ABSTRACT

This study analyzed discursive strategies adopted by residents who live in an area of risk of recurrent flooding to justify their stay in the neighborhood. It was based on their perceptions, risk hierarchisation criteria, preventive actions and risk mitigation actions. For this purpose, excerpts from field diaries and semi-structured interviews with two residents who disagreed about the risk of flooding and the need to stay in the neighborhood were analyzed. Results show that economic difficulties of relocation and the moral principles that prevent someone from selling their house are arguments used by the resident who wants to move from the neighborhood. The resident who wants to stay in the neighborhood tends to normalize the risks and to value the benefits of the region. Residents decide whether or not to let water enter their homes during a flood and whether or not to leave the house during the rainy season to carry out their daily activities based on their prior organization and attachment to the place and material goods. It is concluded that floods affect the daily lives of residents and involve decision-making processes, which need to be considered by the public authorities in risk management.

KEYWORDS
Language; Perception; Risk management; Natural disasters; Floods

Introduction

Floods are the most common natural disaster worldwide, and their impact is likely to increase due to the effects of population, urban and climate changes¹1 Alderman K, Turner LR, Tong S. Floods and human health: A systematic review. Env. International. 2012; (47):37-47. ²2 Doocy S, Daniels A, Murray S, et al. The human impact of floods: a historical review of events 1980-2009 and systematic literature review. PLOS Currents Disast. 2013; (1):1-29. ³3 Paterson D, Wright H, Harris PNA. Health risks of flood disasters. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2018; 67(9):1450-1454.. These phenomena represent immediate dangers to human health, such as injuries and drowning, and long-term impacts, such as those resulting from illnesses related to contact with contaminated water⁴4 Noji E. The Public Health Consequences of Disasters. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2000; 15(4):21-31. ⁵5 Londe L, Conceição RS, Bernardes T, et al. Flood-related leptospirosis outbreaks in Brazil: perspectives for a joint monitoring by health services and disaster monitoring centers. Nat Hazards. 2016; 84(2):1419-1435. ⁶6 Saulnier DD, Brolin RK, Von Schreeb J. No calm after the storm: A systematic review of human health following flood and storm disasters. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2017; 32(5):568-579. ⁷7 Saulnier DD, Hanson C, Ir P, et al. The Effect of Seasonal Floods on Health: Analysis of Six Years of National Health Data and Flood Maps. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2018; 15(4):665.. Consequently, floods have been increasingly configured as serious public health problems, especially in developing countries like Brazil⁸8 Freitas CM, Ximenes EF. Enchentes e saúde pública: uma questão na literatura científica recente das causas, consequências e respostas para prevenção e mitigação. Ciênc. Saúde Colet. [internet]. 2012 [acesso em 2019 set 21]; 17(6):1601-1616. Disponível em: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232012000600023.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232012... , where the advance in legislation has not been accompanied by the guarantee of inspection and still requires the creation of participatory bodies and educational actions as complementary measures⁹9 Assumpção RF, Séguin E, Kligerman DC, et al. Possíveis contribuições da integração das políticas públicas brasileiras à redução de desastres. Saúde debate [internet]. 2017 [acesso em 2019 jul 13]; 41(esp2):39-49. Disponível em: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0103-11042017s204.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0103-11042017s... .

Considering these measures, recent studies have pointed to the need to promote the resilience of the members of the communities affected by floods through community participation strategies for disaster risk reduction with public authorities¹⁰10 Mayer B. Curr Envir Health Rpt. Springer Inter. Pub. 2019; (6):167-173.. Although public participation measures are the most effective means of promoting knowledge about potential disasters, strengthening confidence in public authorities and encouraging citizens to take more responsibility for disaster protection and preparedness, the experience of community members at risk and their trust or lack of trust in authorities and specialists, are the main factors that shape the perception of risk by members of a community, and this has been a challenge to the organization of integrated action strategies¹¹11 Wachinger G, Renn O, Begg C, et al. The risk perception paradox--implications for governance and communication of natural hazards. Risk Analys. 2013; 33(6):1049-1065..

