Anto Mohsin

Liberal Arts Program, Northwestern University in Qatar, Qatar
anto.mohsin@gmail.com

Dubbed the “World’s Muddiest Disaster” by Erin Wayman of the Smithsonian magazine, the mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia is one of the most devastating “envirotechnical” disasters in recent time. A result of a confluence of natural and sociotechnical processes, the catastrophe is muddy literally and figuratively. Hot mud has been spewing from an underground volcano and inundating a vast area in the Sidoarjo District since May 2006. In the wake of the disaster, the Indonesian government issued a regulation and drew up a “map of the affected areas” in an attempt to enclose the disaster geographically, financially, and politically. While thousands of Sidoarjo residents who were affected by the mudflow have been trying to use the map to seek compensation from PT Lapindo Brantas, an energy company publicly deemed (though not legally) responsible for causing the disaster, the company has used it to limit its financial liability. This chapter traces and analyzes the murkiness of the disaster including its origin, causes, and mitigation highlighting the questionable practices of the sociotechnical system of oil and gas industry in Indonesia. Out the many uncertainties and unclear procedures and legal basis, many Sidoarjo residents who are affected by this disaster adopted the map, which was created as an instrument of the state meant to contain the overflow of the mudflow and mitigate the disaster, as a tool to mount a resilient response to the seemingly unending catastrophe embedded in Indonesia’s broken sociotechnical system of fossil fuel energy.

Reviewers:
1. Hyungsub Choi
2. Ashley Carse