Topic: The Role of Culture in Disaster Risk Reduction

Danish Aziz, November 2010

Most developing communities are essentially traditional, with a very strong cultural influence. It
is therefore very important to consider this factor during program planning. Often, the cultural
aspect comes into play when external agencies try to intervene in building capacity and
preparedness for these communities. The challenge of aligning DRR into development work in
itself is an enormous task and cultural norms, values and mores further add to it another
dimension.
In order to analyze the role of culture as an influencing factor in another phenomenon, let us try
to define the scope and effect of culture. Culture is basically a collective of beliefs, customs,
values, norms, institutions and other manifestations of a community which are transmitted
socially throughout the generations. Culture has deeper effects than we can assume. Culture
affects anything from daily feeding habits to the politico-legal systems in any community. It
defines how psychology for that particular set of individuals evolves and determines their
behaviours. Therefore, in order to engage communities in development related work particularly,
it is important to understand culture. It is also both an innate characteristic as well as an external
feature of people. Many of these are handed over from generations to generations and some are
by observation and experience.
The primary objective of this study is to explore how significantly culture affects peoples
resilience, attitudes and beliefs towards disasters and their coping capacities. It will also attempt
to explore cultural practices around the world that are termed indigenous and greatly support
DRR in those particular communities. These practices might be in the realm of environment
conservation, dealing with natural disasters, prevention and mitigation, early warning,
preparedness and response and eventually post-disaster recovery. Therefore it is also important
to look into what aspects of culture can complement the work of external practitioners and also
make them more accepted within the communites we work in.
For the purpose of this paper, we have broadly classified the study of the role of culture in DRR
to few sub-themes: Attitudes and Beliefs, Gender Justice, Governance and Indigenous
Knowledge.
Attitudes and beliefs generally play both a positive and a negative role as is observed. Most
traditional communities are deep-rooted in religion and from that follow a fatalist attitude and the
concept of retribution, deeds, sins and punishment. Although it may be seen that from a
resilience point of view that may be a trait for some kind of inner strength, but from a
preparedness point of view that might be detrimental to some extent. If people accept that
disasters are part of Natures fury, Gods punishment for their sins, and fail to act, that is a major
detrimental factor to induce them to prepare and act.
Andreana Reale of the RMIT University writes that religion has received very little attention in
the humanitarian field. DRR studies have taken into consideration and this is in fact an important
factor in determining peoples behaviours. While the Western world considers Man and Nature
are loggerheads, indigenous communities consider the linkage between the two rather important.
Andreana quotes the example of the Singas village in Papua New Guinea which often faces
flooding. They build houses on stilts and grow emergency crops on hillsides. Issues are discussed
and dealt with. This cultural practice prepares them to prepare for, and mitigate the risk of
disaster.
i

On the contrary, there are still communities that fail to act based on their beliefs. The second
example given here in the case study below will demonstrate that:














Similarly, cultural practices and beliefs always dont contribute positively to development and/or
DRR work. Popular belief encourages people to think of disasters as their fate rather than events
that can be avoided or the risk reduced by mitigation and preparedness. Andreana Reale quoted
two more such examples: Pakistani academic Hafiz Aziz ur Rehman pointed out that many
Islamic leaders interpreted the 2005 Kashmir earthquake as an act of God. In a similar way,
Catholics and Evangelicals in Morolica, Honduras, considered a devastating flood as a result of
Hurricane Mitch as part of Gods punishment.
ii