For this reason, for the population to participate in disaster reduction, it is necessary that public authorities understand how the residents of a given region perceive the flood risks to which they are subjected¹²12 Motoyoshi T. Public perception of flood risk and community-based disaster preparedness. Terra Scientific Publishing Company [internet]. 2006 [acesso em 2019 set 21]; 121-134. Disponível em: http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/nied/pdf/121.pdf.
http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/nied... , which is the first priority of action in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030¹³13 United Nations. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030. [internet]. 2015. [acesso em 2019 set 21]. Disponível em: https://www.unisdr.org/files/43291_sendaiframeworkfordrren.pdf.
https://www.unisdr.org/files/43291_senda... . Thus, this procedure is necessary because the way people perceive the risks related to floods directly influences the way in which they will understand their conditions of possibility to manage these risks¹⁴14 Kellens W, Terpstra T, De Maeyer P. Perception and Communication of Flood Risks: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research. Risk Analysis. 2013; 33(1):24-49.; and, based on this process, it is possible to achieve the second priority of the Sendai Framework, the strengthening of disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk.

In addition, studies in the field of public health have shown that the ways to prioritize certain risks and coping strategies over others are closely related to the perception that certain groups have of the risks to which they are submitted¹⁵15 Rhodes T. Risk theory in epidemic times: sex, drugs and the social organisation risk behaviour. Sociol. Health & Illness. 1997; 19(2):208-227.^,1616 Rance J, Treloar C, Fraser S, et al. “Don’t think I’m going to leave you over it”: Accounts of changing hepatitis C status among couples who inject drugs. Drug and Alcohol Depend. 2017; 173:78-84.. In the specific case of floods, cognitive, behavioral, socioeconomic, demographic, geographic, informational and cultural factors are key elements to determine the criteria taken into account, and need to integrate the process of analyzing risk perceptions and hierarchies of risks¹⁷17 Lechowska E. What determines flood risk perception? A review of factors of flood risk perception and relations between its basic elements. Nat Hazards. 2018; 94(3):1341-1366..

Although evidently necessary, studies on risk perception and, consequently, on the ways to prioritize certain actions based on these perceptions, start from a realistic and naturalized conception of the world: they consider that the variability of social perception is the effect of distorted interpretations of reality and that hierarchy is based on an attitude that reflects internal coherence¹⁸18 Wetherell M, Potter J. Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. London; New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf; Columbia University Press; 1992.. Therefore, in this perspective, there would be a correct perception of flood risks and an adequate way to prioritize risks. Such reading tends to position public and scientific authorities as holders of knowledge about risks; and the population, as groups that need to be made aware, which goes against the community integration movement and the valorization of local knowledge fostered in disaster risk reduction actions.

An alternative has been proposed within the scope of studies on discourse and discursive practices which aim to explore the discursive heterogeneity of statements¹⁸18 Wetherell M, Potter J. Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. London; New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf; Columbia University Press; 1992.^,1919 Potter J. Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: Sage; 1996.. A discursive perspective is justified because the processes of risk perception and hierarchy of risks make use of certain languages to talk about risks, which, in turn, are linked to speeches about risk²⁰20 Spink MJP. Trópicos do discurso sobre risco: risco-aventura como metáfora na modernidade tardia. Cad. Saúde Pública [internet]. 2001 [acesso em 2018 jul 13]; 17(6):1277-1311. Disponível em: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2001000600002.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-311X2001... ²¹21 Spink MJP, Menegon VM. Práticas discursivas como estratégias de governamentalidade: A linguagem dos riscos em documentos de domínio público. In: Iñiguez L. Manual de Análise do Discurso em Ciências Sociais. Petrópolis: Vozes; 2004. p. 258-311.. In this perspective, perceiving risks means producing multiple discursive versions of a phenomenon, as well as the attitudes that guide the hierarchy of risks configure a public positioning regarding a controversy or situation that requires decision making¹⁸18 Wetherell M, Potter J. Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. London; New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf; Columbia University Press; 1992.. Starting from the theoretical principle that risk is constructed discursively, it allows exploring the interface between the audiences analyzed and the types of justification they adopt when producing or evaluating arguments related to the topic of interest²²22 Schwartzman R, Ross DG, Berube DM. Rhetoric and risk. Poroi [internet]. 2011; 7(1):9. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.13008/2151-2957.1087.
https://doi.org/10.13008/2151-2957.1087.... .

