Impending doom? : the creative destruction of natural disaster and perceptions of risk in the Pondok neighborhood, Kota Padag, Indonesia

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Impending Doom?

The Creative Destruction of Natural Disaster and Perceptions of

Risk in the Pondok Neighborhood, Kota Padang, Indonesia

Student: Anna Aris (11753692) Word count: 26988

Supervisor: Dr. Laurens Bakker MSc Social and Cultural Anthropology (GSSS) 1st reader: Dr. Yatun Sastramidjaja Date of submission: 27th of August 2018 2nd reader: Dr. Danny de Vries anna.aris123@gmail.com

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2 Abstract.

Located on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, lies the city Padang. Luxurious villas, hotels, improvised slum houses and endless food stalls – a quick stroll through town shows the observer that the cityscape of Padang is very dynamic. Nevertheless, the majority of the buildings have one thing in common: their height. To minimize the risk of collapse whenever another earthquake hits the city, most houses have a maximum of two floors. The absence of skyscrapers can make it difficult to fathom the vastness of the city, but do not be mistaken: Padang is currently inhabited by approximately one million people. The population has quadrupled since the 1980s, making Padang the biggest city in the region. With many new businesses opening their doors, an improving infrastructure and Padang’s famous cuisine, this might not be a surprise.

There is, however, something peculiar about this development: The city is situated next to an enormous tectonic fault line called the Sunda megathrust. At this moment, the megathrust is burdened with over 200 years of accumulated stress, making the city prone to regular

earthquakes. While such earthquakes have indeed happened frequently, the Sunda megathrust has not ruptured since 1797, which is necessary to relax the segment. Researchers therefore expect that this will result in a massive combined earthquake and tsunami with the potential to destroy Padang entirely.

The question that remains, then, is why Padang still gains popularity as a city to work and live in. How, if at all, do Padang citizens experience this impending doom? Is the city ‘ready’ for such a disaster (will it ever be?), and what is the government’s role in ensuring its citizens’ safety? This thesis offers insight into the ways in which Padang citizens imagine, experience and deal with the looming disaster. As the case of Padang illustrates, notions of disaster are heterogeneous, and disaster mitigation governors would do well to approach disaster as such.

Key words: natural hazards, disaster mitigation, vulnerability, neoliberalism, governance, agency

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Declaration: I have read and understood the University of Amsterdam plagiarism policy [http://student.uva.nl/mcsa/az/item/plagiarism-and-fraud.html?f=plagiarism]. I declare that this assignment is entirely my own work, all sources have been properly acknowledged, and that I have not previously submitted this work, or any version of it, for assessment in any other paper.

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I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude to all who have supported me in writing this thesis. First and foremost, I want to thank all the kind people from Padang that took the time to tell their stories and put effort in exploring the city with me, those who introduced me to the (delicious!) Padang cuisine, and everyone who welcomed me into a city over 10,000 kilometers away from Amsterdam. In particular, I am eternally grateful to my interpreter and friend Yulius, who consistently and unconditionally helped me throughout my fieldwork and who was always up for a good conversation. Thank you, ibu kos, for the clean, spacious room and the late-night martabak – I think we have now established that language barriers really do not matter in making someone feel at home. Many thanks to Ucok, Fanny and Ezzi for the fun and for being excellent tour guides on my very first day, to professor Maskota Delfi, for giving me the opportunity to become an exchange student at Universitas Andalas and for guiding and facilitating my fieldwork, and lastly, many thanks to all the Go-Jek drivers for the wild rides to my field and for keeping me alive.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my supervisor Laurens Bakker for his enthusiasm and the endless (sometimes poetry-like) constructive comments on my work in progress, and for initiating the project in Padang in the first place. Thank you for giving me the space to carry out the research in my own ways while steering me into the right directions when needed. I would also like to thank my other instructors and class mates from this year for the laughs, inspiration and peer reviews.

Lastly, I want to stress how humbled I am by my family, my friends and Unu, who all

provided me with the unconditional support and encouragement (and distracted me whenever necessary), and express my gratitude to Andra, with whom I have endured countless writing sessions and who took the time and effort to proof-read my work.

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6 Introduction: The city on the move

With barely any skyscrapers in sight the city of Padang, a coastal city in West Sumatra, Indonesia, has a small-town character but is very vibrant nonetheless. The various layers of history and culture are clearly visible in its cityscape: Rumah makans 1 are settled in the remnants of colonial buildings built by the Dutch; the pointy roofs of many offices, in line with traditional local architecture, are interspersed with brand-new cosmopolitan hotels and coffee shops; countless mopeds pass the extensively decorated tents in which weddings are held, set up in the middle of the highway; the calls to prayer from the mosques are mixed with church bells and the smell of incense rising from the Confucian temples – the city is

continuously moving, evolving, being redefined. At the time of writing, Padang is home to approximately one million inhabitants, most of which are of Minangkabau descent – an ethnic group derived from animalist religions that upholds matrilineal traditions and later-accepted Islamic beliefs and practices. While the Minangkabau are a minority in Indonesia overall, they are the vast majority in Sumatra in which Padang is the epicenter of Minangkabau culture. Here, they live together with a number of other ethnic groups, among which a Hindu, a Nias and a Chinese community. The Minangkabau, however, clearly outnumber those – and they are vastly increasing in number. There are many reasons why Padang is an appealing city to live and work in – it has a renowned cuisine, many new businesses that are opening their doors, and a generally peaceful ambiance. Moreover, the Minangkabau centeredness in the city offers a sense of belonging and purpose to Minangkabau from the surrounding highlands, many of whom already have some family members or friends living in Padang. Therefore, it seems to no one’s surprise that Padang’s population has roughly quadrupled since the 1980s (Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia 2010; Badan Pusat Statistik Kota Padang 2016).

There is, however, something very peculiar and worrisome about the rapid population growth, which has to do with the location of Padang. Deep down in the Indian Ocean lies the Great Sumatran Fault, an enormous fault line surrounding Indonesia almost entirely. It happens to be the case that the Great Sumatran Fault comes together with the West Andaman Fault in a place called the Sunda megathrust, a subduction zone where the one tectonic plate plunges beneath the other, approximately 60 kilometers from Padang’s coast (Ghosal et al. 2012). That means seismic activity in the region is high. The subduction zone has triggered a series of earthquakes and tsunamis among which the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that had a

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magnitude of 9.0 on the scale of Richter (or Mw = 9.0) and, more important for the contents of

this thesis, the 2009 Padang earthquake (Mw = 7.6). The latter left behind an estimate of over

1,000 casualties (Taubenböck et al. 2012). Despite the unfathomable devastation, these hazards were not enough to rupture the megathrust. The rupturing of the megathrust happens roughly once every 200 years – the last time that happened was in 1797 and caused a Mw =

8.7 earthquake. Rupture of the Sunda megathrust is necessary to release over 200 years of accumulated stress, and scientists predict that this is likely to happen in the near future. In other words, another major earthquake (Mw > 8.5) is bound to hit Padang soon, and will in

turn probably trigger a tsunami (McCloskey et al. 2010). As McCloskey et al conclude:

