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Distributing Obligations, Performing Publics: Responsible Citizens in Post-Disaster Engagement

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Abstract

In public discourse and much sociological research disasters are understood as critical situations in which the engagement of citizens is critical to rebuild the political, material and social texture sustaining everyday life. However, it remains unclear how post-disaster participatory techniques help in the modulation of certain types of citizens. In this article we ask: Do disasters, as a specific setting of participation, qualify or specify how citizenship is construed, thought, and brought into being? Drawing on the case of the 2010 earthquake and tsunami in Chile, we explore the role of responsibility distribution, inscribed in the organization and deployment of participatory exercises, in the performativity of citizens. Using in-depth interviews, ethnographic data and archival material we compare three different post-disaster participatory interventions, what we term participation apparatuses. Describing how participation theories and techniques were mobilized to define “who ought to do what,” we argue that different participation apparatuses enacted distinctive responsible publics. We label these publics the epistemic, decisional and narrative responsible publics. Our larger point is that research on the performativity of participation requires an expansion of both the settings of public participation and the mechanisms of performativity within participation apparatuses.

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Notes

  1. The notion of performativity originally stems from Austin’s (1962) distinction between those utterances that describe a world already out there and those that do something. Taking these cues, philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists have reflected on the capacity of materially-mediated practices to enact reality (see Callon 1999; Licoppe 2010; MacKenzie 2007).

  2. The reconstructions plans were PRES Consitución, PRE Talca, PRES Juan Fernández, PRES Curicó, PRES Pelluhue and PRES Lincantén. It should be noted that, rather confusingly, some documents list more than six cases, which is because two PRES include more than one town: PRES Pelluhue included Pelluhue and Curanipe, while PRES Licantén involved Iloca, Duao and La Pesca.

  3. The reconstruction plan of Talca was called PRE Talca and not PRES Talca owing to a specific political disagreement. For all other purposes, PRES and PRE are equivalent.

  4. The involvement of Arauco in Constitución’s reconstruction plan was severely criticized by local NGOs and civic groups, and exposed the complexities of Constitución’s development trajectory and power structures. For a more detailed account see Tironi (2015).

  5. The fact that this methodology was inspired by the notion of “hybrid forums” proposed by Michael Callon (2009), a leading figure in Actor-Network Theory, is indicative of the forward-looking search behind Foros Híbridos.

  6. The definition and utilization of charrettes in Europe is somewhat different, with a less significant role of drawing and visual projection and a more prominent role of written records.

  7. For the application of the face-to-face survey, key points of the city were selected, such as the mall, the railway station and the main square.

  8. The questions were: (1) What is missing in the city? (2) Select a place for Talca’s postcard (3) If you could select a place in the city to live, what place would you choose? (4) Indicate the place in Talca you like the most and (5) Indicate the place in Talca you like the least.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Campus San Joaquín, Instituto de Sociología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, 7820436, Santiago, Chile

    Juan Lama & Manuel Tironi

  2. Centro de Investigación para la Gestión Integrada de Riesgo de Desastres CONICYT/FONDAP 15110017, Campus San Joaquín, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, 7820436, Santiago, Chile

    Manuel Tironi

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Lama, J., Tironi, M. Distributing Obligations, Performing Publics: Responsible Citizens in Post-Disaster Engagement. Qual Sociol 42, 1–23 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-019-9407-5

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