RISKLAND: UNCERTAINTY AND DISASTER IN PUCAYACU, ECUADOR

My honors thesis explores the ways in which uncertainty is produced and navigated in the times in-between cyclical natural disaster. In the rural, subtropical town of Pucayacu, a seemingly idyllic status quo is recurrently disrupted by seasonal threats from the Quindigua River and the cyclical inundations of El Niño. Drawing on ethnographic data collected over three months of fieldwork, I examine how events like floods and landslides are embedded within this community’s quotidian regularities- both political and climatic. This cyclical framework allows for further investigation of the temporal and infrastructural mechanisms through which uncertainty is reproduced for marginalized populations. I draw on the narratives of a wide range of local residents in order to understand how river walls, hillsides, and bridges- as well as the means of infrastructure required to build and maintain them- intersect with care by the state. By paying careful attention to the affective aspects of risk mitigation, I then analyze the emotion-risk assemblage of tranquilidad (tranquility) constructed by Pucayacans as they navigate various precarious edges. I employ an analytical approach that seeks to complicate dominant narratives of damage, instead looking at the potential for desire- based anthropological study of other disaster-impacted “risklands.”

Trabajo y Progreso (Work and Progress). Pucayacu, Ecuador, 2020. Digital photo taken on iPhone.

This is the original, hand embroidered seal for the town in which I did my thesis fieldwork: Pucayacu, Ecuador. Translating to “Work and Progress,” the title and the depicted scene provoke questions about what development means to this community, especially the associated changes to a supposedly “natural" landscape through local, small-scale agriculture and infrastructural projects.

Peligro (Danger). Pucayacu, Ecuador, 2020. Digital photo taken on iPhone.

This photo depicts the entrance to a decaying bridge decorated with old “caution” tape. Spanning a river known to flood during the rainy season, the Solonzo bridge serves as the main, but tenuous, connection between this farming community and the main road. Local leaders there have been fighting for a car-traversable bridge for decades, but political measurements of risk and cost-benefit have left them economically and infrastructurally stranded.

Web. Pucayacu, Ecuador, 2020. Digital photo taken on iPhone.

This photo, taken at the entrance of a neighbor’s small plot of land outside of town, presents some interesting juxtapositions: steel vs. silken meshwork, the built environment vs. nature, permanent vs. temporary. With my work, I hope to complicate some of these binaries; notice how the spider’s web fits within and extends outwards from the central rusty rhombus.