Reconstructing Social Identity for Sustainable Future of Lumpur Lapindo Victims

Abstract

Sustainability of a community's life is not only determined by the quality of the neighborhood environment but also by social identity of the community which is considered more fundamental. Damage or loss of a territory is frequently accompanied by the disappearance of material things and the social identity on the physical space. Social identity is the main consciousness structure of people to operate an everyday life. A variety of previous studies have shown that the presence of a disaster on the environment has led to the transformation of social identity. Whether the damage of the physical space always brings damage to the social identity of the victims is an interesting problem to be questioned in this study through the case of Lumpur Lapindo in Sidoarjo. The research question of paper is to analysis how Lumpur Lapindo disaster affects the victim's social identity. The finding that can be figured out from this paper, first, there are four social identities identified in the victims of Lumpur Lapindo; second, the efforts of the victims are viewed from two sites, i.e. Siring and Renokenongo Villages; third, social identity can raise solidarity among the victims in several ways; and fourth, each site makes social identity build a negotiation that is found to have two different roles.