geographic locations, in relation to their distances to the sea, also determined tsunami risk. Due to its geographic proximity to the sea, only Mulya Sari qualifies as a tsunami risk zone, whereas Sido Kabul and Sendang are situated much further inland. Interestingly, however, there was a rumor of a tsunami circulating in all villages.
4.3.3 Reconstruction Aid
The amount of reconstruction aid received by the three villages corresponds with the relative level of destruction of each village. Sido Kabul and Sengang received several reconstruction programs from the nongovernmental or private sector, supple-menting the government reconstruction program. Mulya Sari residents could only count on the government reconstruction fund and a few additional houses provided by the Java Reconstruction Fund (JRF). The statistics further point to the side effect of an increase in households after the earthquake, which can be interpreted as an indicator for the availability of reconstruction resources (see Sect. 9.3). With regard to livelihood recovery programs, however, Sido Kabul had attracted by far the most NGOs, which not only provided funds for microcredit groups, but also pursued a transformative agenda with regard to social village structures, such as gender main-streaming (see Chap. 16). Sido Kabul was also the only village in which disaster preparedness efforts were institutionalized through a disaster preparedness group (kelompok tanggap bencana or KTB).
Our three research sites have diverse village characteristics, although clear-cut characterizations prove difficult. Varieties within the villages, for example, between different neighborhood units (RT), offered insight into different social dynamics and economic resources. Our research sites were severely affected by the earthquake, with a slight gap between the coastal Mulya Sari and the further inland communities of Sido Kabul and Sendang, located closer to the earthquake’s epicenter. Combined with the micro-level sampling criteria of households and persons, our data cover a significant range of structural and sociopolitical features which potentially shaped the way Bantul residents coped with the 2006 earthquake.