Considering such conditions, the present study analyzes discursive strategies adopted by residents who live in an area at risk of recurrent floods to justify their stay in the area. It is based on their perceptions of risks, the ways they prioritize risks and, consequently, prevention actions and preparation they prioritize.

The research was carried out in the Vila América neighborhood, in Santo André. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), data from 2010 with an estimate for 2013, the region is characterized as a fully regularized (integrated) urban area with a population of 4.518 inhabitants, distributed over an area of 0.53 km², with 1.565 private households permanently occupied and, of that total, 88 in flood risk areas²³23 Santo André. Anuário de Santo André 2014 [internet]. [acesso em 2019 out 1]. Disponível em: http://www.santoandre.sp.gov.br/pesquisa/ebooks/381435.PDF.
http://www.santoandre.sp.gov.br/pesquisa... .

Material and methods

In order to achieve the objectives of this article, a methodological strategy was adopted that included the cross-checking of information from two sources: 1) field diary, produced from visits to the actors involved²⁴24 Medrado B, Spink MJP, Méllo RP. Diários como atuantes em nossas pesquisas: narrativas ficionais implicadas. In: Spink MJ, Brigagão J, Nascimento V, et al., organizadores. A produção de informação na pesquisa social: compartilhando ferramentas. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais; 2014. p. 273-294.; and 2) semi-structured interview with two residents with different opinions regarding the need to stay in the neighborhood²⁵25 Aragaki SS, Lima MLC, Pereira CCQ, et al. Entrevistas: negociando sentidos e coproduzindo versões de realidade. In: Spink MJ, Brigagão J, Nascimento V, et al., organizadores. A produção de informação na pesquisa social: compartilhando ferramentas. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais; 2014. p. 57-72.. To systematize the information related to the interviews, dialogic maps were created²⁶26 Nascimento VLV, Tavanti RM, Pereira CCQ. O uso de mapas dialógicos como recurso analítico em pesquisas científicas. In: Spink, MJ, Brigagão J, Nascimento V, et al., organizadores. A produção de informação na pesquisa social: compartilhando ferramentas. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais; 2014. p. 247-272..

The negotiation for the first visit to the neighborhood was mediated by the Civil Defense Department, which indicated a community leadership as interlocutor. The approach with this leadership enabled the understanding of the floods in the place and the understanding of how residents in the area of risk deal with the problem. The choice of the research interlocutors was co-produced in action, between the researcher and the community leader, and, therefore, reflexivity was present in the choice of two participants²⁵25 Aragaki SS, Lima MLC, Pereira CCQ, et al. Entrevistas: negociando sentidos e coproduzindo versões de realidade. In: Spink MJ, Brigagão J, Nascimento V, et al., organizadores. A produção de informação na pesquisa social: compartilhando ferramentas. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais; 2014. p. 57-72.. The selection criterion was to interview two residents with different opinions regarding the desire and the need to stay in the neighborhood: one is N, the oldest resident in the neighborhood who, therefore, has lived in the region since the beginning of the floods and wants to stay; another is W, a resident who, although she has not lived there for a long time, is a community leader and has been very active since her arrival in the region, but who hopes to leave the area.

We used a single letter to substitute the name of each participant, seeking to comply with the Research Code of Ethics 466/12, which emphasizes, among other things, the protection of participants. The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (CEP-PUC/SP), opinion number 1.403.575.

