Paper short abstract:

This contribution deals with the interplay of local, national and global imaginings of recovery and security after the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka and how they are played out in an affected community.

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean in 2004 the international community demonstrated a tremendous will to 'build back better' and imagined affected populations to eventually come out of the crises as stronger and safer. This contribution deals with how intervention visions have played out locally in a tsunami-affected village in south Sri Lanka. The massive aid and reconstruction efforts have had significant impact upon the community in various ways, not least in terms of social organisation/stratification and shifts of status and power within and between different people and groups. Displacement, intervention priorities and selection of beneficiaries and collaborators have instigated a local process of negotiation that impinge on established roles, relations and social and religious conduct in ways that challenge global imaginings of reconstruction and security.