“Industry impacts more than nature” - Risk perception of natural hazards in more-than-human worlds

Understanding the risk perception of natural hazards is vital for disaster mitigation. Despite a wide range of research on the topic, there is criticism of the inherent Eurocentrism of knowledge production, and countries with a colonial history in particular criticize the marginalization of local and, in particular, indigenous perspectives. At the example of fishermen in the Patagonian fjord lands, using narrative interviews, we build a grounded theory on risk perception against the background of the actor-network-theory. The emergent order of RPR can be described in constructions of natural event systems, attributions of cause and blame, psychological processing and emotional strategies, territorial and professional identity, and perceptions of the national state. The distinction in risk science between natural hazards and environmental degradation, representing the manifestation of the nature-culture divide, is not necessarily made by people. If ambiguity in the description of networks of human and non-human actors is allowed, a hybrid understanding can be developed. As basic concepts of this understanding we propose environmental transformation, human-environment relations, appropriation of nature and ownership structure, displacement of sustainable traditions and regional common-pool resources. To classify these perspectives as pre-modern would correspond to the separation in different cultures described by Latour and would form the basis for asymmetrical relationships, reproducing the hegemony of western and anthropocentric knowledge production.