Although the tsunami of December 26, 2004 wreaked similar types of physical damage and human injury in all parts of the Indian Ocean, each of the countries and local regions affected by this disaster remain culturally and historically distinct. As sustained relief and recovery efforts are mounted, these unique features of local culture and social structure may prove to have an effect on the resilience of the affected communities, shaping and channeling the processes of recovery and reconstruction in specific locations. Increasing our understanding of the role of local cultural factors in disaster recovery will provide useful information for future global disaster planning and recovery efforts. This project compares two culturally, linguistically, and historically different coastal regions of Sri Lanka that were both very badly damaged by the tsunami. By looking at sub-regional differences in tsunami recovery efforts within a single nation-state such as Sri Lanka, it will be possible to distinguish the cultural components from the larger political, economic, and environmental dimensions of the post-tsunami situation. The design of the project will utilize in-depth anthropological fieldwork to explore how patterns of village life and traditional institutions of social healing have been affected by the tsunami experience in the Sinhala-speaking Buddhist and Catholic communities on the south coast of the island, and to compare this with corresponding information gathered in the Tamil-speaking Hindu and Muslim region on the eastern coast. To augment and corroborate the ethnographic data, a sociological survey of tsunami impacts and social indicators will be conducted in each of these coastal regions, and a political scientist will provide a broad scale analysis of Sri Lankan governmental relief efforts and the role played by NGOs. Like the Indonesian province of Aceh, Sri Lanka also has an ongoing internal guerrilla conflict that must be taken into account as well. By utilizing a five-person multidisciplinary team of researchers, and focusing on two culturally-distinct regions, this project will help social scientists to understand how local-level cultural factors can play a role in larger processes of disaster recovery.
