Public SEASS lecture by Anton Novenanto, Department of Sociology, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia

In the age of Anthropocene, when human activities are believed to be one prominent factor in changing the climate and environment, many countries, including Indonesia, persist with conventional relief management in dealing with disasters. Indonesia has been one target for high-risk, large-scale development projects that are potent to initiate environmental hazards since the Dutch colonial era. Such projects have been growing rapidly as the government believes extractive industries are economically more promising than other sectors, despite the high level of risks they entail for the environment and the populations. The scale of disasters has been increasing for those projects meet Indonesia’s rapid urbanization and the government’s ignorance of environmental sustainability.

This talk is a reflection of what is happening in the last ten years of the Lapindo mudflow, what would and could happen next, and how to prepare people with such. It will discuss community-based research as a strategy for intellectuals to empower local people by involving multi-stakeholders in co-understanding multidimensional impacts of the mudflow. It is by doing a collaborative work of knowledge production with the people we could have the opportunity to find practical ways and solutions to deal with disasters in urban contexts.

More information here.