Reclaiming post-disaster narratives of loss in Indonesia

Abstract

In this paper I examine discursive and practical approaches to heritage preservation that follow the destruction of cultural heritage as a result of a natural disaster. Referring to post-tsunami reconstructions in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, between the years of 2006 and 2011, I argue that the remedial work that ‘post-disaster’ heritage preservation is asked to do following natural disasters involves an irreconcilable deployment of two opposite ontologies: heritage as a subject of preservation activity is either loyal to a set of heritage values that have already been articulated historically (that is, pre-disaster); or heritage is forced to become untethered from historical values in order to perform the functions of documenting and communicating contemporary (post-disaster) concerns with future wellbeing. At the heart of this issue, I argue, is the resistance of heritage preservation practices to acknowledge heritage value as temporally, socially, historically and politically constructed.