Chapter 11 - Social capital in disaster recovery: A case study after the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador

Abstract

Social Capital (SC), which is defined through the functions networks, trust and norms, has been found to play an important role in disaster recovery, as strong SC is supposed to lead to collective action. Through quantitative household surveys, complemented by qualitative data gained through conversations with people in the affected area, we gathered information on SC in the recovery process after the 2016 earthquake in Jama and Pedernales, Ecuador. We then statistically analyzed (using Kendall’s Tau-b test) our data to identify possible correlations between SC and recovery satisfaction. In contrast to other studies, we found positive correlations between Vertical SC (trust and access to authority figures) and recovery satisfaction, while the SC at the community and individual level showed only weak correlations with recovery satisfaction. This underlines the importance of the government in the recovery process. At the same time, collective action at the community level was minimal. Drawing on these results, we conclude that at the community level in Jama and Pedernales, SC played a negligible role in the recovery process due to weak trust in the communities and a strong top-down recovery approach led by the national government. Vertical SC (trust and access to authority figures) though led to greater recovery satisfaction. Thus, we suggest strengthening SC through building of trust with the help of formal community based organizations and through bottom-up recovery policies.