| Title | : | The Celebration of Maulid Hijau on the Slope of Lamongan Mountain: the Struggle of the Local Community in Responding to Disaster Vulnerability in Tegal Randu, Klakah, Lumajang, East Java |
| Author | : | Abd Malik (CRCS, 2009) |
| Keywords | : | Maulid Hijau, mitigation, local community, vulnerability |
| Abstract | : | |
| Many previous studies of disaster often only focus on post-disaster. Consequently, the studies forget the important aspects of pre-disaster namely vulnerability that is historically embedded in a certain society for a long time. Besides that, disaster mitigation projects are still dominated by technological approaches which are culturally not acceptable to local communities. This research completes (corrects) the weakness of several previous disaster studies by considering socio-cultural perspectives which focus on the study of vulnerability and its mitigation based on local community.This research concerns Tegalrandu village, one of the tourism regions in the sub-district of Klakah, Lumajang, East Java. The condition of the environment in this area has experienced terrible ecological crisis which threaten the occurrence of disaster. However, more important than such physical crisis is the nature of vulnerability in the community. To overcome both ecological crisis and social vulnerability, the local community holds a celebration which combines religious, local tradition, and reforestation activities called “Maulid Hijau”. Using social perspectives on disaster, this research conceptualizes vulnerability not as a characteristic of physical environment and not static. On contrary, vulnerability is a characteristic that is embedded dynamically in certain communities. In this sense, the occurrence of disaster in a community is combination between vulnerable people and natural hazard. While vulnerable community is people living in unsafe condition. Therefore, besides concerning with the physical aspects of disaster, the management and mitigation project might not deny the dynamics of vulnerability that takes place in certain communities.This research finds that vulnerability in Tegalrandu is a complex relation among social, political, economic and the ideological system since the colonial era until the reformation era. The consequences of those socio-cultural activities have caused Tegalrandu to live as a vulnerable community in unsafe conditions. Therefore, Maulid Hijau was initiated in order to reduce vulnerability and unsafe conditions in various aspects. The important aspect is to change and redefine a system of value concerning nature and the environment. That transformational view is expectedly followed by the change in people’s behavior and attitudes about social, economic and political activities in forming a sustainable community as opposed to a vulnerable community. | ||