Religion as a positive factor
J ust like religion can play a negative role in the peoples beliefs, it can also play a great role in
acceptance. J onathan Benthall
iii
explored the case of Islamic Relief Worldwide, which sees a
greater acceptance in predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Afghanistan etc due to its faith based development work. Islamic Relief Worldwide is a world
leader in disasters and part of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and works extensively
in the countries mentioned above in the field of DRR, especially Bangladesh. Given its special
placement in the region, and wide acceptance within the community, Islamic Relief has achieved
much success and is considered one of the top NGOs working in DRR in the region.
However, that alone is not a determining factor and there are other reasons why religion can be
an important agent in DRR work. Religious groups oftentimes embed themselves into the local
Case Study 1: Agadir, Morocco
A very interesting study was made by Tom Paradise, Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle
East and Islamic Studies and his colleagues for the issues of Environmental Hazards and the Journal
of North African Studies. They have found that fatalistic religious beliefs can affect how people
perceive risk and recover from natural disasters and how these attitudes shape the way cities are
rebuilt. His study was based on two moderate earthquakes that took place on February 29
th
, in 1960,
in Agadir, Morocco. The earthquake killed 15,000 people and devastated a large part of the city. 50
years later, unfortunately the city still failed to enforce building norms.
Paradise was intrigued by this fact and conducted extensive interviews with over 100 survivors of the
earthquake. They also explored peoples perceptions, judgements and conclusions and found out that
faith and peoples religious beliefs had a stronger role in their attitude to disasters. Generally people
responded by placing their belief in the will of God and the concept of retribution. They believed that
those affected had paid for sins and even many educated people responded with similar answers.
Anotherinterestingaspectofthisstudywasthatgivenpeoplesleisurehabits,earlywarningand
informationdisseminationinthecommunitieswasdifficult.
culture and can act as agents of change towards better practices, especially in the case when they
are delivering aid as a faith based organization such as Islamic Relief. They have resources built
up for faith based work and also long term post-disaster presence. In many cases they enjoy
special status within communities they work in, treated with respect and venerated greatly. This
situation should be exploited advantageously to further the cause of protection for people.
Local Islamic NGOs and volunteers from across the faith community came to the aid of victims
in recent floods in Pakistan as also during the earthquake in Kashmir, thus speeding up the
response process significantly. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, unaffected temples in
Phang Nha, Thailand, became places of refuge for survivors, with monks caring for the physical,
emotional and spiritual needs of survivors and conducting cremation ceremonies for the dead.
iv

Similarly, churches and other religious bodies worked together to provide relief for victims of
the 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia.
Local religious institutions are often in a better position to respond than governments,
particularly where governments are characterised by corruption and incompetence. In Fiji, the
Church provides disaster-affected Christians with food and provisions over and above
government aid. Churches are able to channel resources from overseas counterparts and provide
support on all levels, including reconstruction of housing, relocation and limited financial aid.
v