“There is potential for loss of life on the scale of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami…, [and] given the tragic loss of life resulting the September 2009 Padang earthquake, the threat of such an event is clear and the need for urgent mitigating action remains extremely high. It is

imperative that the Indonesian authorities, with the assistance of the international community and non-governmental organizations, ensure that they complete the relief effort and

earthquake-resistant reconstruction following this earthquake, and work with the people in Padang to help prepare them for the next one.” (ibid 2010: 70-71)

That statement, in other words, raises some questions about Padang’s rapid urbanization. The ruins of the 2009 earthquake are a daily reminder that the city has barely digested the previous hazard. As a city that bulges at the seams, is Padang ready for another hazard – will it ever be? What do officials do to ensure their citizens’ safety? Have they, as McClosley et al. (2010) suggests, completed relief efforts and been working together with the people in

Padang? For starters, how are ‘relief efforts’ defined by local agents? And perhaps even more interesting: why does Padang remain so popular among migrants to begin with? Why do they not choose to move somewhere else? How, if at all, is the impending doom experienced by old and new citizens?

Theorizing Risk and Disaster – an anthropological approach

The puzzling case of Padang calls for a reconsideration of disaster, or a risk thereof. For what drives people to live in risky environments? Do they just value short-term economic prospects over long-term safety – and are those two mutually exclusive? Are they irrationally

disregarding the risk of natural disasters, or is there more than meets the eye? To whom exactly is Padang viewed as a place of opportunity, and why? How should terms like risk and disaster be defined to begin with? In an era of human-induced climate change, marked by an

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increase in hurricanes, droughts, floods, and so on, these are pressing questions to consider, and illustrate that natural disasters cannot be fully understood by the natural sciences alone. In the social sciences, and notably in anthropology and cultural studies, these often taken-for-granted concepts are starting to gain momentum as a discourse. Let’s start with the concept of risk. An overview of theoretical approaches to risk is provided in literature reviews by both cultural studies scholar Deborah Lupton (1999) and anthropologist Roanne van Voorst (2014), who has built extensively on the work of Lupton. The proposed frameworks by van Voorst especially are a useful tool with which I have approached my research. Her research was concerned with the ways in which slum-dwellers in Jakarta deal with the risk of floods on a regular basis, and how they perceive such risk of natural hazards amidst a variety of other risks regarding political, economic and social oppression. In many ways, van Voorst’s research is therefore very similar to mine.

The first and most commonly used approach is the techno-scientific perspective 2, which is mostly applied by technical and scientific disciplines and understands risk as the probability of danger or hazards. Risk, put differently, can be calculated and measured. The approach typically depicts risk as “pre-existing in nature”: the danger is ‘out there’, an objective fact, to which a group of people are equally exposed. Human response to risk, according to this perspective, depends on the degree to which an individual rationally deals with the provided information to combat the risk (Lupton 1999: 17-22). The techno-scientific approach is problematic because it neglects the question how risk is constructed as a social fact, and asserts a narrow definition of rational action, so that behavior falling outside that definition is easily seen as irrational. There is a second, more inclusive approach to risk as described by van Voorst (2014), namely the vulnerability perspective. The vulnerability perspective extends the narrow definition of rationality evident in the techno-scientific perspective: it recognizes that people’s abilities to handle risk are limited by the physical and social spaces in which they find themselves, for example when people are economically deprived and are forced to live and work in areas more prone to natural hazards (ibid 2014: 24).

Nevertheless, van Voorst argues that the vulnerability perspective is nothing but an extension of the techno-scientific understanding of risk in the sense that it can only couch vulnerability in the degree to which human beings lack financial stability and access to material resources – and therefore assumes that people will still combat the risk if they have the knowledge and means to do so. Both perspectives still contend that the risk is a given fact, felt by everyone

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who is exposed to it (ibid 2014: 34). Van Voorst calls this the ‘disaster-lens’, with which she refers to Western scholars’ tendency to view risk events as an abnormality invading people’s daily lives. But to many non-Western communities, there are many more risks than natural hazards alone – social isolation, economic deprivation, political oppression, to name a few – that have been incorporated in day-to-day lives. Voorst calls these various risks ‘normal uncertainties’. Decision-making on natural disaster is weighed against many other daily decisions and influences ideas of risk. Rather than focusing on environments in which natural disasters are a possibility, much more interesting for the sake of this thesis and for disaster mitigation studies more generally is to focus on the ways in which people perceive risk and disaster and how such perceptions induce human behavior. By neglecting such emic

perspectives on risk, in short, both the techno-scientific and vulnerability perspective are inherently normative: they stress what people ought to do, and thus fail to understand what truly motivates people to certain behavior.

Lupton (1999) further elaborates on the ways in which human beings have conceptualized risk throughout history. She argues that the shift from pre-modern times to modernity has

accelerated the “fascination” for mapping out and combatting risky situations: Whereas risk was understood as “the possibility of an objective danger, an act of God, a force majeure” in pre-modern times – a notion in which risk is seen as a natural event and in which human responsibility is rarely considered – modernity is marked by the Enlightenment ideals of scientific exploration and rational thinking with the aim to make disorder more orderly and stimulate human progress. This generated a shift towards a conceptualization of risk that could also be located in humanity and in the consequences of their actions. Risk

identification, in other words, is an example of the many ways in which societies deal with gaining and maintaining a sense of societal control. Hence, Lupton argues that the

identification of risk and activities associated with the management of risk are in themselves an ontological process and subject to historical and cultural changes: “To call something a risk is to recognize its importance to our subjectivity and wellbeing…., [it is] central to ordering, function and individual and cultural identity.”

Mary Douglas (1992) sheds further light on the reconceptualization of risk from an objective reality towards a socio-cultural construction. Approaching the concept with what van Voorst calls the ‘cultural risk perspective’ (2014: 36), Douglas poses the question why it is the case that some groups seem to be much less concerned about certain dangers that worry others enormously – both between different societies as well as within them. Risk, according to

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Douglas, is “not about the reality of dangers, but [about] how they are politicized”. Put differently, those in power in a society tend to label something as a risk. At the same time, they neglect other risks in order to legitimize their position, uphold certain policy

implementations and maintain social order – sometimes at the expense of the marginalized. The carefully constructed selectivity of such ‘problematization’ tends to shape which

problems ought to be revealed in moments of crisis, to whom they are revealed, and influence disaster mitigation accordingly (Barrios 2017). Van Voorst points out that we should not forget human agency and autonomy in applying the cultural risk perspective – risk perspectives are not solely dependent on cultural and political processes and can still be ambiguous and inconsistent within the same cultural group (2014:43). Nevertheless, she argues that the cultural risk perspective is very useful in that it allows for a more emic, holistic approach, as it invites us to analyze questions of politics and power. In doing so, it is possible to look beyond what I will call the ‘risk norm’ in a given society: It enables to study the heterogeneity of risk perceptions, and acknowledges the possibility that some perceptions can be obscured and depoliticized. Ethnographic fieldwork has the ability and responsibility to dismantle the hegemonic power inherent in such risk norms by incorporating marginalized communities’ own narratives of disaster and risk (Barrios 2017).

