Context (archaeology)

Gender relations

Engineering

Reliability engineering

Statistics

Social psychology

Gender studies

Psychological resilience

Computer security

Longitudinal study

Archaeology

Natural hazard

Social change

Computer science

Environmental planning

Mechanical engineering

Vulnerability (computing)

Thermodynamics

Physics

Empowerment

Psychology

Mathematics

Geography

Political science

Community resilience

Work (physics)

Sociology

Medicine

Redundancy (engineering)

Resilience (materials science)

Meteorology

Pathology

Natural Hazards

This paper examines changes in gender relations in a small coastal community as a result of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami. Vulnerability and resilience are used as a conceptual framework to analyse these changes. Based on empirical evidence from a seven-year longitudinal study and quasi-ethnographic work, we explore changes in power relations at the different stages of the disaster and longer-term recovery as well as the conditions that fostered these changes. Our findings show distinct patterns of change. First, disasters can trigger long-lasting changes that challenge historical patriarchal relations. Second, while vulnerability increases following a disaster, resilience can potentially counteract women’s vulnerability. We propose that resilience can be a pathway to produce long-term changes in gender relations and empower women in the context of disasters.

Women’s empowerment following disaster: a longitudinal study of social change