Social perception on disaster risk of the Niño Costero phenomenon in Peru

Abstract

Risk is socially constructed when the perceptions of a social collective are not coherent with the danger of a natural event. This is what happened in northern Peru four years ago when the El Niño Costero phenomenon hit the Pedregal Grande-Catacaos population center. Our aim was to understand the social construct and perception of a disaster risk. Approached from a qualitative naturalistic and symbolic interactionism perspective. Seven in-depth interviews and a focus group were applied. In conclusion, risk is socially constructed given the perception of the population and the State to change vulnerabilities determined by exposure, fragility and improvement of the levels of resilience, in order to reduce and not reproduce the conditions that caused the phenomenon of El Niño Costero in 2017.