Labuhan Merapi and disaster risk reduction: Is there a connection?

• Main Author: Balgos, Benigno C.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Hazard mitigation; Emergency management; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11945
• Institution: De La Salle University

"Acts of gods" has been the prevailing notion in associating religion with disaster (Grandjean, Rendu, MacNamee, and Scherer, 2008; Gaillard and Texier, 2010). Gaillard and Teier (2010) argue that although Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, three major monotheist religions have tales on disaster, religion has been ignored in disaster assessments and other disaster-related documents.Scientific-based assessment has become the dominant paradigm in studying and understanding natural hazards. Although since 1970s, local knowledge has been recognized as an important aspect in disaster preparedness, local knowledge in disaster management is commonly linked with technical knowledge only (Dekens, 2007). Currently, the growing interest and literature on the use of local knowledge in disaster risk reduction, as a consequence of the increased in number of disasters exacerbated by climate change, has also focused on this. Having said this, other equally important types of local knowledge such as socio-cultural and historical knowledge (i.e. myths and rituals), have been put aside. With this, the paper attempts to bring to fore religion in the context of disaster by taking Labuhan Merapi, a yearly sacred ritual ceremony in Mt. Marapi, which I was able to observe this year, as a case in point. The paper argues that in disaster risk reduction, religion is as imperative as technology-based local knowledge as it provides a unique and tested strategy for mitigation and adaptation. It further argues that, looking at the case of Labuah Merapi, the relationship between religion and disaster goes beyond the notion of natural hazards as merely "acts of gods."