The work of Antony Oliver-Smith (2015), a leading figure in the field of disaster

anthropology, has some fruitful additions to that line of thought in his conceptualization of vulnerability, disaster, and resilience. Oliver-Smith puts forward that natural hazards are not necessarily disastrous to people as such; they only become so when “the totality of

relationships in a given social situation [forms] a condition that, in combination with

environmental forces, produces a disaster” (ibid. 2015: 547). If, for example, Padang would be hit by a tsunami, the neighborhoods located close to the shore will most likely be damaged more than neighborhoods further away. Nevertheless, if the people living in those houses closer to the shore have a well-paying job or political influence, it may be much easier for them to prepare or recover from the tsunami than those with low incomes or those who are discriminated against. Disasters are therefore multidimensional – as they unfold they may involve and affect all social, cultural, political, economic and material relations of a society. Vulnerability, then, is always situational. Not only do disasters make some groups more vulnerable than others – they can also reveal which people and groups in a community were already vulnerable prior to the disaster. Therefore, the key to recovery from disasters is not just a material transfer alone, but the ability to change the social systems that generated

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vulnerability in the first place. Resilience, according to Oliver-Smith, is thus not so much the ability to deter disaster, but to adapt to it. Societies are never static equilibria to begin with; social changes occur naturally. A society may not be the way it once was, but persists despite disturbances (ibid 2015: 547) – hence, the society is resilient. Vulnerabilities and resiliencies are expressions of cultural values about human social and material relations inherent in a given society that can make the event of a natural hazard disastrous. The major challenges for disaster risk reduction, Oliver-Smith therefore argues, should be addressed by the social sciences (ibid 2015).

Three problematic trends in disaster mitigation policies

In short, disaster mitigating practices would do well to take into account such emic perspectives and understand vulnerability as imminent in society. I will argue that anthropology is therefore an extremely useful – perhaps even essential - discipline in addressing the complex nature of disasters or a risk thereof, and especially with regards to policy writing and implementation. Nevertheless, the public debate on disaster and disaster mitigation is still often characterized by a focus on the natural sciences in which the social dimensions at stake tend to be largely oversimplified or omitted altogether. Take, for example, the extensive study on Padang conducted by Taubenböck et al. (2012) After the most recent severe earthquake in 2009, this group of scientists conducted a multisided research on mitigating the effects for future, in which they stress the necessity of turning “science into action”. A variety of graphs and tables are presented throughout the article illustrating the areas that will be exposed the most, buildings that will most likely be damaged, suggested evacuation routes and so on. For example, they have mapped the areas with high risk and low risk – coastal areas are typically marked as being at high risk – and present a formula in which risk can be calculated by means of water depth, horizontal velocity vector and earth acceleration (ibid. 2012: 922). They argue that incorporating social sciences is important here too, but limit this ‘social’ science perspective to an overview of the groups of the population that are most at risk – women, children and elderly, because of physical limitations (ibid. 2012: 927) and the lower classes (ibid. 2012: 925). However, this classification is nowhere connected to their earlier models of risk, and can only express vulnerability in terms of physical and economic limitations. This stems from a simplified interpretation of social worlds that does not always reflect the complexities and messiness of daily life. To exemplify, this is what Taubenböck et al. (2012) conclude:

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Three problems can be identified in such policy recommendations. First of all, without dismissing the validity of these studies as such, their usefulness may and should be questioned. What, in other words, is the point of these programs when they are not

incorporated in and by the communities they claim to support? Why are they in “competition with political, economic and social” interests? Who benefits from their implementation – and are there people who are neglected in the process? Taubenböck et al. do not bother to explain what these local interests are to begin with, and I believe that neglectful attitude lies at the core of the problem at stake. Rather than viewing the proposed mitigating strategies as ideal-type, simplified situations, perhaps the starting point should be to work from the emic principle that disaster mitigation policies do not operate in a vacuum; they affect, are

interpreted by, and acted upon by a variety of people. It is crucial to understand this in order to get rid of the normativity that is apparent in these policies.

That brings me to the second problem, which concerns such studies’ inherently techno-scientific conceptualization of vulnerability and disaster – they view the situation in Padang with van Voorst’s (2014) concept of the disaster-lens. Disaster, from most mitigation policies’ perspective, is a short-period event – an earthquake, for example, or a tsunami. Consequently, vulnerability is then seen as the degree to which human beings are exposed to natural hazards. Mitigating strategies, from this understanding, are most effective when they tackle the kind of hazard that threatens people. But to many people – and in this thesis I will demonstrate that this is most definitely the case in Padang as well – the event of a natural hazard such as an earthquake is not necessarily a disaster as such, or only turns into a disaster during its

aftermath when the event mingles with political, social and economic interests. The question that needs to be posed, in other words, is what exactly is experienced as something disastrous by Padang citizens. Who becomes displaced, for example – and for which reasons? Richard Black (2001), professor in Global Studies, published an article for the UNHCR in which he addresses the intrinsic relation between environmental and social forces in the wake of a

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natural hazard very well. In critically evaluating the term ‘environmental refugee’, Black argues that, while environmental and climate change will undoubtedly affect societies globally and make some places uninhabitable, there has been little consensus in all the literature written on people that have been or will be displaced because of environmental reasons. For instance, those who fled ‘desertification’, those (potentially) displaced by sea level rise and those who have suffered from ‘environmental conflict’ are all coined as ‘environmental refugee’. According to Black, this conceptualization that regards the

environment as the main reason for displacement is unhelpful and especially troublesome for policy making. First of all, the category ‘environmental refugee’ is not acknowledged by international laws, allowing states to refuse asylum to those who are displaced because of environmental reasons. But more importantly, the endless reasons behind environmental migration are obscured by lumping them under one unifying category. Even if ‘environmental refugee’ would be recognized as an official category, it depoliticizes and dehistoricizes the migrant’s background (ibid. 2001).

This is elaborated on further in another recent article by Oliver-Smith (2012). He addresses the multiple factors that enable environmental migration. First, an understanding of the mutuality between society and the environment is important. In an era that is marked by climate change as the result of human activity, Oliver-Smith argues:

“The question of how well a society is adapted to its environment must now be linked to the question of how well an environment fares around a society…, Environmental migration clearly expresses that mutuality …, Both society and nature are highly interactive, incorporating dimensions of the other in their own process” (ibid. 2012: 1063-1064). The environment, in sort, is socially constructed.

