Abstract
In Southern Thailand, tourism-related businesses and small-scale fisheries were among the sectors that were hardest hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Drawing on an extensive literature review, conversational-style interviews and an innovative recovery profiling methodology used in the most affected province Phang Nga, this chapter discusses the factors that enabled or constrained small enterprises in the tourism, fishery and farm sector in the process of recovering from the disastrous impact of the tsunami. We find that small businesses benefitted from individual support systems in their social networks and from a diversification of their business strategies rather than from government support and large-scale donations by international organizations. The second part of the chapter looks into the particular case of the expanding birds’ nest business in one coastal community that had suffered from nearly complete destruction by the tsunami. Our results show that the production of birds’ nests in specially designed buildings has primarily benefitted the wealthier and politically well-connected families in the village and outside investors who own more than half of the birds’ nest houses. We conclude that post-disaster economic recovery can deepen income disparities and may disrupt the sense of community if local elites and absentee business owners are able to take advantage of the lack of sound governance structures in the aftermath of a major natural disaster.
Keywords
- Coastal communities
- Disaster recovery
- Fisheries
- Southeast Asia
- Tourism
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Notes
- 1.
According to Nidhiprabha (<CitationRef CitationID="CR14” >2007</Citation Ref>; cited in Larsen et al. <CitationRef CitationID="CR11” >2011</Citation Ref>), damages and losses resulting from the tsunami disaster in Phuket accounted for 90 % of the province’s GDP, while in Phang Nga Province they equalled 70 % of GDP.
- 2.
Burmese migrant workers have been referred to as the “Tsunami’s invisible victims”, as many deaths were never recorded, and most of the survivors felt left out of the relief efforts (e.g. Maw <CitationRef CitationID="CR12” >2006</Citation Ref>; Rigg et al. <CitationRef CitationID="CR19” >2012</Citation Ref>).
- 3.
The edible-bird swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus) is a member of the swift family found in coastal areas in Southeast Asia. The nest is made of hardened saliva from the male swiftlet and is soaked and steamed to make bird’s nest soup, considered a delicacy with medicinal and aphrodisiac properties in East and Southeast Asia.
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Neef, A., Panyakotkaew, A., Elstner, P. (2015). Post-Tsunami Recovery and Rehabilitation of Small Enterprises in Phang Nga Province, Southern Thailand. In: Shaw, R. (eds) Recovery from the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55117-1_31
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