From Transmigrasi to Relokasi: Governmental Disaster Management of the Merapi Volcano Uplands (Indonesia)

After the 2010 eruption of the Merapi volcano in Central Java, the Indonesian government set up a post-disaster resettlement program for eruption victims. Through a diachronic approach of this policy, this article shows how this program responds to specific interests and objectives that go beyond the interests of risk management. In addition to existing as a disaster management policy, it is also part of a more general context – national and international – of risk management and development of the national territory from which it inherits its particular logic and orientations. Furthermore, it also shows how to some extent, the recent resettlement policy marks a break with past government policies and thus fits into the changing perspectives that have taken place in national and international institutions over the past two decades in terms of risk and disaster management.