This book offers new and long awaited insights on how the poorest and most vulnerable people in urban societies, cope with an increasingly risky environment. It questions dominant ideas of experts about what it means to act rationally and safely in a context of risk. Through powerful case studies, as well as an incisive theoretical point of view, the book gives policymakers and scholars of risk and disaster a categorization that helps to come to grips with heterogeneous risk-behaviour and that helps to analyse and understand why different people respond differently to a single risk-event.

Roanne van Voorst is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Anthropology of Development at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Introduction: Get Ready for the Flood! 1. Doing research in Bantaran Kali 2. Orang antisipasi: an autonomous & licit business 3. Orang ajar: cooperation with the government 4. Orang susah: dependent of aid 5. Orang siap: challenging the government, altering structures Conclusion