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The Material Dimension of Coping: Socioculturally Mediated Biophysical Process

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Abstract

The material, or biophysical, dimension of disaster coping seems obvious: lives need to be saved, emergency food and shelter provided, and communities rebuilt. What can an approach from cultural psychology contribute to this “hard” side of coping? In formulating an analytical perspective on the material dimension of coping, this chapter highlights the instrumental–symbolic value of biophysical objects. When assistance is provided or denied, much more is at stake than purely practical transactions of money, goods, or labor: the transactions contain a communicative element and (re)produce social relations because they are embedded in sociocultural webs of practice and meaning. This chapter analyzes how material features of coping unfold in complex social and psychological processes, tracing the dynamics of material resource loss in relation to the 2006 Java earthquake and compensation or gain in its aftermath. By highlighting subjective experiences, including emotional responses, ascribed values and meanings, as well as strategies and attitudes, prevailing disaster management perspectives are extended.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Our interview data provide us with a first-degree interpretative account of these material features, while a second-degree interpretation of qualitative research analysis is presented here.

  2. 2.

    Communication networks reportedly did not break down immediately, and some mobile phones could be used on occasion to contact relatives or the emergency services.

  3. 3.

    Memories of the arrival of external aid vary between villages, neighborhoods, and individual households.

  4. 4.

    These accounts mirror Wilson and Reilly’s (2007) consternation over the insufficient coordination of agencies, especially in the emergency phase, leading to both oversupply and shortages.

  5. 5.

    In general, telecommunication lines were back to normal after 5 days (GYSP 2008). However, because the power network took 3 weeks to be restored, people had to wait in long queues to charge their mobile phones in neighboring villages or the next field hospital.

  6. 6.

    Relief goods consisted of food, including baby milk and drinking water, as well as nonfood items such as clothes, blankets, towels, lamps, cooking equipment, first-aid kits and medicine, and toiletries, including gender-specific products. People further received religious supplies, such as women’s hijabs and prayer mats. To enable self-help activities, tools and cleaning-up kits were distributed.

  7. 7.

    However, this retrospective evaluation needs to be interprather, to relate to problems withinreted with caution as it is highly selective with respect to relief items, with a strong emphasis on food items. Further, the interview context may have fostered the reproduction of a culturally normative positive bias.

  8. 8.

    Reconstruction-related issues of distribution and social conflict are treated in Chap. 14.

  9. 9.

    Entitlement depended on the level of destruction, measured in four categories, as issued by the National Coordination Body for Disaster Management. In Yogyakarta province, 15 million IDR were paid for totally collapsed and heavily damaged houses, 4 million for partially damaged, and 1 million for lightly damaged houses (Hayashi et al. 2008). Figures varied in Central Java province, where a maximum of 20 million IDR were allocated.

  10. 10.

    Our findings concur with Hayashi et al. (2008), who found that, if at all, gotong royong was resorted to for construction of T-shelters.

  11. 11.

    According to a joint study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Coordination Center (UNCC), more than 70 % of micro- and medium-size enterprises invested their savings, borrowed money, or sold valuables to restore their businesses (quoted in Subagyo and Irawan 2008, p. 23.6). In liquidating these capital reserves, recovery increased vulnerability to other possible risks.

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Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Robert Parkin for his assistance in editing this chapter.

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Correspondence to Mechthild von Vacano .

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von Vacano, M. (2014). The Material Dimension of Coping: Socioculturally Mediated Biophysical Process. In: Zaumseil, M., Schwarz, S., von Vacano, M., Sullivan, G., Prawitasari-Hadiyono, J. (eds) Cultural Psychology of Coping with Disasters. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9354-9_9

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