Here, I would like to go back again to the concept of vulnerability. As stated before,

vulnerability is not merely created by an abrupt environmental threat, but a social process that expresses cultural values. If environmental change is gradual, or if natural hazards are

frequent to such an extent that they become part of daily life, one might not experience natural disaster itself as the overriding reason to migrate. For example, an increasing lack of natural resources could burden local trade, making it impossible to earn a living. Scarce resources might trigger political conflict, putting those in marginal positions at even more disadvantage. The term ‘environmental refugee’ is therefore not only problematic for the sake of accurate terminology or in relation to legal issues. It also seems to serve as a panacea to obscure forced

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migrations caused by political or economic motives. Scapegoating nature as the only cause of all problems allows governments to dodge responsibilities in mitigating the effects of

environmental change, and this often happens (Oliver-Smith 2012). This is the third issue in disaster mitigation studies and policies. Oliver-Smith suggests that this problem is rooted in a more general and very persistent ideology that assumes a Cartesian duality between humanity and nature, dating back to the Enlightenment era of the 17th and 18th century. This is similar to the philosophy of Ingold (2001), who refutes the popular notion that humanity and culture are somehow ‘above’, or the next chapter ‘after’ nature and evolution. Instead, the creation of civilizations and cultures are in themselves evolutionary processes that are heavily dependent on interaction with natural environments. Likewise, Oliver-Smith urges policy makers to understand the relation between society and environment as mutual¸ and not as existing in two separate realms (2012).

As will be addressed throughout this thesis, these three identified problems are evident in Padang’s post-disaster strategies. If the goal was to make Padang citizens more resilient, the policies missed their target. Padang’s local governors mainly envisioned and operationalized the making of a more resilient Padang as follows: They heavily lobbied for nationally and internationally recognized entrepreneurs to invest in Padang in order to rebuild the city – the idea being that a strong economy equals a strong society and therefore a resilient one. In doing so, they specifically focused on attracting more tourists. It is a very top-down notion of disaster mitigation, one with an underlying assumption that everyone will benefit equally from such economic developments. The strategy also emphasizes individual responsibility, and similar to what van Voorst (2014) and Lupton (1999) describe, the strategy is therefore inherently normative. Furthermore, it fits perfectly in a broader timeframe of neoliberalism inasmuch as market forces affect the political spheres by ‘governing’ the things that

governments typically used to be a watchdog of (Hilgers 2010). Lastly, the local government of Padang employs a rhetoric of opportunism in relation to future hazards – the hazard will be there, but it is our job to master it. Not only does that assume a dualism between Padang citizens and nature; The government’s human-nature conceptualization, as should become clear, is full of ambiguity.

Even more interesting is that the investments in the hospitality sector have triggered a socio-economic shift in Padang at the expense of some inhabitants. Others, however, gained in a more advantaged position. In the meantime, young Minangkabau from surrounding villages in Sumatra were encouraged to move to the city, which also changed the socio-economic

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climate. It is important to note that these developments drew on power relations – not

necessarily economic relations – between the Chinese and the Minangkabau that were already in place in Padang before the 2009 earthquake. The 2009 earthquake should thus not be viewed as the sole cause for disaster but a catalyzer that intensified pre-existing conditions. The manner in which Padang citizens depict and deal with the threat of a future hazard is in many ways connected to their experiences of the 2009 earthquake aftermath. That argument, that tension between past and future, lies at the heart of this thesis.

Research questions and methodology

It is with the inspiring work and ideas from theorists like Douglas (2001), Lupton (1999), van Voorst (2014) and Oliver-Smith (2012, 2015) with which I would like to approach the case of Padang. I have outlined different perspectives on concepts such as risk, disaster, displacement and the relation between humanity and nature. Together, they illustrate that it is essential to understand how Padang citizens perceive the threat of an all-destructive combined earthquake and tsunami – how, in other words, do they envision their future? If we want to fully grasp what motivates Padang citizens to stay, I argue that looking at their perceptions of natural hazard risks alone is not sufficient. I believe an emic and holistic approach is needed, that is more inclusive of cultural, economic, and environmental aspects of Padang citizens’ lives. In doing so, their vulnerabilities and opportunities ought to be considered. I therefore aim to answer the following question:

How do informal social structures of differently positioned Padang citizens inform their experiences of the impending doom of a combined earthquake and tsunami?

I aim to apply a weak-constructivist perspective, one in which events of the past shape present perspectives on the future. As a point of measure, I used people’s experiences and definitions of disaster since – not necessarily because of – the 2009 earthquake, and aimed to understand how these have influenced perceptions of the threat of a future hazard. While culture, politics, economics and environment condition such perceptions, people’s autonomy and personal life events should not be forgotten in this process. I believe I can take that into account by

answering the following sub-questions:

1. Do Padang citizens categorize their socio-economic worlds, and where do they

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2. What can day-to-day practices and dialogues reveal about the different ways in which Padang citizens attribute value to lived experiences and experiences to be lived? 3. How have local governments dealt with earthquakes and tsunamis in the past, and

how do they plan to mitigate effects in the future?

The first two sub-questions are mostly concerned with how Padang citizens envision their agency, safety, and that which they hold dear while living in a risky environment. Although the main research question could not have been answered without these first two sub-questions, it is the last question especially that turned out to be extremely fruitful for this thesis in unexpected ways. I incorporated a question about mitigation policies because I believe the laws and projects that are set up by the Padang municipality, the national and international governments and NGOs aiming to to prevent or lessen risk of natural hazards are very telling of the ways in which such risk is perceived. More specifically, in following Douglas’ (1992) argument that risk is politicized, disaster management raises questions about its hidden implications enabled by socio-economic power structures in Padang. Which people compensated, what are the criteria? Are some people ‘deserving’ of care while others are not? Secondly, such laws and projects have the ability to shape perceptions of risk among Padang citizens, depending on if and how mitigation aid has reached them. How, put differently, do they react to the aid (or a lack thereof)? Who do they put their trust in?

First, in chapter 1, I explore Padang citizens’ stories since the 2009 earthquake. In chapter 2, I focus more specifically on local, neoliberal ideologies in which both past and future hazards in Padang are dealt with. Chapter 3 serves to understand how such developments inform Padang citizens’ mediation of future hazards. In these chapters I present three different dimensions to the ways in which disaster unfolds: disaster as a process, disaster as a

commodity and disaster as a symbol, with which I aim to contribute to the debate on natural disaster and disaster mitigation studies.

In assuming that different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds have (at least to some extent) an influence on one’s perceptions of risk, I decided to pick a neighborhood with great cultural and ethnic variety, which led me to Pondok. Pondok is the former colonial district located in the heart of Padang, with an old port, a flourishing tourism industry, and home to both Minangkabau and a large Chinese community – the two main groups of informants in this research. Previous research on Pondok shows that the latter group has been largely neglected during previous mitigating efforts from the government (Kholid-Alfirdaus 2014). While religious differences can thus be problematic, they in fact also served as tool to sooth

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traumatic experiences of the 2009 earthquake (Gianisa and Le De 2017). Not only did I make a distinction between Chinese and Minangkabau informants, but also one between informants born-and-raised in Padang and ‘newcomer’ informants. For what motivates newcomers to move to Padang? Why now? A third important factor was socio-economic worlds, in which was looked at occupation and how that generated (im)material values.

