Half full or half empty?
Permanent Link:

Material Information

Title:
Half full or half empty? Shelter after the Jogjakarta earthquake
Creator:
Graeme MacRae
David Hodgkins
Disaster Risk Reduction Program, Florida International University (DRR/FIU) ( summary contributor )
Place of Publication:
Oxford
UK
Publisher:
Blackwell Publishing
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
2011
Language:
English

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Emergency management ( lcshac )
unknownHumanitarian assistance ( lcshac )
Disaster relief ( lcshac )
Earthquakes ( lcshac )
Genre:
non-fiction ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
Asia -- Indonesia -- Yogyakarta

Notes

Summary:
This document is a review of the international shelter response to the 2006 Jogjakarta, Indonesia earthquake, with particular emphasis placed on evaluating its coordination with local stakeholders such as community-based agencies and affected communities. Most evaluations of humanitarian responses to disaster are conducted by responding agencies. Often these studies focus on the functioning of the international aid system rather than how it interacts with and impacts the lives of those being assisted. These studies generally place emphasis on statistical measures of success, and the internal coordination and efficiency of the aid machinery. Very few are independent or critical, thus few challenge the dominant paradigm. This document synthesizes critical analyses by those outside of the international humanitarian aid structure with perspectives within it. It presents viewpoints across agencies, government, and affected communities. And, most importantly, it utilizes ethnographic analysis to highlight the everyday practices of affected peoples and how these interact with implemented strategies. The document is broken down into an overview of the international humanitarian response system; an ethnography of its work in Jogjakarta, particularly the shelter response; critical analysis of the successes and failures of the response; and insights gleaned from a series of interviews with locals playing a range of key roles in both local and international agencies. The final section presents recommendations for future responses. While the international response after the Jogjakarta earthquake was faster and more efficient than many before it, it was also viewed as relatively detached from the local realities it was intended to serve, a critique that speaks not simply to this response, but to the overall structure of the international humanitarian aid system. A number of barriers to greater integration of local knowledge and concerns were highlighted. These include failures to provide effective representation of local NGOs and social actors in decision-making processes, and to engage them in capacity building and knowledge transfer processes. The document calls for the development of a global disaster response translation service to facilitate communication between international and local actors following disaster; development of pre-disaster relationships between the international humanitarian sector and national and provincial governments; and development of simple, cost-effective tools that explain the international humanitarian response system and how it works, so that local actors may know how bridge the gap between them and it. ( English )
Subject:
Transitional Shelters ( English )
Citation/Reference:
MacRae, G., Hodgkin, D. (2011). Half full or half empty? Shelter after the Jogjakarta earthquake. Overseas Development Institute, Disasters 35 (1): 243-267.

Record Information

Source Institution:
Florida International University
Rights Management:
Refer to main document/publisher for use rights.

dpSobek Membership

Aggregations:
Disaster Risk Reduction