Periodic Reporting for period 3 - IMAGINE (Geographical imaginations and the (geo)politics of volcanic risk: cultures, knowledges, actions)
Période du rapport: 2022-07-01 au 2023-12-31
This project uses insights from political geography, science studies and environmental science to investigate the relationships between people and their environment in areas of volcanic activity. While it is easy to think that people should just evacuate if a volcano erupts or if an extreme weather event takes place, these decisions are much more complicated in reality, and relate to cultures, value systems, trust in expertise and local identities. Disaster studies has typically looked at hazards (the physical processes, studied through physical science) and vulnerability (the factors that make particular groups vulnerable to disasters - typically poverty - studied through the social sciences). However, both of these elements are contextual too: science itself has cultures and institutions that have to engage with complex local communities in risky places. This project aims to investigate the ways in which communities imagine and inhabit their spaces, paying particular attention to their cultural values, relationship to expertise and the institutions of government, aesthetics of landscape, geopolitics and diverse knowledges. It is examining these issues in relation to the risk mentality of governments and institutions, seeking to establish how diverse views of the environment (whether as a "risk" or not) factor into the challenges that governments and scientists can encounter in handling crises. It is particularly looking at this in areas close to national borders, where diverse regimes are managing the same hazard, because this reveals particularly interesting dynamics and contrasts. This will help to improve warnings, ensure that communities are fully involved in decision making processes,and that the political and cultural dynamics of hazard and vulnerability can be taken into account.
Due to COVID19, the first year of the project was spent doing interviews and literature review remotely. For part of this period, the PDRAs were furloughed so that we could extend their contracts once fieldwork became possible. The PDRAs both went into the field in Chile Oct to Dec 2021. They did 73 interviews in communities with residents and authorities. They also used some innovative visual methodologies, using storyspheres and walking interviews with videos to capture residents' relationships with their environment. The bulk of this fieldwork was done in Chaiten in southern Chile, which experienced a volcanic eruption in 2008 and was destroyed but residents have chosen to return against government advice. The second phase of the fieldwork initiated work in Melipeuco (between Llaima and Sollipulli volcanoes) and Malalacahuello (between Llaima and Longquimay). This also involved interviews with local residents and will be further developed in future trips, enhanced by some of the physical science modelling that has recently been done by our former PDRA. Finally, they participated in evacuation simulation exercises including one on Antuco volcano. They returned to the field in Feb to March 2022, and undertook additional interviews in the same locations, as well as some more in the Villarica area, Lanin (Argentina) and Arequipa (Peru). Fieldwork continued during period 3 with extensive work now taking place across our study sites within Chile, Argentina, Peru and Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a second case study which we added to the project after the project was granted an extension due to the early delays in the project following the Covid-19 pandemic. 139 interviews took place across the period 3 fieldwork.
15 academic papers have been published via the project and several others are in preparation now fieldwork is drawing to a close. The PhD student has published a book for the local community and school children in Butalelbun to communicate research findings about risk mitigation strategies for children. We have conducted an online survey in Latin America in collaboration with the Latin American Association of Volcanology (ALVO), 171 respondents to the survey from 15 different countries. Data is now being analysed and a paper is being produced.
We have run 5 workshops and engaged at over fifty conferences, workshops and events during the project including events taking place in Arequipa Peru; Temuco, Santiago, Pucon and Rapa Nui, Chile; Sotuta, Mexico; Barcelona, Spain; London, Newcastle, Reading and Huddesfield, UK; Mendrisio, Switzerland; Clermont-Ferrand, France.
In Sept 2022 we launched the NEREIDS network, for Early Career Researchers in Disaster Studies whose work crosses between social and physical sciences and who therefore struggle with the institutional structures of the academy. This was launched in collaboration with the UK Alliance for Disaster Research. NERIEDS continues to go from strength to strength and the group meets regularly online. Blogs have been written to study similarities between interdisciplinary work, a written paper among the group is also being discussed to showcase different approaches to hazards.
