Structure of the thesis

The case research process was iterative, oscillating between the macro and micro, making bidirectional connections between general Chilean processes and locally specific processes contributing to materialisation of vulnerability in Chaitén. The structure of the thesis therefore warrants explanation. The structure mirrors the bottom-up development of the research, which moved inductively from the case study to theoretical issues. Chapter Two presents the methods used and discusses the research methodology. Chapter Three sets out the disciplinary concepts of disaster, risk, vulnerability and scales as well as their theoretical implications to give the reader a sense of the debates in the field. This chapter also outlines the analytical framework used to interpret the case study data and findings. The next two chapters are interlinked and present the case study itself. Chapter Four analyses the historic and administrative-territorial context of Chile, offering a close look at the Chilean model of DRM and DRR. Chapter Five describes and analyses the localities and the material conditions of post-disaster Chaitén. The final part of the thesis offers conclusions that connect the findings of the case study to the general debate on recovery and vulnerability and to the research questions.

Chapter One introduces the thesis and the next chapter discusses the research strategy and the methodological design in more detail. Over four sections I seek to connect the study approaches with the methods for literature review, as well as with the fieldwork and its techniques for data collection and analysis. I introduce the debate around vulnerability, disasters, and scales to develop the research questions and limitations of the study.

In Chapter Three I set out the theoretical background of the thesis and the analytical framework. Over five sections I discuss historical views and interpretations of disasters and risks, looking at disasters as ‘acts of god’ and as ‘acts of women and men’ and describing how interpretations of disaster have evolved. I look at the different disciplines dealing with disaster phenomena, describe the current state of disaster research and then discuss the re-problematisation of the progression of

vulnerability and risk. This forms the basis for a detailed discussion of disasters as social constructions that situates the study within the Structural Paradigm. I argue that vulnerability is a key factor in tackling the problematic of disaster —i.e. its theoretical and practical conceptualisation, the debate about causality, and its factual reduction. Then I examine the literature and academic debate on vulnerability to disasters: this contains an historical review, facing physical, social, and ecological interpretations of vulnerability. In particular, I analyse the ‘progression of vulnerability’ through the PAR model, which enables me to introduce contemporary ideas about geographical scales to my analysis of vulnerability and its causes. The final sections discuss how the study of the geographical distribution and hierarchical organisation of certain socio-economic and political processes can help us to understand how vulnerability is produced, progresses and finally how it ‘materialises’ within specific communities and social groups at local scale.

After the chapter dealing with theoretical background, the thesis continues with two chapters —Chapter Four and Five— dedicated to the case study. Although the research process oscillated between macro and micro levels, I consider it vital to begin by providing a description of the Chilean context in which policy responses and decision-making during the evacuation, relocation and eventual reconstruction of Chaitén were embedded.

Chapter Four describes the history, institutions and territorial context of Chile. I start by offering a historical review of disasters in Chile in order to highlight the dominant narrative of Chilean disasters in its history, which emphasises their naturalness and sees them as a ‘struggle against nature’. I explain how this view and some of the disasters Chile has experienced have influenced the creation and characteristics of the Chilean model of DRM and DRR. The next section is a historical review of the state territorial organisation of Chile, which has been characterised by political decentralisation and centralisation, based on how social processes have historically changed the national and sub-national geographical scales in Chile, and how today the relations between these scales is in terms of territorial administration. Chapter

Four ends with an analysis of the aspects of the institutional organisation of DRM and DRR that were crucial to policy responses and decision-making in post-disaster Chaitén: the ONEMI, the National Plan of Civil Protection (PNPC), emergency procedures, legal frameworks and territorial planning instruments (IPTs).

Chapter Five dives deep into the case of post-disaster Chaitén to explore policy responses and decision-making on emergency, recovery strategies, relocation, and reconstruction, and their effects on vulnerability and risk in the current Chaitén. In the early part of the chapter I describe the geography and economy of Chaitén prior to the eruption in 2008, and look at the crucial days immediately before and after the volcanic eruption, focusing on meetings between public authorities and people, the links between the supposed ‘tectonic’ movements and the lack of information, the ‘dormancy’ of the volcano and the evacuation and emergency response. Then I analyse the recovery strategy, including compensatory measures and decision- making at different geographical levels and by different actors, including politicians, government officials, regional and local authorities and Chaiteninos. The following can be considered ‘outputs’ of decisions about the disaster response: the ‘occupied’ city of Chaitén and the ‘rebels’, the New Chaitén project, subsidies and other benefits and the eventual reconstruction of North Chaitén. The final section attempts to articulate comprehensively both macro and micro levels of study —the Chilean context and Chaitén— by highlighting multi-scalar relations between centralisation and the geographical distribution and hierarchical organisation of DRM and DRR, as well as their repercussions for the materialisation of vulnerability in Chaitén.

Finally, Chapter Six aims to answer the research questions and offer general conclusions about the research process and set out the implications of the findings. In the quest for answers I link the research findings to the literature reviewed in Chapter Three in order to draw out the epistemological implications for the field of disaster research, specifically findings about how policy responses to disasters and decision-making in a context post-disaster may contribute, counterintuitively, to the production and reproduction of vulnerabilities and risks. Following this, I describe

some of methodological innovations and practical implications arising from the thesis. The methodological innovation involves the use of scatter diagrams to visualise a multi-scalar perspective for the analysis of vulnerability progression. The practical implications take the form of guidance on policy and practice that emphasises the need for holistic evacuations, planning and decentralisation of DRM. Finally, I offer some reflections about the research processes from my perspective as a researcher, and I call for further research that takes into account analyses of root causes and dynamic pressures at multiple scales into assessments of vulnerability.