As part of the BMBF-funded Tsunami_Risk project focused on improving the Indonesian tsunami warning systems so that it may also take into account non-seismically induced tsunamis, KFS member Isabelle Desportes spent a month in Indonesia between November and December 2022. In partnership with Universitas Indonesia and the Indonesian research agency BRIN, the geographer accompanied the exchanges between German and Indonesian (geo)scientists as well as members of disaster management institutions. Following three field trip days in the area of Banten impacted by the 2018 tsunami triggered by the Anak Krakatau volcanic eruption, a one-day workshop on the topic 'Disaster risk cultures and the geoscience-practice interface' was organized on November 17 in Jakarta.

 

In addition, Isabelle Desportes presented her research work to primarily geoscientific and engineering audiences in Bandung (Bandung Institute of Technology, December 1), Lampung (University of Lampung, December 9) and via a ‘disaster risk culture travelling exhibition’ exposed at various Tsunami_Risk project meetings, for instance at the Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics BMKG on November 21. In a policy context where ‘structure’ and ‘culture’ are too often treated as separate components, confronting these audiences with social scientific findings underlined the need to approach the tsunami warning systems as a social process where communication and translation between various (technical) agencies and communities, with their own epistemological presuppositions, are key.

 

As master thesis co-supervisor, Isabelle Desportes moreover attended the thesis proposal defense of Willy Wicaksono, who focuses on disaster risk cultures in Labuan as part of his studies in the newly established master's program on risk and disaster management at Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta.