Archipelagic Regions Research Articles

Towards Disaster Management in Indonesia Case Studies: Jakarta and Yogyakarta Provinces

Based on the Asia Pacific Disaster Report prepared by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on 26 October 2010, during 1980-2009 period in Asia Pacific countries, Indonesia was the fourth rank of the highest natural disasters for about 312 cases, second rank of the highest number of death approximately 191.164 people, and also had economic losses for at least US$ 22.5 billion. The geographical location, archipelagic region, tectonic formation, largest population, and tropical climate condition have put Indonesia into the highest disaster risks of tropical geo-hazards as well as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, and forest fires. How Indonesia deals with the natural disasters is very important issue nowadays not only for the government but also for academia to produce knowledge related to disaster management. The availability of disaster management planning was extremely important to have proper disaster management. This paper provides the experiences of Indonesian cities in conducting disaster management planning processes through two case studies Jakarta and Yogyakarta. This study found that the disaster management plan in both cities considered the level of risks, not only the level of disaster impacts through risk mapping process. The different size of city also brought the different way of mapping and planning processes. These findings suggest that contrary to rational comprehensive planning, which solely conducted by the experts, the disaster management planning should be conducted inclusively through collaborating among government, experts, and vulnerable groups.

Toward Transpacific Ecopoetics: Three Indigenous Texts

In this article, I employ "the Pacific" as a contact zone, method, and concept with which to examine the dynamic, shifting relationship between land and sea that allows indigenous literature in the transpacific context to engage all of its ecopoetic complexity. The Pacific is the largest oceanic divide on earth. In recent years, issues around global capitalism, national identity, community, and the ecology of the Pacific region have sparked intriguing and provoca- tive discussions. Research along these lines celebrates the networking and coalition activities of various groups of people in the Pacific, and highlights the circulation of ideas and cultures that I believe to be crucial to contem- porary ecological scholarship. It offers an oceanic perspective that serves as a counterweight to continental ways of thinking, and it supplements or challenges transnational approaches to imperialism, postcolonialism, indi- geneity, globalization, and ecology. 1 A recent special issue of the Contemporary Pacific titled "Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge" examines uncharted spaces of the Pacific Islands and historicizes indigenous discourses about making landfall, showing how they have contested the production of new transoceanic environments. The articles in this special issue "explore notions of Pacific indigeneity as they circulate through geographical, cultural, political, and historical flows of people(s), things, knowledge, power—between islands and continents." 2 As the United States and China battle over this geographical space, the message from the indigenous Pacific can be inspiring: neighboring communities have always exchanged ideas and products, often across vast oceanic distances. It was a large world in which indigenous people intermingled along numerous interconnecting routes, unhindered by the boundaries erected much later by imperial powers. Indeed, the recent wave of research on transnational

Flexible Fishing

This article looks at changes in the coastal environment and political economy of Eastern Indonesia and considers how these changes have created transformations in the lives of coastal people, primarily of the Sama. Scattered throughout island Southeast Asia, the Sama live and work at sea and along the rural littoral—the vast stretches of this archipelagic region's nonurban coastal zone. Historically Sama people have played a key role in the maritime produce trades of the region. Like artisanal fishers elsewhere, they have seen their resource base depleted and their labor marginalized by the expansion of commercial fishing. Drawing on a mix of archival research, oral history interviews, and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the current essay describes and examines particular shapes of social transformation. Along with cultural analysis, geographical perspectives offer tools to help explain the spatial reorganization and decentralization of production that has affected women and men, older livelihood pursuits and newer ones.

Atlantic archipelagic regions: self-government and ocean management in the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands

This paper examines regional government competences in relation to their maritime space and management resources. The inherently oceanic character of insular regions has had an influence on self-governing which is now clearly oriented towards the sea environment on which they depend for development. At the same time, their insularity sets limitations on them and places them in an unadvantageous position in relation to other non-insular regions. The tendency to deepen their political autonomy, emphasizing the maritime dimension of their territory, results in greater claims for competences to manage the ocean, as well as in the emergence of tensions between central government and regional government.