'Build back better' and the creation of a 'psychic economy of want' in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka

• Verfasst von: Naraindas, Harish [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: 'Build back better' and the creation of a 'psychic economy of want' in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka
• Verf.angabe: Harish Naraindas
• E-Jahr: 2015
• Jahr: 28 Nov, 2015
• Umfang: 7 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 12.12.2017
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Economic and political weekly
• Ort Quelle: Mumbai, 1966
• Jahr Quelle: 2015
• Band/Heft Quelle: 50(2015), 48, Seite 28-64
• ISSN Quelle: 2349-8846
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• K10plus-PPN: 1566287227

Abstract

This paper suggests that post-disaster assistance in the Global South is a version of "slum development" on a compressed scale in terms of time and an expanded one in terms of resources. The index of this is the slogan "build back better." It implies that communities affected by a disaster are a priori a dilapidated lot, and disasters like the 2004 tsunami are a great cleansing. It allows aid agencies that arrive bearing gifts like Santa Claus an opportunity to transform a blighted existence into a civilised one. Each of them arrives not only with a heraldic logo but also with their own plans to build back better. The result is a plethora of architectural styles and ownership patterns leading to a realigning of relations among victims, and between victims and non-victims. This realigning, in a climate of sudden and large influx of money and material goods, rather than assuaging their loss and grief, creates a chimera of plenitude that ironically leads to an elusive but persistent and widespread sense of discontent across different segments of society.