Regarding the interview script, some guiding questions were elaborated on the theme of the study, such as: 1) How long have you lived in the neighborhood?; 2) When you moved to the neighborhood, did it already have flooding, and if not, when did it start?; and 3) What is it like to live in a flood area? The interviews were scheduled according to the residents’ availability and carried out in places of their preference. It started with the presentation of the objectives and procedures of the research and with the request to sign the Free and Informed Consent Form (TLCE), explaining confidentiality, the possibility of withdrawal and permission to record.

As for the procedures for analyzing the information obtained in the interviews, dialogic maps were created. Dialogic maps are tools that give visibility to the analysis process and to the context of co-production of discursive practices. The analysis process started with two forms of familiarization with the discursive material: Sequential Transcription (ST) and Integral Transcription (IT). ST was the first approach to the material to be analyzed, made through a careful listening to the audio, through which we sought to identify the subjects covered, thus enabling the grouping of them into thematic categories to be used on the map. Then, the IT of the audio was carried out, including all the speeches and expressions used in the interview. It was done literally, preserving the original discourse of the research context, enabling the understanding of who speaks, about what they speak and how each one speaks²⁶26 Nascimento VLV, Tavanti RM, Pereira CCQ. O uso de mapas dialógicos como recurso analítico em pesquisas científicas. In: Spink, MJ, Brigagão J, Nascimento V, et al., organizadores. A produção de informação na pesquisa social: compartilhando ferramentas. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais; 2014. p. 247-272.. After this stage, the transcription Lines (L) were enumerated, to allow the location of the speech referred to in the dialogic map and in the discussion of results. We used this strategy in the two interviews carried out, with W and N, creating a dialogic map for each one. After the elaboration of the two maps, the themes/categories common to the two interviewees were analyzed, resulting in a third map with the content of each interview located in separate columns. This map made it possible to analyze the residents’ coexistence with the recurrent floods in the region (chart 1).

After this stage, statements related to discursive strategies adopted by the interviewees to justify their risk perceptions of living in an area subject to floods and the ways in which they prioritize flood risks and prevention and preparedness actions were selected. The material was associated with field diaries, public domain documents and scientific literature in the areas of discourse and environmental disaster studies.

Results and discussions

Arguments to justify staying in the flood risk area

The research made it possible to identify that, according to public authorities, it is the residents’ own desire that keeps them in the area of risk. For the resident who wants to leave, the justifications are the difficulties of relocation and financing and moral issues related to the sale of the house. Finally, for the resident who wants to remain in the area of risk, the normalization of flood risks and exposure of the benefits of the region work as rhetorical strategies to justify the permanence.

THEY STAY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO

The first contacts were made with the Public Authorities. During the request for documents containing information about the flooding problem in the region, the public authorities of the Municipal Environmental Sanitation Service of Santo André (Semasa) emphasized the insistence of Vila América residents to remain on site, as explained in this conversation with the researcher.

The representative assumes that the residents’ knowledge that the region is a floodplain area and their favorable economic condition are sufficient for them to leave the flood area. Therefore, she cannot find a plausible explanation for the permanence of these people, which may lead to the understanding that, for public authorities, people continue to live in this area because they want to.

The same kind of rhetorical strategy was identified in an analysis of coverage of printed news after Hurricane Katrina in the USA, in which it was found that journalistic representations were based on rhetorical devices and semantic strategies whose discursive construction resulted in the transfer of guilt from government agencies for the ‘victims’ and ‘survivors’ of the disaster²⁷27 Davis MJ, French TN. Blaming Victims and Survivors: An Analysis of Post-Katrina Print News Coverage. Southern Commun. J. 2008; 73(3):243-257.. The attribution of responsibility and, consequently, of blame to the victim is a common resource when the target audience is poor, either because the assigner is conservative²⁸28 Zucker GS, Weiner B. Conservatism and perceptions of poverty: An attributional analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1993; 23(12):925-943. or because he denies his own conditions of poverty²⁹29 Shildrick T, MacDonald R. Poverty talk: How People Experiencing Poverty Deny Their Poverty and Why They Blame ‘The Poor’. Sociol rev. 2013; 61(2):285-303..

