Keeping unsafe at home: disputes and social practices regarding risks during a geological disaster in a vulnerable fishing community in Argentina

Risk researchers have long acknowledged different interpretations and practices towards risk, and the disputes that develop across these differences. The aim of this article is to explore the drivers of disputes over meanings on risks and consequent social practices in small artisanal-scale fishing communities in rural Argentina. Local fisherman and their families refused to leave homes at risk of imminent collapse due to a geological disaster in the neighbourhoods. Based on global north and south traditions of studying structurally vulnerable communities, our approach draws on theories accounting for macro and micro dimensions: (1) Latin American Social Medicine/Collective Health (MSL/SC) theories, (2) critical-interpretive medical anthropology theories and (3) sociological/anthropological theories on risk, grounded in critical realism. The original research was a qualitatively driven mixed methods strategy, with multiple cycles of data collection and analysis. The findings show how social and structural factors embedded in fishermen’s long-term experiences of exclusion are responsible for shaping their differential meanings over risks and consequent social practices of refusing to leave homes that were predicted to collapse in the imminent future, keeping them unsafe at home. By accounting for a geological disaster in these communities, the study sheds light on clues to consider common problems reported in public health interventionsfor example, the failure to reach those most in need, thus exacerbating social inequalities in health.