In total, a number of 42 Padang citizens 3 were interviewed with a list of semi-structured questions, in which they were asked about their whereabouts; their daily activities; their ethnicity 4; religious beliefs and practices; which people are important to them; how they experience social cohesion in Pondok; if they struggle to make ends meet, and whether they have ever experienced issues with the government or with other groups of people.

Furthermore, they were asked how they had experienced the 2009 earthquake (if applicable); why they decided to move to Padang (if applicable); if and how they have experienced recent developments in Pondok; where they would like to see themselves in the future; whether the future worries them, and if and to what extent the threat of a future earthquake worried them; why they think natural hazards happen; if they could explain what ‘disaster’ meant to them by describing a realistic, hypothetic situation. Lastly, my informants were asked which (groups of) people had provided the most and the least effective relief efforts after the earthquake, whether the government or other organizations had made efforts to prepare them for future hazards, and what kind of support they believed to have access to in case future hazards strike. I compared the stories of Padang citizens regarding disaster mitigation with the programs and statements from the local government. I further informed my research with additional participant- and event observations.

My informants’ stories have been extremely helpful in writing this thesis and deserve to be heard, be it in an anonymous fashion. All the names in this thesis are therefore pseudonyms. Often, no names are mentioned at all. In order to keep my informants as anonymous as possible, I approached people on the streets of Pondok without knowing what kind of

3_{Although Pondok is my field site, I made the choice to call my informants ‘Padang citizens’ rather than}

‘Pondok inhabitants’. That terminology turned out to be problematic, because those who see Pondok as their socio-economic ‘space’ are not necessarily the people who live in Pondok, for reasons that should become clear later in this thesis.

4_{I would like to stress here that I do not approach ethnicity as a way to essentialize perceptions of risk, e.g.}

someone is not worried because of their ‘Minangkabauness’ – ethnicity does not influence those perceptions as such; rather I aim to couch it as a network tool to create ideas of belonging that ensure a sense of safety.

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informant I could expect 5. Furthermore, most interviews were conducted without recording devices, for this made my informants more comfortable to share information. The vast majority of interviews were carried out with the help of an interpreter, which could be a problem since language in itself is a cultural phenomenon: without my knowing, the deeper meaning of some of my informants’ words may have gotten ‘lost in translation’. It did, however, allow me to look at body language – this could also be very telling. Some of the discussed topics were very sensitive and not meant to end up in the wrong hands, as numerous informants have stressed. This thesis is more than a study on hazards; this is a thesis that addresses the political, economic, and cultural conditions that made some of my informants feel the need to stress me such things.

5_{There is also a practical reason: Upon arrival in the field, I soon learned that it was difficult to make}

appointments with informants beforehand. Not everyone had a phone of feared their contact information would end up in the wrong hands. It was therefore most efficient to randomly select my informants.

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CHAPTER 1 Disaster as a Process

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The Chinese New Year (02-03-2018)

It was not difficult to figure out where the party was at – we just followed the music and could see masses of people gathering underneath the famous Siti Nurbaya bridge that connected Pondok with the hills across the river. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the smell of food entered my nostrils and many people were dressed up in bright-colored, satin clothes in line with Chinese tradition […] As we approached the bridge, a red stage became visible between the masses on which someone was making announcements in Bahasa Indonesia. Besides the commentator, the stage was filled with many men and women, most of them wearing uniform white blouses. Two other men, however, struck my attention immediately. They were supposed to strike the attention – they were assigned the best seats, right in the middle of the stage. In front of them was a small desk with a golden tablecloth, filled with drinks and food. The two men were wearing army-green uniforms with many badges – government officials. […] Their uniforms and the golden tablecloth in front of them contrasted starkly with the dark red of the tent and the plain white outfits everyone else was wearing. These men were very important – the entire manner in which the stage was arranged made sure no one could be mistaken about this. […] Yulius translated the

announcements from the commentator for me. “This is a traditional sword-fight dance from the Chinese… and these are children in traditional Minangkabau costumes”. Wait, the Minangkabau were also

participating in the parade? After a brief conversation with the people standing next to us, we learned that this year’s New Year was the first time in which not only the Chinese walked the parade, but “all sorts of people… Chinese, Minang, Nias, Hindu…. A festival for everyone!” The man who informed us about these sudden changes seemed very happy the festival was becoming more inclusive. Nevertheless, I wondered whether the participation of other ethnic groups had been a prerequisite for the government’s

organizational and financial contribution to the Chinese New Year. Yulius continued: “He is saying that… the decision [to do the festival this way] was made by the parliament… the parliament has donated money to the ceremony… and they hope to [organize the ceremony in the same way] next year…. This festival is good for tourism…” “Do you see many tourists?” Yulius giggled. “No. Wait… [they are saying that] there are many people from other provinces… From Jakarta. They say they hope to see more international tourists in the future as well. […] They say there are a lot of important old [colonial] buildings in this neighborhood. They say, let’s hope that we continue to include the Minangkabau in the ceremonies of the future, that we [keep] working together.” The speech had ended and the parade was about to commence. “Tiga! … Dua! … Satu!…” After the countdown, confetti filled the sky and the mass of people started moving in the distance. […] I could clearly see twenty-something Indonesian national flags at the very beginning of the parade, pointing high in the sky. They were followed by a couple of flags from the HBT and HTT, the two most important Chinese temple organizations - but the Indonesian ones clearly

outnumbered those. As the parade approached, it turned out many different organizations were indeed part of it. The Indonesian army was one of the first groups to pass us, doing athletic tricks and showing off their muscles. There were groups consisting of high school girls, dancing. There was a group that represented the Hindu community. And of course, there were various groups from the Chinese community. But to me,

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the parade clearly represented a dynamic of identity politics – the kind of symbolism that made sure everybody present that day would know who was really in charge in Pondok these days.

First fieldwork encounters: The many mysteries of ‘Chinatown’ Pondok

To fully understand just how compelling these organizational changes at the annual closing ceremony of the Chinese new year were, held on that sunny day in the neighborhood Pondok and near the end of my fieldwork, we first need to shift our attention to an event

approximately eight and a half years ago: The 2009 earthquake. The earthquake affected the exact same space in which I was now watching the spectacle together with thousands of others. With a magnitude of 7.6 on the scale of Richter and its epicenter around 50 kilometers away from the shore, the quake had hit the city of Padang hard and left behind over a 1,000 casualties. Pondok, one of the coastal ‘Red Zones’ of the city and the place that I had chosen as my field site, was completely left in ruins. The Siti Nurbaya bridge on which masses of people were now standing, had then collapsed and crushed a number of pedestrians during its fall. Several buildings in the area had suffered the same fate, unable to carry their own height and weight, and wiped out centuries of colonial history in the process. Numerous victims that day were buried underneath these reminders from the past.