Religious bodies and structures often wield great power and authority. Since they are also often
at the forefront of development and DRR efforts, it is integral that development practitioners and
disaster workers consult with and work beside these groups. Ruth Maetala, a researcher, church
leader and development worker in Solomon Islands, told the Parliament forum that Church
leaders in her country wielded more influence than any other form of authority, including chiefs
and politicians. Religious groups often understand or are indeed at the heart of important
community dynamics and power structures. This is especially true where local religious
institutions are key providers of education, health services, emergency relief and general
development.
Many aspects of resilience are also drawn from religion. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc have
various modes of meditation, which form the core of their worship. This can significantly help
improve peoples coping capacities and fatalism can be converted into a positive faith that
enables them to prepare for the worst but give the best in those difficult times. Hence religion
can be a great enabling factor wherein people gain strength from.
Gender Relationships
Generally, gender issues are overused and tend to go overboard in highlighting the real and
pressing issues that are pertinent. This holds true for DRR too, wherein practitioners oftentimes
segregate gender as a separate issue but that gets diluted and even sometimes traditional
communities do not accept them as coming from outsiders. Hence it is first important to take into
consideration the inherent gender positioning and then take that into account while planning
intervention. The barriers should then be carefully addressed in a way that the real needs of
women dont go lacking.
Madhavi Malalgoda Ariyabandu
vi
writes about the gender issues being about perception,
identities, attitudes and status. She also mentions that these issues are inherent and just dont
arise during disasters. Gender relations are socially, economically and politically imbalanced and
unfavourable to women. This is where the real work of practitioners is required. Madhavi in her
research confers that women are generally poorer than men. Her inference is that this may be the
reason because they are generally less paid, disproportionately employed, and traditionally
inheritance laws are also unfavourable to them. This makes their access to resources
unfavourable too. Local cultures and tradition allow them lesser mobility, poor access to
education and involvement in social processes. Therefore they have less power to change. These
issues are firstly important to address, as we need to involve them in governance and social
change.
The attitude and perceptions to women are carefully masked as culture or tradition, whilst in
actuality these are forms of bias. These perceptions exist at all levels and hamper their
capabilities and involvement. These further affect decisions and actions. Madhavi concludes that
these inequalities make women further vulnerable during disasters. Hence it is necessary to
address the vulnerability while planning for DRR. Also, women and children need extra care in
emergency situations with respect to their physical capabilities and also sensitivity.
Hence we see that cultural alienation of women in the name of culture and tradition is widely
practiced and it is important to first understand the nuances of this differential practice and
address them in the interventions. Taking the case of Islam, e.g. there are many misconceptions
about the treatment of women. Islam says a lot about the exalted status of women. E.g. It says
The most perfect in faith amongst believers is he who is best and kindest to his wife. and in another
instance, the Prophet (PBUH) says Do treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are
your partners... In other religions too, women are given equal and sometimes even superior
status to women. Similarly there are numerous examples is many religious texts about the rights,
treatment and position of women.
Unfortunately, this essence is culturally ignored and disparities take place. Faith based NGOs
can greatly assist in bringing about real change by tackling this very sensitive issue in the right
manner by quoting from religious texts and practices of the past rich traditions.

Governance
From a political standpoint too, a community that is favourably inclined to better DRR is always
characterized by a good governance structure. Corrupt and incompetent governance seriously
hampers both planning for and caring in post-disaster. Although outwardly, this seems to be a
political theme, but if we look closely, then it may be seen that at the very local and macro level,
governance is closely linked to culture. Local governance is formed in a way that tradition and
culture defines. People tend to follow culturally accepted leaders. Issues of gender and religion
are also deeply intertwined within this theme. As we have seen in the case of religion and gender
earlier, politics also forms an integral part of culture in traditional communities.
J ohn Twigg
vii
, in his paper for the DFID Inter-Agency Coordination Group mentions governance
as the top theme for a disaster resilient community. He lists out the components as: Policy,
planning, priorities and political commitment, Legal and regulatory systems, Integration with
development policies and planning, Integration with emergency response and recovery,
Institutional mechanisms, capacities and structures; allocation of responsibilities, Partnerships
and Accountability and community participation.


Indigenous Practices
Every community has its sets of traditional knowledge and beliefs, and many of these are even
scientifically proven. Many of these practices are desirably included into DRR work as best
practices. This forms a very integral part of the communitys culture and tradition and
oftentimes comes into play in their resilience, coping capacities, early warnings and also post
disaster. This knowledge is generally accumulated over generations and remains intact.
Achim Steiner writes in the UNEP publication on Indigenous Knowledge
viii
that local
communities rely heavily on indigenous knowledge for environment protection and disaster
management. They have a vast body of knowledge on disaster prevention and mitigation, early
warning, preparedness and response and post-disaster recovery. This knowledge is the sum of
facts that are known or learned from experience or acquired through observation and study and
handed down from generation to generation. Communities also tend to identify easily with this
knowledge than newer, outside knowledge. The systems are important tools in environmental
conservation and natural disaster management, he mentions.
There is the need to document, practice and preserve this indigenous knowledge of the said
communities. As a part of its efforts, the UNEP study documents some practices in Africa:













