The Abandoned Survivors: Newly Disabled Women after the 2006 Earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

This thesis examines both disaster and disability experiences of newly disabled women who are wheelchair users as a result of injuries they sustained in the 2006 earthquake in Java. This study is based on 14 months' ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the period of January 2015 to March 2016, during which time the newly disabled women were in the phase of long-term adaptation of their lives after the earthquake.

Examining the disaster and post-disaster experiences of those women, I argue that the disability-focused humanitarian and development intervention of that emergency contributed to the disempowerment of the women in their home, family and neighbourhood. The programs of relief and long-term recovery overemphasised the individualisation, independence and self-reliance of these 'victims' rather than tap into cultural and social resources that were potentially available to them (Reindal, 1999). I argue in my thesis that the emphasis on establishing newly disabled women as independent individuals resulted in their marginalisation and alienation in their interaction with the community and confined them to prolonged isolation in their village homes. Rather than give them protection, dignity and guidance to return into their 'normal' life these interventions rather reduced them to 'bare life' (Agamben, 1998), which put them in specialised programs but disregarded their needs to connect with their community.

The unintentional marginalisation they have experienced during the process of recovery happened because the humanitarian and development interventions created short-term programs and ignored the women's long term needs to integrate with their community. The program's priority on the medicalisation and independence of people with disabilities during the process of recovery suspended the social life of the newly disabled women for a long time. In addition the villagers' lack of knowledge on how to engage with disabled people resulted in exceptionality, avoidance, prejudice and awkwardness in the relationship between disabled and non-disabled people in the kampong. It exacerbated the segregation and this led to the newly disabled women living their life outside the mainstream of the village.

Despite these challenges, I demonstrate that these women became resilient and adaptable during this long-term crisis in their personal lives. They exercised agency in their negotiations within the household and extended family, with the relief organisations and with neighbours. In the emergency, rehabilitation, reconstruction and post-disaster recovery, the newly disabled women applied various forms of agency to rebuild their everyday lives and to regain their power as tiang rumah tangga (household pillar). They cultivated Javanese feminine values of sabar (patience), pasrah (surrender) and nrima (acceptance) as tools to keep going in nurturing their personal and family lives. They also applied strategies, tactics and manoeuvres to rebuild their livelihoods and to reconnect to their community. I demonstrate in this thesis that through the phases of their disaster recovery, they were resilient in countering the passivity imposed on them by the programs of NGOs and government. This research contributes to the understanding of disaster intervention and calls for rehabilitation and development strategies that integrate all survivors in the process of recovery to maintain their sense of belonging as active members in their community.