Fast-forwarding to 2018’s ceremony: the commentator’s speech sounded promising, but could barely conceal the traces that the 2009 earthquake had left behind and only underpinned its consequences that are felt to this very day. Many houses in Pondok are still severely damaged – some even appear uninhabitable. There are a few exceptions: buildings in which restaurants, clubs and hotels are residing look brand-new and well-maintained. This struck me

immediately upon arriving in Pondok for the first time, not only because the contrast between the private and public spaces could not be starker; Pondok seemed the be the only Red Zone neighborhood where such a contrast was evident. These observations were the first of many mysteries I stumbled upon during my fieldwork that left me with more questions rather than answers. As I learned soon enough, the answers to these mysteries directly reflected the disaster mitigation strategies that have been applied to Pondok since the aftermath of the 2009 earthquake.

In general, the popular neighborhood stands out against the rest of Padang city for a variety of reasons: It is the epicenter of Padang’s well-renowned cuisine, one of the oldest parts of town, and known for its notorious party scene. Most importantly, however, it is home to a large Chinese community. While the rest of Padang is mostly inhabited by Minangkabau – an

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ethnic minority in the rest of Indonesia but the vast majority around West Sumatra – Pondok has an eclectic mix of different cultures, but notably the Chinese. For that reason, most Padang citizens prefer to use the term Pecinan Padang – Padang’s Chinatown – rather than ‘Pondok’. It was thus to my surprise – the second mystery – that I struggled to get into contact with informants of Chinese descent during the initial stages of my research. Most of the people I talked to were Minangkabau, and during the first two weeks of fieldwork I managed to get an idea about the Chinese community only indirectly, through the stories of my

Minangkabau informants. Most Minangkabau were always eager to point out how everybody in this neighborhood got along very well regardless of religious or ethnic background.

Nevertheless, I could sense some distance in the ways in which they addressed their Chinese peers. They would always speak with a certain “we” versus “them” rhetoric: “we accept them for who they are…” “those rich Chinese men…”. The Minangkabau respected the Chinese community, even looked at them in awe – many informed me that they would love to know the Chinese’ secret to maintaining a successful business. It became nevertheless clear to me that, despite the friendly atmosphere around the neighborhood, the lives of different ethnic and religious groups were not too intertwined. In fact, I learned from my Minangkabau informants that many Chinese inhabitants had moved elsewhere after the 2009 earthquake. Upon asking why – why did the Chinese move elsewhere? Why not other groups of people? – I was often told that “those rich Chinese men” had enough money to do so. More importantly, the Minangkabau informed me that the Chinese had been “scared… very scared” after the earthquake. Here, a third mystery arose to the surface: How was it possible that only the Chinese were scared? And if they were rich enough to move elsewhere, why did the more well-off Minangkabau not consider that same option?

The few Chinese I managed to get into contact with were hesitant to talk to me – a fourth mystery. Their answers were often blunt, and for reasons yet unknown to me I was sometimes asked whether I worked for the government. Before my departure to Padang, I had conducted some background research on Pondok’s social demographics. I consulted a study on the local government’s treatment of the Chinese community in the aftermath of the 2009 earthquake in which approximately 800 Chinese families reported receiving little to nothing from the promised aid, as opposed to other groups. Their complaints were met with annoyance from local officials: the mayor even implied that the Chinese already had sufficient financial means and that it would therefore be unfair to rely on external aid. Social segregation is an “open secret” in Padang, and although the Chinese are known to be successful businessmen they are

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socially isolated and have been dealing with political oppression. That might explain why I found it difficult to find Chinese informants – in the study, one man of Chinese descent warned that the “emergence of this issue as a matter of public discussion only confronted Chinese with a dilemma”, and stressed that specifically labelling their experiences during the aftermath of the 2009 earthquake as ‘discrimination’ could be “suicide”. The Chinese are thus seen as guests in Padang (Kholid-Alfirdaus 2014: 160-164). Hence, it was not too difficult to imagine why the Chinese community had such a distrustful attitude towards government officials, or why they were more scared, perhaps. Nevertheless, such assumptions remained guesswork: The data from this research was collected in 2010, and therefore slightly outdated. I hoped to find out how these issues had unfolded further, but my lack of access to Chinese informants complicated this – and the reason why they took me for a government employee still remained spectacularly unclear to me at first.

“It’s just like L.A.!”

This went on for a week or two – until I met Jenny, a woman of Chinese descent who had been born and raised in Pondok. She was, in fact, the one to approach me with an

interrogative “do you work for the government?”. I told her this was not the case, but she kept persisting: “So which organization are you from then?” I had to stress multiple times that I was not affiliated with any organization whatsoever and explained that I was an exchange student doing some research on the ways in which people in Pondok deal with natural

disasters, or a risk thereof. Jenny’s eyes turned big, and her attitude changed completely. “It’s funny you should mention that… I think,” – she started whispering – “I think this

neighborhood has gone to shit…, because all these people from the suburbs and nearby villages started moving here. They started moving here after the last earthquake.” This had bothered Jenny to such an extent that she decided to move elsewhere in Sumatra. She then met a man from the United States, fell in love, and moved with him to L.A. Jenny had returned to Pondok for a couple of weeks, however, to “find some rest” and to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

And so we embarked on a compelling evening in which Jenny showed me around Pondok and introduced me to “her people” from the Chinese community. Jenny insisted that we visited one of the Chinese temples. “This temple used to be next-door, but the last earthquake destroyed it. They rebuilt everything on their own. No help from the government. Now the temple is here.” Jenny greeted the man sitting next to the entrance like an old friend and

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started a conversation with him in Bahasa. She then turned to me and said “Normally you are not allowed to take pictures inside. But I asked him if you could take some pictures because you came all the way from Belanda to do research here, and he said it was fine.” It was clear that Jenny put some effort in making me feel welcome in the Chinese community. In fact, she would always seize any opportunity to stress how much she liked the Chinese community, or how much she disliked other groups. “We take care of each other, you know? And we also take care of other people. We are not judgmental of people that are different from us.

Everybody knows each other. We don’t like to argue over things that are not important. Some other people here, though…” I sometimes sensed that Jenny felt she had to prove something to me on behalf of the Chinese community, because not everyone appreciated the Chinese and their traditions. She informed me how the Chinese in Pondok, and Indonesia more generally, have always had a troubled position; how this community in Pondok needed help the most after the earthquake but received virtually nothing; how the Chinese had to rebuild everything on their own; and most importantly, that the government still continues to neglect them and is willing to put other groups on a pedestal at their expense. Upon asking if she could explain to me more specifically why the recent developments in Pondok upset her so much, Jenny continued:

“[The new people] are not nice. They are uneducated, rude, poor and have little to contribute to this place. They ruin the economy. I mean, look at the condition most buildings are in – still completely in ruins. I did not feel at home in my own neighborhood. So I moved…, All these people come to Pondok without a single penny and without a clue how to run a business. You know, it’s actually just like L.A.! All these immigrants and poor people keep coming in looking for money, looking for a better life. All these promised are made to them, but these are empty words. These immigrants have nothing to offer, so nothing will be offered to them in return. Nobody likes them. They think they are living the American Dream… but it’s more like the American Nightmare!”

