Sofia Guevara: On the fluid nature of the concept of risk in urban areas. Residents and administrators facing flooding in Barrio Luján and La Carpio (San José, Costa Rica)

Situated at the intersection of risk research and urban studies, this thesis examines the establishment of neighbourhood crisis management committees (known as CCE in Spanish), participatory mechanisms promoted by Costa Rica’s national risk management policy since 2006 and established in San José, the country’s capital, since 2012. Created on the initiative of local authorities and composed exclusively of residents, the CCE aim to involve residents of areas affected by emergencies in risk management activities.

In the Costa Rican metropolitan area, these measures are implemented in particular in neighbourhoods affected by urban flooding – events that disrupt daily life in the city and are emblematic of so-called ‘urban’ risks. These risks are linked to morphological factors, as well as to settlement patterns, urban activities and services.

Adopting a systemic approach, the study examines the relationships forged between local government officials and local residents within these participatory committees. The thesis draws on a variety of empirical sources: a study of institutional archives, cartographic work, and interviews and participant observation in two neighbourhoods with different socio-economic profiles, Barrio Luján and La Carpio.

The thesis demonstrates that top-down mechanisms, ostensibly designed by bureaucrats to promote a ‘culture of risk’ amongst the population, are exploited by both residents and local officials to defend their respective projects and interests in the areas concerned. The systemic and comparative approach reveals that this instrumentalisation is neither unambiguous nor fixed: it evolves in step with the interactions between the two actors. Thus, by highlighting the contextual and dynamic nature of risk definition across neighbourhoods, the thesis draws attention to the unstable nature of the categories proposed by public risk management, which are reappropriated and subverted by the way in which residents make them their own. In both cases studied, local residents constantly highlight the limitations of public policy and its contradictions regarding its stated objective. From this perspective, the thesis highlights the contribution of residents’ conceptions of the territory and invites reflection on new pluralist frameworks for risk policies.

Composition of the jury

• Bruno Barroca, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University, examiner
• Mathilde Gralepois, Senior Lecturer – HDR, University of Tours, co-director
• Jean-Pierre Lévy, Research Director, CNRS-Latts, PhD supervisor
• Patrice Melé, Professor, University of Tours, rapporteur
• Pascale Metzger, Senior Research Fellow – HDR, IRD, rapporteur
• Valérie November, Research Director, CNRS-Latts, examiner
• Julien Rebotier, Research Fellow, CNRS-LISST, examiner
• Helga-Jane Scarwell, University Professor, University of Lille, examiner