Part I Theoretical Overview and Synthesis -- Understanding Disasters: An Analysis and Overview of the Field of Disaster Research and Management -- Understandings of Coping: A Critical Review of Coping Theories for Disaster Contexts -- A Cultural Psychological Framework for Coping with Disasters -- Part II Context, Method, and Reflexive Commentaries on the Case Study -- Contextualizing the Research: Introduction to the Case Study from Java, Indonesia -- Methodological Basis of a Culture-Specific Coping Approach -- Research Ethics: Between Formal Norms and Intentions -- Reflections of an Earthquake Survivor-Researcher -- Reflexive Comments on the Process of Participatory Research -- Part III Multidimensional Coping Framework -- The Material Dimension of Coping: Socioculturally Mediated Biophysical Process -- The Social Dimension of Coping: Communal Negotiations of Social Benefits and Burdens -- The Life Conduct Dimension of Coping: Local Wisdom Discourses and Related Life Orientations -- The Religious Dimension of Coping: The Roles of Cosmologies and Religious Practices -- Part IV Specific Aspects of Coping -- Suffering, Healing and the Discourse of Trauma -- Disaster Aid Distribution and Social Conflicts -- Facing the Future: Villagers’ Visions of Resilience -- Critical Perspectives on Gender Mainstreaming in Disaster Contexts -- Part V Conclusion -- Concluding.  .

As the interdependence between human activities and natural forces on earth  grows in instability, disaster research is maturing as a discipline, employing concepts and methods from fields as disparate as psychology, history, and engineering. But psychological studies have mainly focused on post-disaster pathology or standard themes of coping, rarely taking cultural factors into consideration. Cultural Psychology of Coping with Disasters addresses this omission with an innovative framework for studying culture-specific concepts of vulnerability and local forms of resilience. Expert contributors both build on and transcend traditional clinical ideas to analyze four distinct dimensions of coping: material, social, life conduct, and religious. Extensive findings on the 2006 Java earthquake illustrate both concepts and methods in real-world detail. And a chapter on villagers' visions of their future ably demonstrates the balance between the personal and the collective in coping. Included in the coverage:  Methodological basis of a culture-specific coping approach. Research ethics: between formal norms and intentions. Suffering, healing, and the discourse of trauma. Disaster aid distribution and social conflicts. Critical perspectives on gender mainstreaming in disaster contexts. Plus a multidimensional framework for analyzing the coping process. A truly transdisciplinary work, Cultural Psychology of Coping with Disasters lends itself to a wide range of professional, academic, and research domains, among them disaster psychology, disaster management/aid, cultural psychology, anthropology, public policy, and public health. The book also makes a useful text for courses in these and other fields.