We are developing a Volcano Voices methodology for key sites, in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Nicaragua. It is an interactive mapping device which involves oral histories from residents regarding volcanoes and scientific information; data is included in an interactive website that will be displayed online and has a range of uses. These have been defined by the communities in each field location.
In some partner institutions (museums and geological surveys) the Voices will be displayed alongside stratigraphic sections from important volcanic outcrops, which have been extracted and encased in epoxy resin, so that the human and physical strata may be displayed together in the exhibits. This has been done in Arequipa and Chaiten to date, and will be done in Nicaragua in February 2024.
15 academic papers have been published via the project and several others are in preparation now fieldwork is drawing to a close. The PhD student has published a book for the local community and school children in Butalelbun to communicate research findings about risk mitigation strategies for children. We have conducted an online survey in Latin America in collaboration with the Latin American Association of Volcanology (ALVO), 171 respondents to the survey from 15 different countries. Data is now being analysed and a paper is being produced.
We have run 5 workshops and engaged at over fifty conferences, workshops and events during the project including events taking place in Arequipa Peru; Temuco, Santiago, Pucon and Rapa Nui, Chile; Sotuta, Mexico; Barcelona, Spain; London, Newcastle, Reading and Huddesfield, UK; Mendrisio, Switzerland; Clermont-Ferrand, France.
In Sept 2022 we launched the NEREIDS network, for Early Career Researchers in Disaster Studies whose work crosses between social and physical sciences and who therefore struggle with the institutional structures of the academy. This was launched in collaboration with the UK Alliance for Disaster Research. NERIEDS continues to go from strength to strength and the group meets regularly online. Blogs have been written to study similarities between interdisciplinary work, a written paper among the group is also being discussed to showcase different approaches to hazards.
We are developing a Volcano Voices methodology for key sites, in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Nicaragua. It is an interactive mapping device which involves oral histories from residents regarding volcanoes and scientific information; data is included in an interactive website that will be displayed online and has a range of uses. These have been defined by the communities in each field location.
In some partner institutions (museums and geological surveys) the Voices will be displayed alongside stratigraphic sections from important volcanic outcrops, which have been extracted and encased in epoxy resin, so that the human and physical strata may be displayed together in the exhibits. This has been done in Arequipa and Chaiten to date, and will be done in Nicaragua in February 2024.
We are currently developing some new methodologies using storyspheres, oral histories, material exhibits and drone footage in a range of ways, partly in collaboration with the Museo de Sitio in Chaiten and partners elsewhere in Chile too. This includes the production of exhibits for the museum that are aimed at both preserving memories of the eruption and significant sites, and also preserving elements of the materiality of landscape for people to engage with. This has also led to new and unexpected approaches to interdisciplinary outreach.
We have developed a new methodology, “Volcano Voices”, which combines mapping technology, drone imagery, stratigraphy and oral accounts from participants to produce an online resource that can be used in the museums and Geoparks with whom we are collaborating. It seeks to combine information from the physical and social sciences to help people engage with the spatiality of volcanic and other kinds of risk alongside the views and interpretations of the people who live with them. We are combining this with a methodology that preserves stratigraphic sections, with the aim of including both geological and social histories together in the museums.
We are currently developing protocols for the methodologies in collaboration with archaeologists from the Atacama region, to deploy Voices in Rapa Nui and the Atacama in agreement with and as defined by the communities in the regions.
We have developed a new methodology, “Volcano Voices”, which combines mapping technology, drone imagery, stratigraphy and oral accounts from participants to produce an online resource that can be used in the museums and Geoparks with whom we are collaborating. It seeks to combine information from the physical and social sciences to help people engage with the spatiality of volcanic and other kinds of risk alongside the views and interpretations of the people who live with them. We are combining this with a methodology that preserves stratigraphic sections, with the aim of including both geological and social histories together in the museums.
We are currently developing protocols for the methodologies in collaboration with archaeologists from the Atacama region, to deploy Voices in Rapa Nui and the Atacama in agreement with and as defined by the communities in the regions.