Citation

Sun L, Qi W. Disasters 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12563

PMID

36082482

Abstract

The role of religious belief in disasters has become a burgeoning research area in recent years. There is concern among disaster researchers about resilience enhancement, but knowledge about the religious belief-disaster resilience nexus is limited. This article shows that religious belief can generate disaster resilience through the pathways of disaster framing, mental health, and disaster behaviour. Drawing on interviews conducted with Tibetan Buddhist believers in the Yushu earthquake-struck area, this study indicates that the notions of Tibetan Buddhism, including karma, the four primary elements, impermanence, and existence being equal, as well as religious practices, such as prayer, chanting and the god dance, helped locals make sense of the occurrence of the earthquake, obtain spiritual support in the aftermath of the earthquake, foster a sense of community, and develop a prosocial post-earthquake environment. These religious notions and practices also assisted in sustaining a faith-based network consisting of two kinds of important local social relationships, i.e., layperson-layperson and layperson-monk relationships, which increased local disaster resilience at the level of response behaviour. The findings enrich our understanding of the religious source of disaster resilience and offer insights for disaster risk reduction in religious regions, especially in areas where Buddhist belief is prevalent.

Language: en

Keywords

China; Disaster resilience; Religious belief; Tibetan Buddhism; Yushu earthquake