UNDER THE MUD VOLCANO

Abstract

This article explores the aesthetic and rhetorical operations at work in selected written testimonies by victims of the Lapindo mudflow in East Java, Indonesia, focusing on the ways these texts articulate with contentious political movements that seek to bring forth justice and stability to those impacted by the disaster. Despite the formal conventions and political commitments that complicate the communication of trauma through testimony, I argue that researchers and observers must account for victims' perspectives and experiences to better understand this complex disaster. Readings of H.M. Maksum Zuber's memoir, Titanic made by Lapindo (2009), and a collection of short stories by schoolchildren whose lives have been altered by the mudflow, the Cerita pendek karya anak korban Lapindo [Short stories of the children of Lapindo] (2009), provide the centerpiece of this work, as I analyse the relationships between the testimonial text, the specific individuals involved in their composition, and the various contentious political communities that the works reference. The article concludes by employing Michel Callon's notion of ‘overflowings’ to consider the unexpected ways testimonies might articulate with political contention.