A case study is an “empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2003, p.13). In the case of post-disaster Chaitén, the ʻphenomenonʼ is the progression of vulnerability and its ʻcontextʼ would be the Chilean system of rules, social relations, structures of domination, institutions for DRM and DRR, cultural practices, and all processes and circumstances where ‘root causes’, ‘dynamic pressures’, and ‘unsafe conditions’ are situated. Both the phenomenon and the context are inherently complex in the sense of being multi- dimensional, multi-level, and dynamic. Thus, the analytical framework and the research strategy must capture this complexity.
This case study investigated the progression of vulnerabilities by adopting the PAR model, which enabled exploring the structural factors of risks and disasters associated with governance, politics, and economic issues. Although some of these structural factors of risks have emerged in the literature on resilience and social- environmental change (Adger, 2000; Birkmann, 2006a; Aragón-Durand, 2009), the very problem of disasters —including the theoretical and practical conceptualisation, causality debate, and factual reduction— needs to be focused on the social tenets that ‘govern’ disaster causation, beside their very natural condition, to embrace more deliberately their political and social dimensions. With this position, this work situates itself in a political economy perspective of disasters and applies the PAR model as the analytical framework to guide the investigation.
According to Yin (2003), a case study should be selected as a research strategy when its application responds at least to one of five different uses:
“To explain causal links when real-life interventions such as surveys and experimental research are too complex, to describe the intervention of a phenomenon and its real-life context, to illustrate diverse subjects in evaluated phenomenon, to explore those dimensions in which the evaluated phenomenon is not clear or when the study may be a meta-evaluation, that is, a study of an evaluation study”.
(Yin, 2003, p.15; own emphasis) Thus, a case study was adopted given the rationale behind the research objectives. Overall, this study aims for a deeper comprehension of the social production of risks by explaining causal links between the productions of vulnerability in post-disaster contexts on different geographical scales. In doing so, it explores relevant and contemporary perspectives on disaster studies by incorporating the social science notion of geographical scales and illustrates the progression of vulnerability as a multi-scalar phenomenon. Yin (2003, p.21) proposed five fundamental components for a case-based research design:
• Study's questions;
• its unit(s) of analysis;
• the logic linking the data to the propositions; and
• the criteria for interpreting the findings.
In this study, I adopted these five components and adapted them to the case of post-disaster Chaitén. The research questions, propositions, and units of analysis are outlined throughout this chapter, while the logic that links data with propositions and the criteria for interpreting the findings are delineated in tandem with the next chapter —the theoretical background and analytical framework. As can be seen, the latter two emerge from the literature and the analytical framework selected for this study, including the social constructionist approach to disasters, vulnerability, and geographical scales, and the PAR model, which guide the research analysis. The five components are important for the research design, as they represent a logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study's initial research questions and, ultimately, to its conclusions (Yin, 2003). However, before posing the research questions, I wish to briefly explain the reasons and motivations for selecting a case study. In terms of operationalisation of research, post-disaster Chaitén and the context of Chile have been selected as the object of this study mainly for four reasons:
Academic interest
Chile is constantly affected by natural extreme events —e.g. earthquakes and volcano eruptions— and is subject to the negative impacts of disasters. Thus, Chile offers a wide range of cases in which the ‘root causes’ of vulnerability, ‘dynamic pressures’ and ‘unsafe conditions’ can be investigated. Specifically, the recent case of post- disaster Chaitén offers a valuable opportunity to dig into a multi-scalar perspective on the progression of vulnerability, since Chaitén is a remote port-city located in Southern Chile embedded in a well-defined geographical and scalar configuration of national, regional, and local politics and social relations. By being geographically remote, and politically and economically distant from national and regional centres,
the case of post-disaster Chaitén is convenient to investigate as its actual ‘local’ vulnerability can be clearly separated from influential and distant processes occurring at macro levels —e.g. political shifts in the national government and political centralising forces. Figure 2.1 summarises the key distant processes and decisions that may have influenced the current situation in Chaitén. In grey blocks, the main post-disaster phases are depicted —response, recovery, relocation, and reconstruction—, while the red areas indicate relevant actors and their participation over time. Although each of these processes and decisions are discussed in greater detail in the following chapters, the figure reflects the interplay between national and local factors in the production of vulnerability in Chaitén.
