The Golden Wave: Culture and Politics After Sri Lanka's Tsunami Disaster

In December 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal regions of Sri Lanka. Six months later, Michele Ruth Gamburd returned to the village where she had been conducting research for many years and began collecting residents' stories of the disaster and its aftermath: the chaos and loss of the flood itself; the sense of community and leveling of social distinctions as people worked together to recover and regroup; and the local and national politics of foreign aid as the country began to rebuild. In The Golden Wave, Gamburd describes how the catastrophe changed social identities, economic dynamics, and political structures.

Author: Michele Ruth Gamburd
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 12/23/2013
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.49d
ISBN: 9780253011398

Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2014

About the Author

Michele Ruth Gamburd is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Portland State University. She is author of The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids and Breaking the Ashes: The Culture of Illicit Liquor in Sri Lanka and editor (with Dennis B. McGilvray) of Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and Regional Dimensions.