Apego al Lugar en Areas Post-Desastre: el Caso de la Reocupación de la Ciudad de Chaitén, Chile.

This study investigates the place attachment of the inhabitants of Chaitén, Chile, a community affected by a volcano eruption that destroyed a large part of the city in 2008. The article explores the associations of place attachment with the direct experience of disaster and interpersonal trust. To answer this question, a survey was designed which comprised instruments that measure place attachment, residence, and interpersonal trust. For the latter, the instrument measured trust in old and new inhabitants. The survey was administered in 2015 to 188 inhabitants of Chaitén, who were selected from a two-stage sample stratified by sector (north and south of Chaitén). Based on linear regressions, results indicate that direct experience of the disaster increases place attachment and slightly moderates the association between it and interpersonal trust in the community. Trusting old inhabitants increases place attachment only for people who did not experience the eruption. No association was found between trust in new inhabitants and place attachment. This study contributes to scientific knowledge of place attachment by suggesting that disasters have positive long-term consequences for attachment, while also proposing the need to qualify the well-known direct association between social bonds and this concept. Greater knowledge about place attachment in disaster contexts can foster reconstruction and mitigation processes when dealing with new threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]