Figure 2.1. National-local interplay in post-disaster Chaitén
Volcanic eruption
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
September 2008
May
Response & Relief Relocation Reconstruction
Recovery Evacuation Pre-volcanic eruption meetings Chaitén Law New Chaitén aborted Ban lifting on
North Chaitén 200 familiesin South sector
Presidential delegate Chaitén Emergency Subsidies
The ‘rebels’
Given its peculiar historical and geographical conditions, the case of post-disaster Chaitén works well to explore structural aspects of disaster governance and policy responses in Chile connected to a local materialisation of vulnerability, rendering evident the connections, for instance, between centralisation of decision-making in DRM and the ‘erosion of trust in authorities’ in Chaitén. Such reflections, however, could only be achieved through the combination of a locally based case study and the analysis of governance structures, institutions, and the multiplicity of actors involved in DRM. The case of post-disaster Chaitén is valuable because during the
emergency response, recovery strategy, relocation plan, and reconstruction of Chaitén —totalling about 4 years—, the Chilean model of DRM operated, without ambiguity, on different scales. The remoteness of Chaitén, as well as the spatial distance of Los Lagos Region from Santiago, allowed investigating and more easily distinguishing and differentiating national and regional processes from those nested at local levels.
Contribution
Despite the interest mentioned above, there are currently no studies investigating the progression of vulnerability on different geographical scales, or applying a multi- scalar perspective in the broader context of Chile. Additionally, disaster studies scholars have acknowledged the need for expanding knowledge on the social, economic, political, and cultural causal factors of disasters and vulnerability, and therefore the need to conduct more social science research from a multi-scalar perspective addressing both major and minor scale factors simultaneously (IRDR, 2012; UNDP and MINVU, 2014; UNISDR, 2011).
Access and research support
Chile has a favourable open access system for most of its governmental services, which includes historical repositories of reports, documents, legal frameworks, and the like. Among the governmental open access sites, ‘Ley Chile’ (BCN, 2017) by the National Congress Library is a key site, with access to an extensive archive of laws, bills, and other parliamentary documents. Similarly, the website ‘SINIM’ or National System for Municipal Information (SINIM, 2016) provides historical records on municipal governments’ administration and expenditure. In addition, since 2008, political and government services are subject to Law Nº 20,285 or ‘Transparency Law’ (Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia, 2008), which ensures access to information on the administration of the state for any citizen.
Language and reliance on secondary material
Given that an important part of this research is based on secondary material, my command of Spanish —my mother tongue and the official language in Chile— facilitates access and analysis of sources. Likewise, several sources were found from international organisations such as the World Bank or United Nations where most of the information, including on Chile, is published in English. Thus, my command of both Spanish and English provide an opportunity to expand the range of documentary sources.
2.1.1 Research questions
Before presenting the research questions, it is necessary to introduce basic ideas that sustain their rationale, specifically the multi-scalar progression of vulnerability, which is fully articulated in Chapter Three.
Disaster vulnerability is a multidisciplinary subject that builds on a wide range of substantive ideas such as entitlement failure and theories of hazards. Entitlement- based explanations of vulnerability have focused almost exclusively on the social realm of institutions, well-being and on class, social status and gender as important variables while vulnerability research on natural hazards developed an integral knowledge of environmental risks with human response drawing on geographical and psychological perspectives in addition to social parameters of risk (Adger, 2006). One approach to disaster vulnerability has been sketched out by Wisner et al. (2004) and conceptualised into the Pressure and Release (PAR) model. According to its authors, disaster vulnerability consists of the circumstances and characteristics of an element of interest —i.e. community, system, or asset— that influences said community’s capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the negative impacts of a natural or human-made extreme event, and likewise make the community susceptible to extreme impacts (Wisner et al., 2004). In this model, vulnerability production is modelled in a dynamic sequence of social, economic, and political forces at different times in a process named the ‘progression of vulnerability’ (see Figure 2.2).
Figure 2.2. The PAR model and its potential scalar dimensions e.g. e.g. # Political economy regimes e.g. # Repid urbanisation # Inquality # Uneven development # Unprotected buildings and infrastructure e.g. Earthquake Volcanic eruptions (Rapid onset hazards) ROOT CAUSES RISK= Hazard x Vulnerability R=HxV DYNAMIC
PRESSURES UNSAFECONDITIONS
DISASTER
HAZARDS1