What stands out in the case under analysis, however, is that the financial issue is overwhelmed by a cultural issue in the process of attributing responsibility and guilt: the relatively privileged economic position of Vila América residents in relation to other residents of areas of high-risk has raised indignation of segments of society that, because they do not understand the reasons for their permanence, end up blaming those affected by their own situation. The cycle of blaming the victim is reproduced even if in a relatively privileged social class. As Mary Douglas teaches us, generally the blame for an adverse event is made to someone or a group that is not popular with others, like these residents³⁰30 Douglas M. Risk and Blame. Essays in Cultural Theory. Londres: Routledge; 1992..

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES, RELOCATION AND MORAL PRINCIPLES

Although the argument of attributing blame to the affected group is present in the speech of public authorities, it is questioned by residents of the region with other arguments, as seen in W’s statement:

A meaningful reason for staying in areas at risk of flooding is the difficulty in moving to other places. The difficulties of relocating in a flood situation were previously pointed out in studies in the area with justifications such as the lack of a place to live, a lack of money or the absence of an equivalent place to live³¹31 Askman J, Nilsson O, Becker P. Why People Live in Flood-Prone Areas in Akuressa, Sri Lanka. Inter J. Disaster Risk Scienc. 2018; 9(2):143-156.. They are all expressed by W in the excerpt below.

However, although these are the main reasons pointed out by W to justify her permanence, she still makes use of a resource not cataloged in the literature: the moral and legal principle of informing the flood situation to potential buyers, which makes the sale unfeasible.

At the beginning of her narrative, W tells of her first experience with flooding in the house she had just bought and her lack of knowledge on the subject, which caused a lot of pain and suffering. In the end, she justifies the reason for not leaving the house where she is: she cannot do with others the same as they did with her, she bought something without having been previously informed of the problems with floods.

Contrary to what happens in other countries, Brazil still does not systematically adopt flood insurance. Although the initial obstacle to the implementation of these risk transfer strategies was overcome with the opening to the international reinsurance market, in 2007, and insurance models for hydrological risks have been developed³²32 Righetto JM, Mendiondo EM, Righetto AM. Modelo de seguro para riscos hidrológicos. Rev. Bras. Recursos Hídricos. 2007; 12(2):107-113.^,3333 Graciosa MCP. Modelo de seguro para riscos hidrológicos com base em simulação hidráulico-hidrológica como ferramenta de gestão do risco de inundações. [tese]. São Carlos: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos; 2010. 191 p., this is still not the hegemonic practice to manage these events in the Country. Sellers are required by law to report on these situations, which usually leads to the abandonment of the purchase by the interested party, or they commit acts of bad faith, as occurred with W.

In addition to not finding it fair to sell your home without informing buyers of floods, she also informs buyers of neighboring houses, which has led to conflicts with other residents.

RISK STANDARDIZATION AND TRADE-OFF

Not all residents, however, make use of negative justifications for staying in the neighborhood. N prefers to emphasize the positive aspects of living in the neighborhood to the detriment of floods that, in his speech, become a minor event.

Two discursive strategies used together to justify staying in the region were used here: risk normalization and bargaining, or trade-off. The normalization of risk occurs when exposure to recurrent floods for a long period increases awareness, but decreases the aversion to flooding: it becomes an integrated element in the daily life of the community. With regard to bargaining, it is a process in which the perceived benefits of living in the area outweigh the perceived problem of recurring floods of low to medium intensity. Combined with risk normalization, this process allows for risk taking and compromises the potential to anticipate and adapt to an increasing flood risk resulting from climate change and other global changes, because it discourages residents from engaging in activities and making adjustments that reduce the risk and increase the preparation³¹31 Askman J, Nilsson O, Becker P. Why People Live in Flood-Prone Areas in Akuressa, Sri Lanka. Inter J. Disaster Risk Scienc. 2018; 9(2):143-156.. Although it was N who makes the normalization and bargaining regarding flood risks, it is in W’s speech that its discouraging effects appear.

