AFTER THE TSUNAMI – HARNESSING AUSTRALIAN EXPERTISE FOR RECOVERY
Canberra, 31 March 2005
Follow-up group reports and case studies
Group 8: Understanding and harnessing community response
The Tsunami
of 26 December 2004 shows how important it is for communities to harness their
capacities for response and renewal. Australia can make a contribution to understanding how those capacities
operate and how they can be best used for on-going re-construction efforts and
future regional engagement. In this
discussion, two quite different community responses need to be considered. Responses occur, firstly, in communities
that are linked to affected areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
India and elsewhere. Secondly, the
response of the Australian community, of which the National Academies
Forum is a part, needs to be better understood in terms of developing Australian
policy and improving national response.
1. Understanding and using the responses of communities linked to the disaster
'Communities', in this context, does not only involve people living in directly affected areas. There have been community responses throughout the world – often resulting from the connections of scholarly, diasporic and donor groups. With so many competing interest and ideas, the impact of these 'outside' communities is not necessarily always positive. Better understanding the responses of the aid community, for example, can shed light on their practices and ideas. It is important to remember that aspirations within and between communities can be complex and contradictory.
Within Australia there is considerable knowledge of the communities that were affected by the disaster. Australians have been engaged in many long-term projects in the region. Many of these people have relevant language and area knowledge. Through their work and study, they have developed networks of contacts that may, in some cases, be especially useful. More generally, many Australians have experience working at the community level in research, commercial and development activities, in Australia and overseas. There are also many networks of important Australian University alumni, particularly those from the Colombo Plan era, who maintain close connections with Australia and Australian academia.
As these examples indicate, the current capacity for Australian community engagement in the disaster-affected areas is the product of long-term, far-sighted investments. This investment is important because the gaps in our knowledge and capacity highlight where further investment is needed. We can build on what we already know and should acknowledge the impressive responses by governments and communities within the region. It is also important to remain focused on the diverse—and not always positive—perceptions of Australia, 'foreigners' and aid throughout the region.
The primary constraint on better understanding and engaging with affected communities is language and cultural knowledge. There is an abundance of experience and expertise regarding communities and their responses but it is not easily accessible to people outside anthropology and sociology. It can be difficult to track-down relevant experts, where they exist. Crucially, without a sufficiently large and accessible group of trained and experienced linguists and social scientists, outside engagement at the community level is often problematic. The diminishing capacity of many Australian Universities to train adequate numbers of language and area specialists is a cause for deep concern. Planning for future needs and expertise in Asian Studies should not be a reactive process. A far-reaching plan to revive 'Southeast Asian Studies' is one possible way of improving capacities to understand and interact with diverse community responses in Australia’s region.
Australia has developed a great deal of both high-level diplomatic and community-based grass-roots knowledge and capacity. The interaction between these two scales (national and local) is an area where more understanding is needed. The scale where national and local interests tend to meet, the provincial level, is particularly worthy of consideration. It is in this 'middle-ground' that many problems occur that can impede community level activities and which may lead to unsatisfactory reconstruction outcomes.
There is also the potential for introducing new ways of building and describing communities. A 'systems' (integrated) approach, focusing on 'resilience', has potential. Such an approach, integrating understanding of ecological, social and political issues at a local level, may help to create better communities. There is also potential for locally appropriate governance solutions that build on existing local understandings of decision-making and power. In suggesting the possibility of such a wide-ranging reassessment of community-level interactions, it is important to recognize the on-going issues of corruption, conflict and disorder in many of the affected areas.
Recommendations for working with relevant communities
- The most important capacity to develop for working with relevant communities is a better understanding of local conditions, cultures and languages.
- Communication is a crucial element for building and maintaining links between and among communities. The idea of 'wind-up radios' (which do not require electricity to function) was considered important for local community response and renewal. The techniques used in response to PNG’s recent Tsunami also demonstrate that community level education has benefits.
- Communities in affected areas can be built and understood based on an integrated, systems approach which links society and ecology in terms of a resilient system. This requires further analysis and study but must be founded on deep understandings of current community capacities.
- Knowledge of communities needs to be accessible. Data on anthropological and other social science expertise needs to be made more accessible to facilitate immediate and accurate retrieval.
2. Understanding and harnessing the Australian community response
The problematic character of the Australian community response requires much deeper understanding. In some key ways, the Australian response has been over-explained. Its real impact is lessened by inadequate long-term commitments and planning. It is the long-term commitments that matter: short-term 'crisis' response doesn’t always do enough. And while Australians like to be seen as good neighbours, it is important to acknowledge the current limits of much fraternal feeling. Australia’s education system and media certainly have a role to play in maintaining more engaged community attitudes but there are other important vehicles for better harnessing community feelings in the long-term. Aid, trade and foreign policy impact the way that Australians see the outside world. In the long-term, these issues will profoundly influence Australian attitudes to the peoples of the region. Harnessing the empathy and generosity inspired by the Tsunami disaster to potentially benefit other international humanitarian and social issues has been inadequately investigated. Of course, any Australian response to regional events is helped by broadening the long-term appeal and influence of area studies and, in particular, Asian Studies. This goes well beyond the limited mandate of 'disaster response' but it is probably the key issue for harnessing wider community feeling for future engagements in the region.
Research conclusion
In Australia and overseas, there are many opportunities for comparative research to help better understand how communities respond to disaster situations. This is important in terms of planning for future international events and crises. Bridging the gap between practice and research is an important part of any involvement at the community level. For researchers, there are unique and probably unprecedented opportunities for integrated projects at the community level. Harnessing the social knowledge of academics and others to work with diverse community responses is the major, on-going challenge.