The production, distribution and attribution of risk: a conceptual framework to climate-related risk management from the perspective of Arraigo in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers a critical perspective on disaster risk management, arguing that the mainstream approaches are based on reductive epistemologies that constrain access to a dimension of knowledge, that not only fails to mitigate risk, it actually increases it. Re-examining the notion of underlying risk drivers, the study investigates risk through ontological and sociological approaches to define three different operations or risk dynamics: the production, distribution and attribution of risk. The framework outlined is based on a case study of Bogotá, Colombia, where the notion of «arraigo» has served to anchor the popular resistance to risk-related relocation policies, revealing historical constructions (risk production), preferences and exclusions embedded within knowledge systems (risk attribution), and spatial patterns of permissiveness, control and regulations, or asymmetries across the geographical space (risk distribution). This three-branched conceptual framework has practical implications, serving to integrate the underlying risk drivers into the knowledge and stewardship frames of action to respond to the political questions in disaster risk management and leverage their transformative potential as climate adaptation measures.