Concluding with the above made observations and their analysis, practitioners must always
consider culture as a strong determining factor in DRR practice. The idea is to identify key
cultural aspects such as religion, attitudes and beliefs and indigenous knowledge and first of all
analyze the impact these factors have on DRR practice. In fact, a kind of priority mapping of
these factors should be done to weigh the prevalence, impact and
The table shown below may be developed to draw up a kind of cultural mapping of the
community and demonstrate which aspects need to be strengthened and which ones to be diluted.
e.g.
The Banyala community in Budalangi living on the shores of Lake Victoria had a well-organized
system for mitigating impeding disasters. There were elders who dealt with rainfall prediction and
early warning. Each homestead had a dugout canoe ready for transport in case of heavy flooding.
Each community was also required to dig trenches to control the water around the homestead and
around farmlands. In addition, they were required to avoid ploughing along the lake shores when
heavy flooding was predicted and were advised to catch fish during April-August rainy period when
they were plentiful and preserve them by drying and smoking for use in times of scarcity. Those living
on the highlands were expected to accommodate neighbours displaced by floods in the lowlands,
which were flood prone areas, and so on.

In Swaziland, where drought and occasional floods are common disasters, communities took
precautions after predicting disasters. For example, they used the height of the nests of the
emahlokohloko bird (Ploceus spp.) on trees to predict floods. When floods are likely to occur the
nesting of the emahlokohloko is very high up the trees next to a river and when floods are unlikely the
nests are low down. The Swazis also used the cry of certain birds to predict rain and yields of certain
wild fruit plants to predict famine. Other indigenous methods used by the Swazis to predict natural
hazards includes wind direction, the shape of the crescent moon and the behaviour of certain
animals.
Cultural Practice Prevalence Magnitude Effect
Superstition Very common Low Negative
Water conservation Low High Positive
Fatalism Low High Negative
Gender Justice Low High Positive

Thus, we see how various cultural factors affect DRR work so significantly. Some of these might have
subtle yet long-lasting and deep impacts and many of them direct and more immediate effects.
Nonetheless, it is important to place equal important to all of these in DRR planning and work.
Peoples attitudes and beliefs can be worked upon to change them for the better; aspects of religion can
be adapted to enable people to protect and safeguard themselves; better gender sensitivity and
positioning can help women come to the forefront of disaster preparedness and response; good
governance can help people position themselves better politically to have infrastructure and social
systems in place for DRR work; and indigenous knowledge can be well documented and preserved to
best serve traditional communities in ways they believe and understand.

References:

i
J. Mercer and I. Kelman, Living with Floods in Singas, Papua New Guinea, in Rajib Shaw, Noralene Uy and
Jennifer Baumwool, Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction: Good Practices and Lessons Learned
fromExperiencesintheAsiaPacificRegion,UNISDR,2008.

ii
M. Ensor, Disaster Evangelism: Religion as a Catalyst for Change in PostMitch Honduras, International
JournalofMassEmergenciesandDisasters,21(2),2003.

iii
J.Benthall,HaveIslamicAidAgenciesaPrivilegedRelationshipinMajorityMuslimAreas?TheCaseofPost
tsunamiReconstructioninAceh,JournalofHumanitarianAssistance,June2008.

iv
M.Falk,RecoveryandBuddhistPracticesintheAftermathoftheTsunamiinSouthernThailand', Religion,
40,2010.
v
M. Gillard and D. Paton, Disaster Stress Following a Hurricane: The Role of Religious Differences in the
FijianIslands,TheAustralasianJournalofDisasterandTraumaStudies,Issue2,1999.

vi
MadhaviMalalgodaAriyabandu,ISDRGenderexpertmeeting,1213February07,Geneva,Switzerland

vii
Characteristics of a Disasterresilient Community: A Guidance Note John Twigg, DFID Disaster Risk
Reduction,InteragencyCoordinationGroupAugust2007

viii
Indigenous Knowledge in Disaster Management in Africa United Nations Environment Program Peter
Mwaura,2008