The shape of the boat, the name of the ship parts, and rituals towards the sea, each village is different, even though it is still on the same coastline. Another difference is in capturing marine commodities. In one area, people are good at catching lobster. In another place, the residents are good at catching fish. “There needs to be an explanation for why people divide themselves like that. Do their ancestors inherit this, or is it their form of adaptation to nature?” she asked himself.
For this reason, Ery decided to study Master in Anthropology at the University of Indonesia. Ery also concentrates on coastal communities and small islands because she loves the sea and beach. “I must understand the people, the society, in which I work,” she said.
After graduating with a Master of Anthropology in 2008, Ery began applying the knowledge she got to sharpen her analysis of what is happening in society. He is also increasingly convinced that getting to know the community is not enough to come once but must be in one cycle.
According to Ery, people’s behaviour depends not only on culture but also on the season. What people get in a specific season will affect what people do. For example, when food is abundant, a wedding or harvest celebration will occur during harvest season. On the other hand, when savings run out, and food supplies run low, people will sell their valuables or land or owe money to local actors, such as moneylenders. “Things like that need to be known if you want to formulate a program,” he said.
Ery also said that if you want to carry out an intervention program, it must follow the community cycle. The goal is for the program to run on the target. “For example, if you want to create an agricultural program, you cannot implement the program during the dry season or if your program provides seeds on a dry season that will be unsuitable for community land,” she said. Therefore, for Ery, it is necessary to know how the community deals with the weather, behaves and finds solutions. “Before preparing the program, those issues need to be understood,” said Ery.
Ery mentioned one example during the Aceh tsunami in 2004, where many boats from aid foundations for coastal communities in the province were useless, and people could not use them because they did not accommodate the conditions of the sea landscape, such as waves and currents. “Anthropology is one of the sciences that can help understand the community’s needs. Anthropology enabled me to understand,” she said.
