Cultural Sensitivity in Disasters

Culture refers to integrated patterns of human behaviour that includes language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups. It's a set of dynamic rules passed across generations with evolutions based on the time on the attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviours of the people concerned. Being culture sensitive is one of the important elements in psychosocial management of disaster.

Cultural sensitivity is a series of techniques that helps one learn about different cultures existing in the society, appreciate people from other cultures and accept their cultural practices. It helps in generating awareness on cultural distinctions and similarities. The significance of local knowledge and local experience in a form of various coping strategies and mechanism is crucial as they are ingrained in people's behaviour. They have been regarded as an important factor that support disaster risk reduction.

The disaster response team must be culturally aware and recognize that appropriate risk levels are cultural constructs that vary from culture to culture, and that the goals for mitigation efforts will differ from group to group. This sensitivity would help caregivers to be mindful of the prevailing cultural norms and would aid in devising better disaster management initiatives. It would also foster community acceptance and would encourage community participation.

Implementing a 'toolkit' which consists of shared values, traditions, worldviews, local everyday experiences or collective memories that are culturally significant to specific groups or populations can be expected to be more successful in fostering culturally sensitive management in disaster scenarios. Thus, awareness of local culture is crucial in local emergency planning process as it plays a key role in effectively responding to disasters in a community.

Why caregivers need to be sensitive towards local culture?

• Influences people's knowledge, attitude and behaviours towards a given phenomenon.
• Creates a sense of community.
• Moderate people's perception and readiness to accept services.
• Regulates daily practices.
• Fosters decision making processes and involvement. 

Culture and Disasters

Rituals

All human societies practice different rituals appropriate to their culture starting from birth to death in everyday life. These are purposeful, generally repetitive and symbolic activities. A sense of community “we feeling” and shared values can be strengthened by these rituals, but their baffling diversity can also alienate and divide people, particularly when the valued rituals of one culture are considered bizarre by another. The rituals help individuals respond/adjust to disaster disturbances, and assist individuals in recovering from disasters over longer periods. Cultural traditions and ritualized acts are passed on through the generations and they help communities to cope with the repeated hazards.

Religious Belief

Religion and culture are intertwined in most societies. Religious beliefs can determine how individuals interpret disaster risk, respond to disasters and recover from its consequences especially in coping with the psychological distress churned by any disaster. Positive views and beliefs give individuals a sense of hope, power over the unrestrained time during and after the disaster and a reason to recover from their losses. Religious practices contribute to relaxation and emotional well-being. Disasters can either shake or strengthen individual's faith and existence of a supreme power. Religious and spiritual beliefs play a significant role in recovery following a disaster.

Bereavement Practices

In every culture, the last rites performed to the deceased individual is inextricably connected to religious values and sentiments. It prevails as an act of respect to the deceased one and also acts as a system for grief alleviation for the family members. Funerals are believed to be an essential step in the transition from the physical to the spiritual realm, whether it was by reincarnation of the soul, as in Hindu religion, or a life after death in another world, as Muslims and Christians believe. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were not allowed to follow the usual cultural practices as a homage to the deceased individual and was not allowed to congregate. These would affect the grieving process. The caregiver has to be mindful of the cultural practices and allow minimal exercise of such practices while adhering to the protocols. Individuals and families need to be taught to adopt a variety of approaches to cope with the memories of the loved one. For initiating such practices, sensitivity towards the local culture is very essential. 

Along with the above-mentioned elements, language, traditions, values, beliefs and mores also form integral part of culture. The caregivers need to have adequate sensitivity towards the cultural underpinnings of the community. This can be done during mock drills and psychosocial preparedness initiatives where the caregivers can initiate structured dialogue with the community to understand the local culture. The caregiver needs to be open in understanding the cultural elements. This openness helps in minimising personal biases and in instilling community cooperation.

Indigenous Practices and Cues in Preparedness

Indigenous knowledge forms its base from the advanced understanding of a group of people on local environment. Beyond understanding, the indigenous practices are a way of life in the adaptation process or means of survival from the crisis. This is because of the fact that indigenous knowledge originates in the community and gets disseminated non-formally as it is collectively owned by the community. Such body of knowledge stemming from various methods and practices are been followed by generations hailing from that community to reduce the risk, adapt and thrive from the recent natural disasters. Having knowledge on indigenous practices and cues for disaster risk reduction/preparedness plays an important role in effective care delivery for the disaster workers/practitioners and policy makers.

Four primary arguments on significance of indigenous knowledge on disaster risk reduction are (ISDR., 2008);

• The indigenous knowledge and practices embedded in community which proved its effectiveness in managing a disaster, can be adopted other communities encountering similar situation.
• It helps in increasing the participation of the community members from the affected community to take leading role in disaster risk reduction activities.
• Incorporating valuable knowledge existing in the indigenous practices from a local context in planning a policy/program, enhances its effective implementation.
• Non-formal means by which indigenous knowledge is disseminated provides a successful model for other education on disaster risk reduction.

Indigenous practices in India as a means of DRR/preparedness

Just like every other country even in India people from different communities' practice some of the strategies embodied in the indigenous knowledge specially in response to natural disaster. India being a culturally diverse country has unique practices across the sates from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Some such practices are listed in the table below;

Every state and different communities within the states have their own indigenous practices. Some of them may be even common. For example, unusual barking of dogs, chirping of birds, change in the color and movement of the clouds etc. are the cues to predict the natural disasters like storms, cyclone, heavy rain falls, tornado, earthquake etc. The relationship between indigenous knowledge and natural disasters has developed more interest in recent years. While applying the indigenous knowledge, practices and cues the disaster worker should be careful in distinguishing between the misconceptions which would do more harm than good and the workable practices. 

Source : National Disaster Management Authority