Jenny was clearly very fed up with these newcomers, but if they are drawn to the city by “empty words”, the real question is perhaps who is making such promises.

“Ah, yes…by many, but mostly the government and their alleged tourist industry!..., the government tells everyone they are massively improving Pondok and the tourist sector after the earthquake… and people believe it. But look around! See for yourself! So many buildings are still damaged. And there are not enough customers, tourists or otherwise, to keep the economy running.”

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Emotions started running high – Jenny turned to the waitress of the restaurant we were seated and they exchanged some words in Bahasa. Apparently Jenny had hit a nerve, because the waitress turned to the entrance, looked at the brand-new karaoke bar across the street and furiously spat on the floor in their direction. “Ask her!” Jenny said. “She is saying that the majority of her customers disappeared after the earthquake. No money left. And the rich people moved away. This place is a lost glory.” Unlike other people I had spoken to thus far, Jenny did not shy away from expressing her discontent with the government – perhaps because she was no longer an inhabitant of Pondok. According to her, the local governors are “deeply corrupt” people that “like to put up a show” so they can trick people into thinking they are doing a great job – that they put very minimal effort into actually rebuilding the neighborhood while they proudly state how much they are improving the tourist industry.

“You know, they receive quite big funds from the national government to work on these things. But most of that money will end up in their own pockets. They don’t care about the people here, they only think about themselves. The only reason they restore a few buildings, is so that they will get a pet on the shoulder from national governors whenever they visit this place. It’s all fake – it’s a show. They should help the people, it makes no sense to spend money on such things if there is no one to keep that economic sector running…, the people that live here don’t fall for these tricks, they have seen too much. But maybe new people that move here… they might be unaware of the situation.”

The migration of money; the money in migration

Not only were Jenny’s words very compelling, she was also well-connected within the neighborhood and became my gatekeeper to the Chinese community. Soon enough word started to spread that I was not affiliated with the government but just an exchange student at Andalas Universitas, and the ball started rolling. The various informants I talked to brought to light that Kholid-Alfirdaus’ (2014) research on the marginal position of the Chinese is still relevant. In fact, the 2009 earthquake and the ways in which the local government dealt with the event triggered further marginalization of the Chinese community as well as lower-class Minangkabau inhabitants, and a socio-economic shift in the neighborhood that is felt until this very day.

A first issue, which illustrates the complexities and hidden implications of disaster

management quite well, can be found in the flows of monetary funds reserved for such events. The vast majority of the budget the government in Padang has made available comes from the

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national government in Jakarta. Subsequently, the local government divides the money among

Rukun Tetangga (or simply RT)¸ local governors that serve as a representatives between each

neighborhood and the government. The idea of this decentralized strategy was that RTs know their neighbors best and have a good overview of who needs help and in which ways. The bureaucratic nature of this system makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly who should be hold accountable and if and where things went wrong. However, there are a few points to note. First of all, as mentioned earlier the Chinese community’s political influence is redundant and virtually none of them are appointed to become RTs. Some of my Chinese informants blamed Minangkabau RTs directly for refusing them the necessary financial support, instead spending the funds on relatives and friends. Others directed their frustration at the local government of Padang more generally and argued that they had prioritized other neighborhoods. In any case, both groups strongly felt that underlying racist motives had been a key factor in the decision-making processes. Secondly, it was not always exactly clear who qualified for disaster mitigation aid, and the promised help was not always carried out as expected: houses that were only slightly damaged were prioritized over moderately to severely damaged houses, something that Kholid-Alfirdaus (2014) also noted. In comparison, virtually none of the Minangkabau informants seemed to have any complaints about a lack of governmental

support – most stated having received what was needed, and whenever discrimination towards the Chinese came up as a topic, it was waved aside as mere rumor. Instead it was argued that the government only had limited funds and that Chinese were simply richer than most of the people.

That last argument is an interesting one, because everything seems to point to the opposite: Most of my Chinese informants reported that they had some financial issues, especially since, but not only because of the 2009 earthquake. Taubenböck et al. (2012: 924) illustrate that Pondok is actually one of Padang’s lower class areas. While it still holds true that a considerable amount of enterprises in Pondok are run by people of Chinese descent, the number of lower-class people are in the vast majority within the Chinese community. Moreover, interviews with Chinese entrepreneurs revealed that most of them have been struggling to make ends meet since the 2009 earthquake. It was often mentioned that the number of customers is gradually decreasing, because customers do not have as much income to spend, or rater put it in savings in case another earthquake strikes. The entrepreneurs whose business is going well pointed out that their customer base mostly consisted of Minangkabau visitors from other neighborhoods – one entrepreneur of a newly-built and expensive karaoke

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bar explained that Pondok is still mostly inhabited by the Chinese, but that they do not have the money to come here, and neither show an interest in the kind of enterprise his place represented: the karaoke bar was a place to party, where people get drunk and have fun. According to the entrepreneur, rich Minangkabau people from the suburbs visit his place so they can “blow off some steam… this karaoke bar is far away from their houses, their wives, their responsibilities.” Two conclusions can be drawn from this: first, that the Chinese in Pondok being known as “rich” is more of an image rather than a reality; second, that the engines of the economy in Pondok is mostly kept running by people who do not live there, for the standards of living are simply too expensive for most Pondok inhabitants, and not

exclusively for inhabitants of Chinese descent; lower-class Minangkabau inhabitants also suffer from the inflation and are uncomfortable with the nature of the new enterprises, which are mostly aimed at tourists.

This development is not necessarily experienced as something negative by everyone: The new enterprises have attracted a stream of new migrants to Padang, all in search of a job in the growing hospitality sector. The vast majority of these newcomers are of Minangkabau descent – a striking fact, considering that the number of Chinese inhabitants is decreasing. A first explanation for these patterns of migration concerns the Chinese diaspora: the Chinese

community is scattered throughout Indonesia. Several big Indonesian cities have a Chinatown, and it is not uncommon for Chinese to move from city to city since they usually have some friends or family living elsewhere. The Minangkabau, on the contrary, are only a majority in West Sumatra, in which Padang is the epicenter of Minangkabau culture. Minangkabau from all over Indonesia are drawn to the city and often move there for family-related reasons or in order to find a job. They also informed me that building a career is easier in Padang because they already ‘know’ people here. Likewise, Minangkabau are reluctant to move elsewhere as they fear it will be difficult to fit in, even if that means they will have to live in a Red Zone for the rest of their lives. The risk of staying, according to Minangkabau, is smaller than the risk of starting a new life outside of Padang. In other words, there is a compelling and essential difference between Chinese and Minangkabau diaspora: Minangkabau culture is centered in West-Sumatra; the Chinese do not share the same ties to a specific location as such.

