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When the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck in 2004, killing more than 200,000 people and affecting millions, Dennis B. McGilvray realized that one particularly hard-hit area was the eastern side of Sri Lanka, which he had studied for three decades.

McGilvray knew something many relief workers didn鈥檛: On the east coast of Sri Lanka, women, not men, are the primary homeowners. This reflects a matrilocal dowry tradition practiced by both Muslims and Hindus.

But when relief workers arrived and started building houses, most assumed that the 鈥渉ead of the family鈥� was a man. Newly built homes were deeded to men and construction materials for building homes were given to men.

Besides killing 35,000 Sri Lankans, displacing 500,000 islanders and devastating 70 percent of the coastline, the tsunami indirectly threatened to undermine a key component of the island鈥檚 social structure.

McGilvray is an anthropology professor at the University of Colorado and an expert on the culture of Tamils, Muslims and Burghers of eastern Sri Lanka. With Michele R. Gamburd, an anthropologist at Portland State University who studies the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, he launched a collaborative study of the tsunami recovery in the island nation.

鈥淲e knew that lots of people would come rushing in, but not many would know anything about the culture, families and religion,鈥� McGilvray says. 鈥淲e wanted to make ourselves useful, by capitalizing on our accumulated knowledge.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e not talking about saving lives or rescuing babies from the water. That was happening already.鈥� But from the lens of anthropology and other disciplines, and with funding from the National Science Foundation, McGilvray and Gamburd amassed a team of scholars to assess the recovery.

The result of their efforts was 鈥淭sunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and Regional Dimensions,鈥� a book edited by McGilvray and Gamburd.

鈥淎lthough reasonable concerns were raised in the aftermath of the tsunami as to whether women鈥檚 dowry assets and property rights would suffer permanent diminishment, or outright extinction, when relief agencies hastily placed reconstruction grants and property deeds in the hands of men, our research suggests that any post-tsunami reduction of women鈥檚 domestic property rights will be temporary.鈥�

As McGilvray notes, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a long-term problem. Even if the husband got the house, it鈥檚 going to go back to the daughter.鈥�

Other aspects of tsunami recovery have been rockier. Many Sri Lankans live close to the beach, not for pleasure but because it is relatively affordable, and because many earn their living from fishing. After the tsunami, the government imposed a 65-meter buffer zone from the ocean鈥檚 edge; homes were not allowed to be rebuilt within the buffer.

As McGilvray notes, many people previously lived in this zone. 鈥淚f they can鈥檛 go back to their original land, where will they go? Where do you put the houses?鈥�

The government has enforced the buffer zone inconsistently, he says. Some people were told that they couldn鈥檛 go back to the beach, while others could. 鈥淣ot to allow people to go back means that all those dowry houses can鈥檛 be reclaimed,鈥� McGilvray notes.

The team also focused on the different rates of recovery on Sri Lanka鈥檚 eastern and western coasts. On the west, destroyed homes owned by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority were rebuilt much faster than were those on the east, which were owned by the ethnic minority Tamil Hindu, Muslim and Burgher population.

The team launched the project in part to answer a question: 鈥淒oes culture make a difference鈥� in recovery results?

鈥淲hat we ended up discovering was that politics trumps everything,鈥� McGilvray says. 鈥淲ho gets the aid first? Who gets more? It all gets influenced by politics first.鈥�

It鈥檚 now more than five years after the disaster, and 鈥渙nly now are some of the tsunami houses being built. On the (western) side, houses were built within a year.鈥�

Further, when houses were built in the eastern province, they were sometimes situated far inland, causing other concerns. For instance, McGilvray and Gamburd report, four relief agencies built a housing colony on the only vacant land said to be available, a dry and rocky site about two miles from the beach.

The 440 new homes there are also far from the main road, public schools, temples, churches and markets. Water must be trucked in, and there is no apparent mode of livelihood, the authors note.

With such obstacles, some Tamils are forgoing the free but ill-planned homes and striving to rebuild their homes with their own limited resources closer to the beach and the pulse of the community. One concern driving this migration is the value of the matrilocal dowry, which might be diminished in a dry and isolated inland community.

鈥淭he case studies clearly show that patronage politics and ethnic animosity affected the national and international humanitarian response to the tsunami in Sri Lanka,鈥� the authors write. Civil war has wracked the nation for nearly three decades.

McGilvray and Gamburd鈥檚 team comprised five colleagues, including Patricia Lawrence, former CU professor of anthropology and instructor in the Program in Peace and Conflict Studies, and Randall Kuhn, formerly of CU-Boulder鈥檚 Institute of Behavioral Science and now an assistant professor and director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver.

The disciplinary range included anthropology, demography, disaster studies and political science. The work was supported by a $125,000 grant from the NSF鈥檚 Human and Social Dynamics program.

鈥淭sunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and Regional Dimensions鈥� was published in March by听.