Abstract
This article explores the relationship between a system of traditional and indigenous knowledge called subawe, social capital, and disaster risk reduction. The Sasak tribe in Lombok has an intricate ontological system of jinn, spirits, and deities that are part of their social capital and network. Through different channels some of the Sasak feel, dream, and experience spiritual nodes of energy, this sensation is called subawe. They receive these through dreams, songs, verses, possessions, and sensory experiences. Furthermore, during and after the earthquakes members of society received messages that Dewi Anjani, the spirit queen of Lombok created the earthquakes as punishment for desecrating her home, Mt. Rinjani. The largest faith-based organisation in Lombok, Nahdlatul Wathan embraces localised forms of Islam and types of traditional knowledge and stories. Through their widespread network on the island, they conveyed the stories and verses of old about subawe, previous disasters, and the messages brought through a belief system based on other dimensional planes (alam ghaib). As a result, heightened social capital was observed throughout the island in terms of aid, relief, and trauma healing. Data is gathered through interviews, participant observation, group sessions, document analysis, and oral histories. I argue that incorporating traditional knowledge in localised forms of disaster risk reduction will improve social capital and lessen the traumatic experiences of the victims. This article is written based on ethnographic and anthropological research in Lombok Indonesia during and after the August 2018 earthquakes and a second and third entry in 2019 and 2022.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103837 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction |
| Volume | 94 |
| Early online date | 3 Jul 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I want to acknowledge my interlocutors and friends in the field, within Nadhlatul Wathan, and the tuan guru and mangku bumi in Lombok Utara, without whom I could not have written this article. Also, I want to thank my old colleagues at Together for Lombok, Mr M. Zainul Firdaus at Majelis Adat Sasak, and current colleagues at the Social and Cultural Anthropology department of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam for discussing the contents of this article. Lastly, I want to thank Alireza Ajorloo for helping me create the map used in this publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author
Funding
I want to acknowledge my interlocutors and friends in the field, within Nadhlatul Wathan, and the tuan guru and mangku bumi in Lombok Utara, without whom I could not have written this article. Also, I want to thank my old colleagues at Together for Lombok, Mr M. Zainul Firdaus at Majelis Adat Sasak, and current colleagues at the Social and Cultural Anthropology department of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam for discussing the contents of this article. Lastly, I want to thank Alireza Ajorloo for helping me create the map used in this publication.
Keywords
- Disaster risk reduction
- Lombok Indonesia
- More-than-human ontologies
- Social capital
- Subawe
- Traditional knowledge