Anthropology of a flood: Rumors and fears in Tulun

Abstract

The study dwells on worlding strategies of townspeople from a town closely connected with a river as exemplified by rumors of the 2019 flood in Tulun. Anxiety and rumors were caused not only by the damage suffered because of the flood but also by the unprecedented water-level that rendered previous experience of surviving highwater useless and made the situation seem uncontrollable. The demand for control and mistrust of local government, combined, energized crisis communication on social media. These rumors mostly counter the official version of a purely natural disaster with ideas of of a human cause of the catastro- 133phe, while placing the town into a wider “hydrosocial” context of ecology and economy of the region (namely, the basin of the river Iya). The author demonstrates that the relationship between the town, the people and the non-human actors within that structure is perceived by the locals as somewhat balanced, and upsetting that balance leads to a catastrophe. Therefore, the explanatory model of the catastrophe that the locals develop in online com-munication provides a role both for the people and for the river as an active counteragent.