The scope of damage brought about by disastrous events in Asia urges focus on recovery and post-disaster reconstruction from several perspectives. Addressing culture as an underpinning issue in post-disaster recovery, this book uses original material collected in Thailand after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami to provide in-depth ethnography of Thailand's recovery.With a focus on how culture and religion interplay in the processes of building resilience and decreasing vulnerability, it gives a deeper understanding of how disasters are experienced and dealt with on a local level.

Monica Lindberg Falk is a Social Anthropologist at Lund University, Sweden. She is the author of Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered orders in Thailand (2007), and has published several articles on themes related to gender, Buddhism, socially engaged Buddhism, and Buddhism and disasters.

1. Introduction 2. Framing relief and in post-tsunami Thailand 3. The day of disruption 4. A place of refuge: Organizing chaos 5. Communication across boundaries 6.Buddhism and ways to recovery 7.Donations, compensations and religious mission 8.Remembrance, commemoration and memorial ceremonies 9.Building resilience 10.Conclusion