Author(s)

CLAUDIA DELLA VALLE, VINCENZO ROMANIA

Abstract

Disastrous events raise issues about the territories and the affected population’s future. Providing adequate housing for displaced people is both a challenge and a crucial point for any post-disaster policy. In this paper we will focus on the effects of long-term permanent housing solutions on displaced people. Anticipated data consist of the research we have conducted previously on the emergency housing solutions destined for displaced people from the Central Italy earthquake of 2016 who could not leave the territory. In our paper, we will briefly introduce the methodology and first results of our ongoing research, which extends the one we conducted in the earthquake area. Through ethnographic methodological tools and some interviews with actors involved in the emergency process, our main objective is to explore how the models of social interaction are reproduced and transformed in SAE areas. Small and medium-sized villages consist of single-family and earthquake-resistant houses, which will offer housing to the displaced population until the end of the reconstruction. We look forward to understanding how the brand new forms of settlement and social aggregation will affect the reconfiguration of social bonds. The new housing solutions push people to experience more frequent face-to-face interaction and with the challenge of community recovery. Then, the research intends to investigate whether, and how, the community recovery can lead to the formation of social capital and how it can be configured as a significant element capable of affecting the adaptive abilities, therefore resilient, of individuals, families and local community.

Keywords

qualitative disaster research, social capital, community, recovery, temporary housing, ethnography, Central Italy earthquake