Moving with Risk: forced displacement and vulnerability to hazards in Colombia

The project focuses on a critical but under-researched theme in studies of forced displacement: the processes through which people forced from their homes by conflict can commonly become exposed to heightened risk from environmental hazards in the places where they resettle. Effectively, such people exchange one form of catastrophic risk for another, often with little real choice in the process. The collaborative project will pioneer an innovative methodology using the expressive arts in Colombia, where five decades of conflict have generated what is currently the world's largest population of internally displaced people. Colombia is also one of the countries most prone to natural hazards including landslides, floods, earthquakes and volcanic hazards. The activities that are proposed aim to deepen understanding of how and why the transition to new risk occurs, analyse how people perceive and respond to risk in their places of resettlement, and strengthen the capacity of both themselves and the agencies responsible for supporting them to manage the implications on their lives, livelihoods and wellbeing. The work with marginalised people, struggling to rebuild their lives in hazardous settings, often with limited resources, will have strong resonance for developing countries across the world where two forms of risk - conflict and disaster - commonly interact. Moreover, the signing in June 2016 of a ceasefire agreement in Colombia creates a window of opportunity that makes work to assist organisations to support the long-term wellbeing of conflict-displaced people particularly timely.

The research and engagement will centre on four case studies, working with people displaced by conflict in urban and rural settings within the Departments of Tolima, Caldas and Risaralda in west-central Colombia. To understand how men and women experience forced displacement and relocation into areas prone to natural hazards in Colombia, and to explore innovative ways through which they could be incorporated into local processes of disaster risk reduction, this project will use an innovative combination of qualitative methods. Social science methods of interviews and life histories will be merged with exploration of creative arts with study participants. The idea is that focusing on artistic expression, especially popular music which plays a special communicative role in Colombia, will provide a window for us to build relations of trust and reach a deeper and richer understanding of the diversity of their experiences, vulnerabilities, perceptions and responses. The proposed research brings together methods in a way that has seldom been robustly applied in the field of displacement and ongoing risk.

But this programme is not solely about research. A key objective of the project is to build capacity, not only amongst displaced people but also within the organisations responsible for supporting them and managing risk. Through a series of workshops in which musical and other forms of artistic expression will be promoted, we intend to use creative arts to help people recognise their rights and develop their own capacities to reduce risk. Also present at these workshops will be key partners in the risk management organisations, who will take an active role and benefit from the opportunity to explore new ways of working with marginalised displaced people. The idea is that this will encourage organisations that have struggled to include these communities in risk management systems to view them less as victims and beneficiaries, and more as active partners in reducing disaster risk. If successful, we will help promote this new way of working beyond the case study areas to the national scale of disaster risk governance and support for displaced people. At a time when the potential for peace holds promise for making life better for so many who have been forced from their homes by decades of conflict, the project is particularly pertinent.

The results and activities of this project will benefit:

1. Communities and individuals who have been internally displaced by violence in Colombia and who have resettled into areas of high risk to natural hazard. The project, both in terms of data collection and mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR), will directly benefit the communities at risk. IDPs will be invited to share and debate their personal experiences and trajectories of vulnerability in their own voices, genres and styles (e.g. songs, art, dance) collected through life histories interviews and shared at local levels with the host communities during the DRR workshops. This will provide alternative spaces for participants to reconstruct identities, build confidence, create new social networks and engage in activities in new geographical spaces. Additionally, by participating and helping to organise the DRR workshops (which will also include other non-IDP residents of the high risk areas), IDPs will have the opportunity to engage with the host communities (residents and authorities), build capacity to respond to natural hazards and be integrated into processes of citizen participation at the local level.

2. Government Institutions and Civil Society Organizations that work with Internally Displaced People and in Disaster Risk Reduction. Specifically, this project aims to benefit the UNGRD (Unidad Nacional de Gestion de Riesgo de Desastres), which is the government department responsible for disaster risk reduction in Colombia, the Cruz Roja Colombiana-Seccional Tolima (Red Cross of Tolima), and the NGO Taller de Vida. The findings of this study, which will be presented in academic papers and reports in English and Spanish and include the application of innovative methodologies, will be of relevance for the UNGRD and the Cruz Roja in their efforts to facilitate DRR at local levels. For example, the findings from this research will provide evidence on the trajectories of vulnerabilities and help understand why IDPs relocate into areas of high risk to natural hazards. A greater understanding of these issues will help UNGRD and the Cruz Roja design successful policies that will improve their engagement with IDPs. In addition, the methodologies employed in this study for the data collection and in the DRR workshops (in which the UNGRD and Cruz Roja would participate), could provide innovative and alternative approaches to engagement with populations at risk that have the potential to be employed by these organisations elsewhere in Colombia. To ensure that the findings of this project are useful to these stakeholders, at the onset of the project a two day workshop will be held where the main research questions and methodologies will be discussed and reassessed.

The project results, including the trial of an innovative methodology, will be a key benefit for Taller de Vida, as they are committed to enhance human dignity by strengthening and promoting the development of personal and social capacities of the communities affected by socio-political violence in Colombia.

By bringing together government agencies (UNGRD), non-government organizations (Cruz Roja and Taller de Vida) and academic institutions (Universidad de Manizales) this project will provide a platform for dialogue, knowledge exchange and capacity building. These organisations will first meet at the onset of the project, they will also participate in the DRR workshops at the community level and in a final project meeting where results will be shared. More concretely, these spaces of dialogue could help all of these organisations identify capacities at the national level and strengthen their approaches and methodologies aimed at mainstreaming DRR among IDPs. This project therefore has the potential to benefit organizations that work in DRR and people beyond the case studies proposed here, who experience similar situations elsewhere in Colombia.