Doctoral defence: Muzayin Nazaruddin "Semiotics of Natural Disasters: the Entanglements of Environmental and Cultural Transformations"

On 16 December at 10:15 Muzayin Nazaruddin will defend his doctoral thesis “Semiotics of Natural Disasters: the Entanglements of Environmental and Cultural Transformations” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Semiotics and Culture Studies).

Supervisor: 
Research Fellow Riin Magnus, University of Tartu

Opponent: 
Associate Professor Kati Lindström, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)

Summary

This thesis discusses how people make sense of disasters and how semiotics can help to explain different disaster interpretations. It also examines how disasters are intertwined with pre- and post-disaster socio-cultural processes, prompting a question of whether they lead to cultural changes or continuities. 
Drawing on qualitative research from two post-disaster contexts in Indonesia, Aceh following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Mt. Merapi after the 2010 eruption, this study utilises frameworks from ecosemiotics, cultural memory studies, Lotmanian semiotic inheritance, and political ecology.

I argue that the most comprehensive approach to studying disasters considers both the role of natural hazards and the social factors that make certain groups more vulnerable, as well as the cultural resilience that helps people cope with the hazards. Conceptualising disasters as semiotic processes, involving recognition, denomination, evaluation, and anticipation, helps to move beyond nature-culture divide and explore how environmental features, socio-economic circumstances, and cultural dynamics shape disasters. This approach also reveals that disasters often bring competing perspectives, especially between affected communities and external helpers, often incorporating imbalanced power relations and differing wish for dialogue. Vulnerable groups, those most affected by disaster, may experience the recovery process as yet another crisis, if the processes fail to meet their needs. 

I also argue that in one historical context, a natural disaster might trigger or accelerate cultural shifts, while in another, it might reinforce the stability of socio-cultural orders. Assessing these shifts requires contextualising disasters historically, encompassing long-term studies and observations of the dynamics of cultural continuity and change.

Defence will be held only in Zoom (Meeting ID: 910 6433 3189; Passcode: 388465).