Get ready for the flood! Risk-handling styles in Jakarta, Indonesia

How do people protect their physical and mental well-being when their assets and health are continually threatened by river flooding? How can we understand their practices in anticipation of, during, or right after floods? These are the main questions that have led to my anthropological PhD-research on the ways in which residents of a severely flood-prone neighbourhood in Jakarta (Indonesia) live with - and protect themselves against- frequent floods.
Between 2009 and 2011 I have conducted fieldwork and lived in a neighbourhood that I call ‘Bantaran Kali’ in this dissertation: a slum that is built on the banks of a river and that is flooded several times a year. During my fieldwork in Bantaran Kali, I participated in the daily lives of my informants and experienced some of the risks that are inherent to it. For example, their houses and in-house shops flooded three times during the period in which my fieldwork took place. Many residents fell ill due to the polluted floodwater, and most of them experienced huge economic losses as a result of these floods. Some lost all their savings, while others saw their furniture and work assets damaged. Through the methods of participant observation, focus group discussions, risk mapping and in-depth interviewing; and by recording life-histories and conducting psychological and socio-economical surveys, I tried to gain insights in the many different ways in which the inhabitants of Bantaran Kali act and deal with the flood-risks described above.