Abstract
This study explores the importance of indigenous knowledge for everyday practices of disaster risk reduction and response. Many existing studies have highlighted the need to integrate such knowledge with modern science. Based on ethnographic research in indigenous communities in the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, this study explores the categorization of indigenous knowledge in the integration process. To that end, primary data were collected through in-depth interviews while secondary data were collected from relevant documents, including books, articles, websites and government and NGO reports. The findings indicate that indigenous knowledge is acquired through long observation and interaction with disasters. Although some of this knowledge is based on successes in other localities, some indigenous knowledge is completely local, homogenous and shared among community members. It was also established that indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully organized into a number of categories, and that indigenous knowledge of a technical nature is more likely to be integrated with scientific knowledge. The research was exploratory and approached indigenous knowledge issues from the point of view of indigenous communities themselves. This approach should be replicated and expanded in other indigenous communities.
Highlights
The widely publicized recovery of Simeulue on Aceh and Moken society on Thailand following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami prompted a substantial increase in studies of indigenous knowledge and its role in disaster management
This paper explores how these communities deal with disaster and examine the nature and role of indigenous knowledge in that context
The Mentawai people already have their own ways of coping with disaster threats
Summary
The widely publicized recovery of Simeulue on Aceh and Moken society on Thailand following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami prompted a substantial increase in studies of indigenous knowledge and its role in disaster management. The knowledge that helped those communities to survive demonstrates the importance of local and indigenous knowledge (in the form of written and oral stories) for disaster risk reduction. Reports of the use of indigenous knowledge in this context can be traced back to a time long before these events. Dekens (2007) reported evidence from the 1970s that local knowledge and practices could improve preparedness for natural disasters. According to Ellis and West (2000), local knowledge is embedded both in historic understandings of natural hazards and disasters and in current actions and events.
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