The Give and Take of Disaster Aid Social and Moral Transformation in the Wake of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka The Give and Take of Disaster Aid Social and Moral Transformation in the Wake of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka Carolina Ivarsson Holgersson Doctoral Dissertation in Social Anthropology School of Global Studies University of Gothenburg 2013 © Carolina Ivarsson Holgersson 2013 Printed by: Kompendiet, Göteborg 2013 ISBN 978-91-628-8752-0 http://hdl.handle.net/2077/33687 References to internet web sites were accurate at the time of writing. The author takes no responsibility for web sites that may have expired or changed since this book was prepared. The Give and Take of Disaster Aid - Social and Moral Transformation in the Wake of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka By Carolina Holgersson Ivarsson. Doctoral dissertation 2013, Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Box 700, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden. Language: English with a summary in Swedish. - ISBN 978-91-628-8752-0 - http://hdl.handle.net/2077/33687 Abstract The act of giving reflects the most basic principles of morality and has therefore constituted a classical anthropological field of inquiry. The importance of giving, receiving and reciprocating for the shaping and consolidation of social relations has long been recognized. This thesis uses these insights to explore the way in which the gift of disaster aid, which derives from outside the community, impacts upon local social and cosmological relations in a village. The main objective is to investigate how the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami and the immense wave of aid that followed it and subsequently receded, affected the local moral economy in a Sri Lankan village. Fieldwork for this thesis was carried out in a coastal community over a period of twelve months. The study asks how the ‘gift’ of aid was understood and valued by donors and recipients and sug- gests that it set in motion or accelerated processes of change that benefited some people and relation- ships but marginalised others, thus evoking disorder and moral uncertainty. Local life-worlds were shattered in multiple ways and the recovery process became caught in the tensions between several, sometimes competing, moral discourses concerning tradition/modernity, the individual/collective and the local/global. The thesis provides a thick description of a community before and after exposure to large scale natural disaster and shows that disaster aid not only had fundamental bearing upon social relations but also impinged on vital human and non-human relations - with the earth, sea and supernatu- ral beings - that were important for recovery and meaning making in the local context. The study finds that the catastrophe not only destroyed and altered physical habitats and livelihoods but it also disrupted the dynamic interplay of local social and cosmological relations. The tsunami exposed some of the power structures that people perceived as problematic in their so- ciety and the wave of aid sometimes fed into these or brought about new disparities. Aid thus not only helped with material recovery but also engendered frustration and fragmentation, particularly of the moral and social order; the tsunami gifts were therefore both (re)constructive and destructive. People did not experience the recovery process as simply restoring their community to its pre-disaster condition nor was it, for them, rebuilt in a way that was unquestionably better. The thesis thus shows that the assump- tion that post-disaster contexts offer a window of opportunity for risk reduction and improved re- development - ‘the build-back better approach’ - depends upon whose perspective is adopted. This thesis contributes to an understanding of how people in the wake of natural disaster use familiar cultural resources to transform experiences of disquiet and powerlessness and it reveals that local morality and cosmology influence how disaster and foreign aid is interpreted and managed. Key Words: Anthropology, Sri Lanka, disaster, aid, cosmology, giving, receiving, morality, economy, Buddhism, ritual, local religious life, philanthropy Contents Contents ..................................................................................................................................vi Figures......................................................................................................................................ix Acknowledgements................................................................................................................xi 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Framing the Line of Inquiry: Giving (of aid) and the Local Moral Economy ....................4 Disaster Studies/Anthropology of Disaster...............................................................................7 Tsunami Research in Sri Lanka: What has been done?............................................................9 Gift and Exchange Theory - International Aid and The ‘Free’ Gift? .................................14 Moral Economy .............................................................................................................................21 Introducing the Field Site.............................................................................................................23 Outline of the Thesis.....................................................................................................................32 2. ‘Tsunamitime’ - From Compassion to Conflict.........................................................35 The First Encounter......................................................................................................................36 The First Wave, The Tsunami.....................................................................................................46 Coping with Chaos: Relief Aid and Temporary Shelter.........................................................58 Summary and Reflections.............................................................................................................65 3. Receiving Houses and Making Homes........................................................................69 Re-ordering the Land: Protection, Control and Profit...........................................................70 Tsunami Houses – Building Back Better?.................................................................................76 More than a Roof Over One’s Head .........................................................................................79 The Making of Sathi’s House ......................................................................................................93 Summary and Reflections...........................................................................................................100 4. Local Livelihoods - Commodification and Competition ........................................103 Philanthropy or Economy - Solidarity or Self-interest? .......................................................105 A Temporary ‘Reconomy’..........................................................................................................108 New Relations and Opportunities: Victims, Vultures and Heroes....................................112 Livelihood (in)Security in Tharugama .....................................................................................114 Local Social Networks and Relations for Economic Security ............................................136 Summary and Reflections...........................................................................................................138 5. A World Up-side-down -Disordered Relations, Obligations and Expectations .141 The Individual and the Collective.............................................................................................143 Opposition and Opportunity.....................................................................................................149 Aligning Otherworldly Relations: Healing the Social Body and Protecting the Self......167 Summary and Reflections...........................................................................................................177 6. Disaster and Local Religious Life - Reciprocal Flows Disrupted........................181 “Why Did it Happen and Why Did it Happen to Me?” ......................................................183 Religious Life in Tharugama......................................................................................................187 Decline of Buddhism and Rise of Spirit Religion?................................................................200 Suffering and Agency in the Wake of Disaster......................................................................207 Summary and Reflections...........................................................................................................210 7. Conclusions and Reflections ........................................................................................213 Gift or Poison - Free or Binding? ............................................................................................214 Social Disorder: Reciprocity Disrupted and Reconfigured .................................................217 Society, Cosmology and Morality - Contested Boundaries .................................................218 Unity and Moral order ................................................................................................................220