Resilience Experiences through Communicative Processes among Displaced People due to Development Projects

This research aims to examine communicative processes in building resilience among displaced people through development projects in rural areas of Indonesia using the communication theory of resilience perspective. This study used a qualitative approach involving informants from Cipaku Village residents who experienced displacement due to the flooding of their homes for a dam project in Sumedang, West Java, Indonesia. The results show that communication is essential in building resilience through five processes: crafting new normalcy, where people construct normal situations after displacement; affirming identity anchor, communicative efforts to create or maintain a collaborative identity among displaced people; using and maintaining communication networks, the process by which they carry out communication activities both in interpersonal and group contexts; putting alternative logics to work, where they construct their loss with communicative efforts through alternative logics in seeking a new job; and finally legitimizing negative feelings while foregrounding positive actions. People form and frame the meaning of optimism by taking positive actions even though they cannot forget the traumatic events they have experienced. These communicative processes contribute to sustaining their livelihoods. Human resilience is not always related to the ability to recover but also to the inability of individuals to build their adaptive capacity with various underlying factors. Keywords: communicative processes, communication theory of resilience, displaced people, development project, livelihood. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55463/hkjss.issn.1021-3619.62.65