Gonzalo Lizarralde
Credit: Amélie Philibert, Université de Montréal
Cecilia lives in Carahatas, a coastal village in Cuba threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Experts predict that part of the village could be under water within 50 years. Government authorities have responded with plans to gradually relocate residents to higher ground. But Cecilia and other locals claim their community is perfectly capable of coping with flood risks and climate change.
Like Carahatas, many parts of the world are experiencing increasingly extreme weather events that test the resilience of local communities: drought, heat waves, landslides, floods, hurricanes, tropical storms. To help address the challenges, Université de Montréal architecture professor Gonzalo Lizarralde has led an effort to study how those affected respond and how local leaders deal with how they feel about the situation.
Funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre, Lizarralde and his co-researchers spent extended periods from 2016 to 2020 in four Latin American communities affected by recent climate disasters - Carahatas in Cuba, Yumbo and Salgar in Colombia, and Concepción in Chile - getting to know residents and 14 of their leaders. The research is published in the February 2004 issue of Emotion, Space and Society.
The interdisciplinary team of experts in architecture, urban planning, engineering, social work, anthropology and social geography found that a range of emotions in those communities - fear, anxiety and anger, but also pride and reverence for nature - are important factors in whether people ultimately decide or not to implement solutions to the extreme weather events they face.
Integrating into local life
"When experts arrive in a community, they're often seen as outsiders, which can skew the results, of their research" said Lizarralde. "To avoid this, we decided to integrate into local life for an extended time, taking part in residents' activities and working with local teams and other researchers. This ethnographic approach enabled us to gain a much deeper understanding of people's daily lives."
To understand the challenges and strategies of community leaders, the team conducted in-depth interviews with them, reviewed their social media posts, and directly observed their efforts to mitigate disaster risks and combat the impacts of climate change, often in environments characterized by precarious living conditions and informal urbanization.
The research team also organized workshops in the four communities to create spaces for dialogue and collaboration among the local leaders, the researchers and students of architecture and urban planning.
While fear is an important motivator of community action in response to climate change, it isn't the only factor, the researchers found.
"Most disaster-management and climate-change policies and programs are based on the assumption that people are - or should be - afraid of perils," Lizarralde noted. "This fear is often seen as a lever for prompting preventive action, such as getting people to reinforce their houses, relocate to less exposed areas or take out insurance.
"Our study shows this approach works, but only up to a point. In Carahatas, people do fear flooding, but other concerns also come into play. For example, people worry about the economic consequences of moving: will they lose their job, will their financial situation deteriorate? These uncertainties carry as much, if not more, weight than the climate risks themselves."
Crime and unemployment also factors
Similarly, residents of Yumbo and Salgar expressed fears, but these were more focused on crime, violence and unemployment than on natural hazards. Anxiety was also widespread.
The refusal to relocate in the face of climate change isn't due only to fear and anxiety, the researchers found. Other emotions come into play, such as anger at the authorities, the connection to the land and appreciation of the beauty of the natural environment. Distrust of institutions, compounded by a sense of abandonment, explains why many reject proposed solutions such as temporary housing or forced relocation.
Another key factor is pride. In communities often plagued by poverty and lack of resources, residents have built their homes - and even parts of their neighbourhood infrastructure - themselves. Though imperfect, these achievements give them a sense of dignity.
"People know their roofs leak or their foundations are unstable, but that doesn't mean they want to tear them down or leave," said Lizarralde. "They're proud of what they've accomplished."
This pride is not always understood by decision-makers and professionals, who judge villagers' dwellings through the lens of external standards, he added.
"They arrive with prejudices, thinking that these shantytowns are unfit for living and that people should move to new apartments elsewhere. But study after study has shown that such initiatives fail. People sometimes accept the new homes, but it's not what they really want."
'Keep repeating flawed practices'
Failure to understand the emotions and real needs of communities can lead to inappropriate policies, Lizarralde added. "Until we take the time to understand people's emotions and their attachment to the land, we will keep repeating these flawed practices."
The study highlights the importance of factoring emotions into disaster risk-reduction policies and climate-change response strategies, the researchers believe. Emotions play a critical role in building the legitimacy, trust and empathy required for collective mobilization, they argue.
"To act more effectively, whether in Cuba, Colombia or here in Quebec, we must pay attention to our own emotions and those of policymakers," said Lizarralde. "Emotions influence decision-making about floods, wildfires and shoreline erosion. The 2017 and 2019 floods in Quebec are a good example."
About this study
''Beyond fear: The role of emotions in disaster risk reduction in the face of climate change'' by Gonzalo Lizarralde et al. is published in Emotion, science and society.
