Cultural Responses to volcanic hazards on Mt Merapi, Indonesia

Abstract

Over the last decade an interdisciplinary science has evolved in order to reduce the impact of natural hazards by incorporating social sciences into physical hazard studies. This science has revealed that a community's ability to anticipate, cope with and recover from the impact of natural hazards relies upon that society's vulnerability. The concept of vulnerability has conventionally focussed on certain key social statistics such as wealth, age and gender, yet there is another element of vulnerability: the component of culture. In this study culture refers to the oral histories, taboos, ceremonies and legends that are created in order to explain, understand, accept and even mitigate against potential hazards.