A Cultural Coping Mechanism: Vurnerable Climate Action Encounter Flood Disaster as Everyday Life in Jakarta

Abstract

This paper concerns about experiences and responses from the community who live in flood plain at an area in Central Jakarta. They encounter flood disaster and the diseases aftermath frequently. Generally, the diseases aftermath is diarrhea, common cold, dengue hemorroic fever, pulmonary infection, and skin infection. The aims of this paper were to understand the meaning of flood disaster and the disease aftermath from the community’s experiences, and to know how their response and strategy dealing with vulnerabilities as their cultural coping mechanism. The results showed that flood disaster and the diseases aftermath had been seen as normal occurrence in their everyday life. There was different cultural coping mechanism to deal with the flood and diseases in the time of heavy flood and regular flood. Their responses to encounter vulnerability were aware where they living on, and strategies to prone the event. They had accessability to all important public services like health services, education, workplaces, transportation mode, and the economic’s access. For those reasons of accessability to all important services, they were coping the hazard and consciously lived in density area at the flood plain area nearby the river bank, and never willingly to be relocated.