Nevertheless, these dynamics are more of a general condition inherent in Minangkabau and Chinese diaspora than that they specifically address perceptions of disaster and risk among Pondok inhabitants. It surely does not explain why newcomers move here now, with another

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hazard looming in the distance. Why, in other words, are some drawn to the same ‘Red Zone’ that petrifies others?

Part of the answer can be found in a second example of disaster management, one which concerns a long-term strategy that aims to make the Padang community less vulnerable. After the 2009 earthquake and in case of future hazards, the local government has reserved a certain fund for mitigation. Short-term mitigation – providing food and shelter – is prioritized, then comes long-term mitigation: rebuilding the neighborhoods, construction and reconstruction of the infrastructure, designing evacuation routes, educating citizens on the do’s and don’ts during emergency situations, building sufficient shelters for duck-and-cover, and so on. These things cost money, however, and governmental funds are limited. To bridge the gaps in funding, the local government in Padang has been collaborating with a variety of other organizations: religious institutions, NGOs, and the most interesting one: investors. Whereas the former two were mostly concerned with the abovementioned aid, the latter were meant to provide Padang (and Pondok more specifically) economic rehabilitation and growth. This disaster mitigation strategy was, in fact, the first and most important strategy to be mentioned by the mayor of Padang:

A: “Can you tell me a bit more about the local, national and international organizations that have been involved in the disaster mitigation programs and what they have done in Pondok more specifically?”

M: “When the earthquake happened in 2009, most of the buildings were very old and easily damaged. At that time, the government got financial support from Spain and New Zealand. Then we also had local volunteers and some NGOs and some governmental support. In 2008 we already had plans to rebuild this area because the heritage attracts tourists. After the earthquake, [we] invited entrepreneurs and business owners to work and build together in the area…, The Chinatown has great history. It was the center of the city, even before Indonesian independence. There are some other ethnic groups, Indian, Chinese, Malay and other

countries. We try to maintain the buildings. But[we try to make] the inside more modern.”

Hence, the government in Padang organized a lobbying event in Jakarta and invited nationally and internationally recognized entrepreneurs to the neighborhood. The tourist industry, which is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors worldwide, had barely any foothold in Padang at the time. Within a few years, new clubs, restaurants, and other spots for leisure activities started to arise rapidly from the ruins the earthquake had left behind – often situated within former colonial buildings. Interestingly enough, the protection of Pondok’s colonial heritage

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only appears to be a point on the agenda when it concerns such public spaces; many Pondok residents, notably from Chinese descent, live in colonial buildings that are in very poor shape. The mitigation strategy explained why some Chinese believed I was affiliated with the

government – they had put me somewhere in a grey area between governmental and non-governmental operations that determined the course of Pondok developments, a process in which the Chinese were neglected.

The government, amongst others, has pointed out that there have been some bureaucratic issues with maintaining colonial heritage, because the blueprints are somewhere stored in archives in the Netherlands and therefore difficult to access 6. Both public and private buildings in Pondok are rented in the same way, according to the traditions of the

Minangkabau adat, a system in which ownership of the house and soil is inherited according to matrilineal lines (see Everts 1975 and Colombijn 1996). That the buildings in which Chinese inhabitants reside are neglected, therefore hardly seems arbitrary – another example of what Kholid-Alfirdaus describes as “systematized and institutionalized exclusion” (2014: 163). While this gradually pushed the Chinese community to the margins of their own

neighborhood, newcomers – notably young Minangkabau from Sumatra with a background in hospitality studies – have been actively encouraged by the government and local

Minangkabau entrepreneurs to settle down in Padang. Many of my newcomer informants reported having heard about all these opportunities through advertisements in newspapers and on social media. One male employee of a local tourist bar noted that he moved to Padang because he was told that the Chinese community had lost its “monopoly” in the neighborhood since the earthquake, and that it was now time for people “like him” to seize the moment. Funnily enough then, the flows of Minangkabau migration to Padang do not happen despite, but because of natural hazards. A certain tension between Chinese and Minangkabau

migration now appears at the surface, which the aftermath of the 2009 earthquake seems to have enabled: As more and more Minangkabau gradually move to Pondok, more and more Chinese experience cultural loss and a disintegration of their own community. This sentiment is reinforced continuously as Chinese keep moving elsewhere while newcomers “take their place”. Pondok, as the Chinese say, is a “lost glory”.

“Iconic places and symbolic spaces”: Disaster as a process

6_{I was asked multiple times by the local government and entrepreneurs if I, a Dutch student, could get access to}

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In discussing these changing relationships between the Minangkabau and the Chinese, it is important to stress that while the atmosphere in Pondok remains quite friendly, the 2009 earthquake and its aftermath has made underlying dynamics of power and inequality between these two groups more tangible. On the day of the Chinese New Year, after the parade had commenced, my interpreter and I decided to walk in its opposite direction towards the street where the parade would come to a close, so we would be the first ones to witness the

spectacle. On our way there, we ran into two ladies on the corner of the street who were handing out free bottles of water. The women, both in their sixties, had been long-time friends. One was Minangkabau, the other Chinese. I asked them if they had some spare time to conduct a short interview, which they agreed to. They laughed out loud when I asked how relationships were between people of Pondok – if relationships were bad, why would we two be working together? Nevertheless, their answers to my questions often differed: the

Minangkabau woman believed the Pondok economy was growing steadily; the Chinese woman had never noticed such a development. The Minangkabau woman was not worried about an earthquake; the Chinese woman was.

I decided to change the topic to today’s festivities, to the liking of my new informants – they seemed very excited. “It’s very different this year!” they both cried happily. When I asked what exactly was so different, they confirmed earlier conversations from that day: that this was the first time different groups collaborated; that this feast was not just for the Chinese anymore. “Why do you think they decided to do it this way? Why now?” I asked. The women explained: “The Chinese… can thank and prove to the government that everything is all right between the Chinese and others”. That struck me as odd – they had just told me very

confidently that there were no problems at all between people in this neighborhood. Why do the Chinese have to ‘prove’ anything if all was well in the first place? When I asked that, the women were silent for a couple of seconds. “Perhaps because the previous government was very discriminatory towards the Chinese?” the Chinese woman said. “But…” I hesitated to pose my next question because I could feel a certain awkwardness between the four of us I had not felt before. “But, why does the government not prove itself to the Chinese, then?” Again, the question was met with silence. The Chinese woman looked uncomfortable. “Good question. I don’t know.”

The conversation touched upon a certain tension between the two women, the kind that was preferred to be left unspoken and neither of them had asked for. Even though the two had been born and raised together, in the same neighborhood, their views on Pondok, on

Impending doom? : the creative destruction of natural disaster and perceptions of risk in the Pondok neighborhood, Kota Padag, Indonesia

Impending Doom?

The Creative Destruction of Natural Disaster and Perceptions of

Risk in the Pondok Neighborhood, Kota Padang, Indonesia

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

Disaster as a Process