Collective Action Towards Risk Management in Informal Urban Areas in Medellín: COVID-19 Lessons for Reducing Vulnerability and Inequality

Abstract

Recent experiences of socio-environmental disasters in Latin America have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the state as a social actor in the organisation, coordination and implementation of adequate public policies to face these emergencies. This affects the most vulnerable urban areas, leading to unequal levels of impact from crises and disasters within cities. As a response, local collective actions, led by citizens, have emerged to manage risks. In Medellín, Colombia, in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis, our research identified a diverse repertoire of collective actions within informal, vulnerable communities, including collaboration towards improving food security, sanitation, pedagogy for self-care and prevention, and financial aid. Although these actions have had limited scope within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they demonstrate the need to promote a more proactive interaction between society and the state, based on a series of agreed interventions, promoting the exchange of knowledge and articulation of actions in the production and improvement of informal urban areas. This research explores how these collective actions have developed through a set of semi-structured interviews with community leaders and key actors in Medellín, with a view to identifying lessons for state-community dynamics in relation to disaster risk management and achieving a more integrated approach to improving habitat conditions within vulnerable urban areas. This work demonstrates that vulnerable communities in informal urban settlements can actively address their exposure to risk through locally-oriented, bottom-up collective actions. However, key linkages with institutional frameworks are needed to strengthen state-community dynamics and facilitate sustainable, inclusive and equitable development in cities.

Assessing equity in disaster risk governance in Brazil and Colombia

“…, 2021). The consequences of this conceptual tension can be felt on the ground when official risk definitions prevent vulnerability-reducing interventions (Garcia Ferrari et al. , 2022).…”

“…The result is limited investment in infrastructure and engagement with communities in “informal” urban areas classified as high-risk. This further exacerbates risk and vulnerability and ultimately leads to evictions of communities with histories of socially constructing their neighbourhoods (Garcia Ferrari et al. , 2022).…”

“…Lizarralde, 2019;Gaillard, 2019) suggested that while countries in the so-called global Southa term often used "as a proxy for the former colonial and developing countries" (Alden et al, 2010: 221) are more severely affected by disasters, conceptualisations of risk, resilience and development are dominated by Eurocentric ideas and call for a decolonisation of disaster studies (Marchezini et al, 2021). The consequences of this conceptual tension can be felt on the ground when official risk definitions prevent vulnerability-reducing interventions (Garcia Ferrari et al, 2022). The result is limited investment in infrastructure and engagement with communities in "informal" urban areas classified as high-risk.…”

Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for urban informal housing and planning interventions: Evidence from Singapore

“…While the current literature has uncovered much information about the health problems of informal housing dwellers and how economic, social, and health service conditions affect their health ( Ghosh et al, 2020 ; Tavares & Betti, 2021 ), we still know little about the political and sociocultural reasons underlying the mismanagement of high population density and limited resources. This is nevertheless an urgent issue in Global South countries challenged by the dynamism of continuing urbanization ( Garcia Ferrari et al, 2022 ; Zhu, 2020 ).…”