SOAS Research Online

Abstract

In the aftermath of natural disasters there is typically an upsurge of collective public action and protest. Individual concerns inter-mingle with collective endeavours in both traditional and new ways. This article explores such collective forms of public action in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, and the role of nostalgia as a mobilising political force in particular. Nostalgia emerges as both a creative and cathartic force, but its effects on public action are short-lived. It is argued that nostalgia has a short life span not simply because the disaster moves into the past and new concerns come to the fore but because the changing dynamics of the relationship between individuals and social collectives make nostalgia an unsustainable form of collective representation.