This paper presents an anthropological critique of the governmental response to the triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction – of September 2018 in the region centred on Palu, Central Sulawesi. The government’s master plan or rencana induk (Pemerintah Provinsi Sulawesi Tengah 2018) for the disaster response was based on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (United Nations 2015; Pearson and Pelling 2015), with its underlying principle of ‘build back better’. We critique core concepts underlying this principle, such as ‘vulnerability’ (Bankoff & Hilhorst 2022) and ‘resilience’. The presentation also analyses deficiencies in the staged realisation of this plan, including the disparity of its pronounced targets and the actual achievements in such contexts as provision of housing infrastructure, both temporary (hunian sementara or huntara) and permanent (hunian tetap or huntap), schemes for economic recovery in the agriculture and fishery sectors, and trauma healing. It provides examples of resistance to these programs that exemplify how a systems-oriented resilience approach overlooks the operation of power relations and, reciprocally, potentials for local agency (Bollig 2014). We particularly concentrate on how the system of public-private partnerships involving governmental cooperation with NGOs and foundation has led to some systematic oversights and exclusions, leading to such outcomes as the continuing residence of some of the affected urban poor in temporary housing (huntara) years after the actual disaster. Based upon our analysis of the deficiencies of the governmental responses, the disparities between announced procedures and actual realisations, and some of the aspirations that our ethnographic research uncovered from overlooked constituencies, we suggest alternative approaches to reconstruction that stem from a more participatory perspective informed by principles of applied anthropology.
