This research takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the relationship between people’s perceptions of disaster risk and their responses in disaster-prone cities of the Global South. This is important because the effects of risk perceptions on the ways that people respond to disaster risk remains unclear and has been labelled ‘weak’ within the disaster studies literature. Furthermore, this lack of clarity has contributed to the marginalisation of people at risk from contributing to interventions that address disaster risk, which this research finds problematic. Therefore, a better understanding of how people perceive their risk and how this shapes their responses would help inform more effective and multi-scalar interventions to address disaster risk. The research takes place in three adjacent neighbourhoods of Cochabamba city, Bolivia. Within this ‘case site’, the house is used as a methodological tool to investigate how people’s risk perceptions shape their responses to disaster risk. In particular, the research explores how risk perceptions influence the way people design and construct self-build houses in order to reduce their risk of a disaster. The focus on housing construction represents a novel way of exploring the relationship between risk perceptions and disaster risk-reduction behaviour. The research takes place in the context of persistent, low-intensity natural hazards that are linked to disaster risk which incrementally increases over time. This marks a shift away from the many studies that investigate rapid-onset, extreme hazards that quickly overwhelm people’s capabilities and which are associated with crisis and urgency. Additionally, the research is concerned with small-scale disasters, which again marks a shift away from the disaster studies literature which principally focuses on large-scale disasters that result in many casualties, large economic loss and which affect a large geographical area. The research ultimately shows that whether a risk perception is high or low is not the most important factor; rather, it is an individual’s awareness and understanding of disaster risk that encourages long-term and anticipatory strategies that require significant investments in the house. Furthermore, the research argues that research which describes the relationship between risk perceptions and responses as ‘weak’ forecloses the nuances and complexity of human behaviour in disaster-prone contexts because it does not capture the subtle yet important ways that risk perceptions shape responses.

Lors de la grande célébration de Jesús del Gran Poder qui mobilise chaque année en Bolivie toute la ville de La Paz, la morenada, danse centrale du rituel, met en scène des personnages aux visages noirs portant de lourds costumes, démesurés et opulents. Ces corps-objets ostentatoires sont mis en mouvement par les danseurs, créant une esthétique complexe de la richesse et de l’abondance. La morenada est exécutée par une population urbaine d’artisans et commerçants issus des flux de la migration indigène aymara, qui construisent laborieusement une réussite socio-économique leur permettant de s’imposer en ville. A travers une ethnographie des pratiques corporelles des danseurs de morenada pendant la préparation et la réalisation de la performance, ce travail montre comment la danse peut être un outil de compréhension des processus de reconfiguration des positions individuelles et des identités collectives. En effet, dans l’espace de la morenada, les représentations et pratiques économiques, corporelles et dévotionnelles interagissent pour se transformer mutuellement. Plus largement, ce travail interroge la manière dont dynamiques corporelles et sociales concourent à inventer un rapport singulier à la prospérité : la danse n’est pas seulement le registre expressif de la réussite urbaine, elle en est sa mesure et sa condition. / In Bolivia, the great celebration of Jesús del Gran Poder, mobilizes every year the entire city of La Paz. The morenada, main dance of this ritual, stages characters with black faces, wearing heavy, opulent and disproportionate costumes. These ostentatious body-objects are moved by the dancers, creating an intricate aesthetic of wealth and abundance. The morenada is performed by an urban population of artisans and traders of rural Aymara background. They painstakingly build the socio-economic success that allows them to establish themselves in town. Based upon an ethnography of the morenada dancers’ bodily practices, during the preparation and realization of their performance, this work intends to show that dance can be a powerfull tool for understanding how individual positions and collective identities are constantly reshaping. Indeed, in the space of morenada, economic, bodily and devotional beliefs and practices, interact to transform each other. At a broader scale, this work questions the way bodily and social dynamics contribute to invent a specific relationship to prosperity: dance is not only the expression of urban success, but its measure and condition.