Regarding the use of rhetorical resources used to justify the permanence of housing, it is possible to identify that government agents tend to blame those affected, that W justifies their stay for financial and moral reasons while N justifies their stay due to the normalization of the risks of flooding and the benefits of living in the region.

Arguments to justify the hierarchy of risks

In the present study, two questions were fundamental for the discussion on the ways to prioritize flood risks: the decision to let the water enter or not in the residence and the decision to stay or leave the house during periods of rain.

TO LET OR NOT TO LET WATER IN?

Regarding the first discussion, it is commonplace in the field of climate studies that keeping weather outside is an essential function of a building in almost any climate. However, about floods, two strategies can be adopted: resilience to flooding or resistance to flooding. Flood resilience is promoted by forms of construction that control how much water enters buildings, which is also known as wet-proofing. Such forms of construction must be able to recover from flooding with minimal intervention. Flood resistance, in turn, also known as dry-proofing, is a process in which water is kept outside the building by barriers or materials with a high level of water resistance³⁴34 Johnson M. Protection and Performance of Flooded Buildings. In: Lamond J, Booth C, Hammon F, et al., organizadores. Flood Hazards: impacts and responses for the Built Environment. London; New York: Boca Raton; CRC Press; 2012. p. 259-268..

Both cases refer to buildings in which there has been some type of preparation for flood resistance. The interviewed residents adopt the strategies of letting water in or out of the home based on these principles, although their houses were not previously built with this in mind. N, for example, gave up trying to contain the strength of the water that overflows from the Guarará stream and chose to let it freely enter his home. There was a time when there was a gate with a floodgate in it, but, as a result of heavy rain, that gate was uprooted, and after that, the resident decided not to put it on again. N justifies his decision with the following argument:

In the process of justifying N, he defends the entry of water in contrast to the opposite method that could damage the structure of the house. In fact, studies in the area have indicated that the dry-proofing strategy should be used with caution, as there are physical limitations on the amount of water that can be kept outside, in terms of structural stability of the building, in the most common forms of constructions. There is also a risk of flash flooding through opening, such as windows³⁴34 Johnson M. Protection and Performance of Flooded Buildings. In: Lamond J, Booth C, Hammon F, et al., organizadores. Flood Hazards: impacts and responses for the Built Environment. London; New York: Boca Raton; CRC Press; 2012. p. 259-268.. N makes use of this argument to defend the entrance of water in the house, even if it had not been previously built for this. In the ranking of risks, the explosion of walls and structural damage to housing are more harmful than the entry of water, and he again presents another argument for this: the internal preparedness of his home.

W prefers to resist the force of the water using floodgates, so that her house is not affected, and her belongings destroyed, every time a flood occurs, but she recognizes that it is not the best thing to do due to the force of the water.

Despite experiencing the effects of preventing water from entering her home, W continues to do so. She justifies this practice due to the need to maintain the material goods of her residence, her memories.

The importance of goods that materialize memories after floods was evident in interviews with affected people in a flooded community and with an employee who worked in support after the disaster. In addition to loved ones, the possessions that were most missed were family photos, family heirlooms and souvenirs, as gifts that connected victims to their ancestors. The loss of these possessions resulted in a process of suffering and grief like that experienced in the death of a loved one³⁵35 Belk RW. Possessions and the Sense of Past. In: Russell Belk P, organizador. SV – Highways and Buyways: Naturalistic Research from the Consumer Behavior Odyssey. Utah: Association for Consumer Research; 1991. p. 114-130.. Therefore, for W, losing material goods is a greater risk than the risk of rupture in the structure of the house.

WHAT IS THE RISK OF LEAVING HOME FOR A TIME?

Living with the risk of frequent flooding has changed the daily lives of these residents of Vila América. W had to change her work routine, alternating the time of arrival and departure according to weather forecasts, as well as trips, tours and, especially, surgeries.

Living in a flood risk area has made W organize her life around these events. In the hierarchy of risks, leaving home for surgery cannot even be considered, since the risk of canceling the surgery is less important than suffering the impacts of a sudden flood.

