Date:November 9, 2009 (Mon.) 16：30-18：30
Venue: Meeting Room, the 3rd floor, Inamori Foundation Memorial Hall
Presentation:
1.Hiroyuki Yamamoto（Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University）
2.Makoto Nishi（CSEAS, Kyoto University）
【Record of Activity】
Associate Prof. Hiroyuki Yamamoto, the first reporter, gave a presentation on the appearance of disasters in highly fluid societies and desirable ways for reconstruction assistance, taking the case of Indonesia.
First, he pointed out that earthquakes began to become disasters in Indonesia in the 1980s when houses, which had previously been constructed of wood and bamboo, were replaced by bricks and mortar, and argued that what was worrisome in a disaster was not the hazard itself, but rather the fact that the affected society could no longer maintain a balance. Then, he defined Indonesian society as one with high social fluidity, based on frequent movement between regions, making it difficult for the society to accumulate knowledge and experiences. He also argued that the failure of reconstruction assistance provided by humanitarian aid organizations could be attributed to their inadequate understanding of the high social fluidity in Indonesia. As illustrations, he cited two examples. First, he referred to the fact that there were many empty temporary houses in Aceh, one of the areas that were devastated by the Indian Ocean Tsunami at the end of 2004. He mentioned the case of Posko, a local liaison office, and pointed out that in reconstructing their post-disaster livelihoods, people there did not aim “to go back to where they had been,” but rather were aiming toward a direction different from that in the pre-disaster times. From this, he concluded that one problem of reconstruction assistance was the assumption among providers that the recipients wanted “to go back to where they had been.” He then referred to some stories involved people in Bengkulu, an Indonesian province devastated by the Sumatra Earthquake of 2007. First story was about those who threw the rice delivered as aid to the ground, and second was about those blocked rescue vehicles. He analyzed that those seemingly inscrutable actions that local people were not trying to regain what they had lost in the disaster, but rather trying to make the outside world, which they gained access to in the wake of the disaster, to understand the problems they had faced from before the disaster.
Dr. Makoto Nishi, the second reporter, introduced the case of Ethiopia, discussing the way that technology, institutions and relatedness should be structured in order to build a society that can coexist with the infectious disease HIV/AIDS. First, he referred to the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful and use Condom) approach to HIV/AIDS and to the provision of medicines financed by the Global Fund. He pointed out the problems associated with each of these efforts and argued that the involvement of local communities was required. Based on the findings of a field survey in Gurage Province, Ethiopia, he discussed two points: the need for creating relatedness that could accept the differences between infected individuals and uninfected individuals toward creating a society that can coexist with the virus, and secondly the need to make the best use of health workers in the medical insurance system in order to cope with the individual conditions of each household. Then, he pointed out the necessity for interlinking three aspects: science & technology, social institution and relatedness.
Touching on the two presentations, Associate Prof. Yoichi Mine presented the concept of “resilience” and drew a correlation between the presentations and the idea of human security. Then, in the light of the message provided in Associate Prof. Yamamoto’s presentation, which referred to the “strength” of a highly fluid society to absorb a disaster that devastated its society, Associate Prof. Mine made inquiries about how the balance of the pre-disaster society had been disrupted and toward which direction the post-disaster society was shifting. In response to Dr. Nishi’s quotation of the successful case of Uganda, where the ABC approach had worked, Prof. Mine inquired about the morals that supported relations among people, and suggested that even though the importance of local communities was understandable, the most important issue in this regard would be how to design governance at the
Commentator：
Yoichi Mine（GLOCOL, Osaka University）