This study critically analyzes women"s agency in protesting gold mining corporation in Central Sumba, Indonesia. Like other mining areas, the gold mining activities were rejected by the indigenous inhabitants. Narratives of the anti-mining are many, but they did not record the women's involvement. The research applies a postcolonial feminist ethnography method. The imbalance of power relations places women"s narratives as hidden. The postcolonial feminist ethnography reveals the hidden struggle of indigenous women; it uncovers various messages of life protection and conservation. Their experience reflects their knowledge of local harmony and resilience. It suggests that women have capacity to clearly explain the root of their anti-mining acts. Women hold the legacy of knowledge to protect natural resources from their female ancestors through spoken language (tutur). Women are not worried about the depletion of gold minerals, but they are more concerned about losing their water sources. Caring for a spring water means establishing themselves as agents for conserving natural resources.
Three prominent disasters in Indonesia demonstrate the importance of gender roles, relations and practices in delineating the social and spatial relations of Riskscapes, with implications for developing resilience to disaster and preparing for climate change. We build on a model of Riskscapes that incorporates power relations as a conceptual dimension and show how gender plays a central role in this, as well as intersecting with the other dimensions of Riskscape specification. We conclude with a series of hypotheses that can test the model and clarify and specify the ways gender requires incorporation into disaster and climate change Riskscape research, planning and action.
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