N also avoids going out at that time so as not to run the risk of being isolated from home due to the flood.

Conclusions

Considering that floods have been increasingly configured as serious public health problems in Brazil and seeking to meet the priorities established in the Sendai Framework¹³13 United Nations. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030. [internet]. 2015. [acesso em 2019 set 21]. Disponível em: https://www.unisdr.org/files/43291_sendaiframeworkfordrren.pdf.
https://www.unisdr.org/files/43291_senda... , it is necessary for public authorities to understand how residents of a given region perceive the flood risks to which they are submitted.

In this perspective, this article, within the scope of studies on discourse and discursive practices, sought to analyze discursive strategies adopted by residents who reside in an area at risk of recurrent floods to justify their stay in the area from their perceptions of risks, the ways they prioritize risks and, consequently, the prevention and preparation actions they prioritize.

First of all, it should be noted that we are talking about anthropic risks, that is, those that became present as a result of interventions in the urban landscape, such as works that resulted in diversion of streams and rivers or bottlenecks resulting from these works. Therefore, in a more macro perspective, planning that takes into account the geographic (stream, terrain) and urban (density of existing and already consolidated housing) characteristics of the area would be necessary. This, as widely discussed in the book ‘Living in areas of risk’³⁶36 Spink MJP. Viver em área de risco: reflexões sobre vulnerabilidades socioambientais. São Paulo: EDUC; Terceiro Nome; 2018., requires participatory planning in dialogue with the affected population. However, as the data from this research show, the government’s tendency is to avoid responsibility, after all, they say that ‘they stay because they want to’.

In discursive terms, the controversy that arises, between versions of rights, ends up providing strategies for coping with recurrent risks, be it flooding, as is the case in this research, or living in risk areas³⁶36 Spink MJP. Viver em área de risco: reflexões sobre vulnerabilidades socioambientais. São Paulo: EDUC; Terceiro Nome; 2018.: normalize (risks that are always present and we learn to live with them) and/or emphasize the trade-offs, contrasting benefits and losses (in the case of houses in risk areas, literally, no longer having a roof over their heads).

The research made it possible to identify several justifications for staying in the flood risk area and an ambivalence between staying and leaving. As for the resident who wants to leave the region, we identified the following arguments: 1) economic and relocation difficulties, which, according to studies in the area, are related to the lack of a place to live, lack of money or the absence of an equivalent place to live³¹31 Askman J, Nilsson O, Becker P. Why People Live in Flood-Prone Areas in Akuressa, Sri Lanka. Inter J. Disaster Risk Scienc. 2018; 9(2):143-156.; and 2) moral principles, this being an original justification not found in the researched literature. In relation to the resident who wishes to stay, the normalization of flood risks and the exposure of benefits in the region works as a rhetorical strategy to justify the permanence, that is, he prefers to emphasize the positive aspects of living in the neighborhood to the detriment of floods, which, in his speech, become a minor event. As for the position of public authorities, it is the residents’ own desire that makes them stay. This position makes it possible to blame the residents for continuing to live in areas of risk.

Regarding the flood hierarchy of risks, two questions were fundamental to understand the justification: 1) the decision to let the water enter the residence or not; and 2) the decision to stay or leave the house during periods of rain. In the first aspect, different positions were noted among residents – while for N the explosion of walls and the structural damage to housing is more harmful than the entry of water, for W, losing the material goods is a greater risk than the risk of breaking the house structure. In the second question, there was a convergence of opinions, because the two residents reported changes in daily life due to the risk of flooding, that is, they fail to perform tasks in the imminence of a potential event. Thus, in the hierarchy process, the risk of not performing tasks is smaller than suffering the impacts of a sudden flood.

The results of the research showed that the different ways of perceiving and dealing with the flood risks produce multiple discursive versions of the phenomenon, as well as the attitudes that guide the hierarchy of risks configure a public position regarding a controversy or situation that requires decision making. For further studies, we propose to explore in other cases the moral element as an argument for the relationship between permanence or housing transfer.

References

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