Exclusion as a Defining Feature of Post-Disaster Recovery: Key Perspectives from Brazil

Abstract

This study critically interrogates dominant models of post-disaster recovery by combining an interdisciplinary review of critical scholarship with grounded empirical analysis from Brazil. It focuses on landless and unhoused populations, as well as residents of informal settlements, to explore how disaster recovery frameworks, rather than reducing vulnerability, often reproduce spatial inequality and deepen exclusion. The research draws on a multi‐site, multi‐temporal mixed-methods study conducted in collaboration with the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB), analyzing Brazil’s most severe recent climate‐related disasters: landslides and floods in Petrópolis (2011, 2022, 2024) and São Sebastião (2023). Fieldwork involved participant observation, over 200 semistructured interviews with affected residents and officials, and 110 completed questionnaires. Findings reveal that Brazil’s disaster governance framework embeds exclusionary dynamics, privileging legally recognized property owners while marginalizing those without formal tenure. Recovery programs often simplify complex social realities through rigid eligibility criteria, thereby silencing diverse lived experiences. As a result, recovery often becomes a prolonged, secondary disaster for the most vulnerable. The article argues that prevailing recovery models, anchored in technocratic management and depoliticized resilience discourse, fail to address the structural roots of marginalization. By centering the role of grassroots movements such as MAB, this article highlights how collective action can expose recovery injustices and foster more inclusive, participatory, and transformative approaches to disaster governance.

Keywords

Climate disaster / Decolonial studies / Marginalized groups / Post-disaster recovery / Public policies / Social exclusion

References

[1] Aldrich D. Building resilience: Social capital in post-disaster recovery, 2012, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press

[2] ALERJ (Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro). 2014. Report – The tragedy in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro three years later: The right to adequate housing. Human Rights Commission of ALERJ, 27 November 2014.

[3] Alexander DE. From civil defence to civil protection – and back again. Disaster Prevention and Management, 2002, 11: 209-213

[4] Alexander D, Davis I. Disaster risk reduction: An alternative viewpoint. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2012, 2: 1-5

[5] Aoki H. Japan’s underclass: Day laborers and the homeless, 2006, Melbourne, Transpacific Press

[6] Baker SH. Anti-resilience: A roadmap for transformational justice within the energy system. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 2019, 54(1): 1-48

[7] Barrios RE. “Here, I’m not at ease”: Anthropological perspectives on community resilience. Disasters, 2014, 38(2): 329-350

[8] Best, K., and Z. Jouzi. 2022. Climate gentrification: Methods, gaps, and framework for future research. Frontiers in Climate 4: Article 828067.

[9] Blomley N. Precarious territory: Property law, housing, and the socio-spatial order. Antipode, 2020, 52(1): 36-57

[10] Borderon, M., K.B. Best, K. Bailey, D.L. Hopping, M. Dove, and C.L.C. Blois. 2021. The risks of invisibilization of populations and places in environment-migration research. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8: Article 314.

[11] Bornstein L, Lizarralde G, Gould KA, Davidson C. Framing responses to post-earthquake Haiti: How representations of disasters, reconstruction and human settlements shape resilience. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 2013, 4(1): 43-57

[12] Brazil. 2009. National policy for the homeless population (Política Nacional para a População em Situação de Rua). Decree No. 7.053, 23 December 2009 (in Portuguese).

[13] Brazil. 2012. National civil defense and protection policy (Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil). Law No. 12.608, 10 April 2012 (in Portuguese).

[14] Brazil. 2023. Preliminary report on homeless population – Diagnosis based on data and information available in administrative records and federal government systems (Relatório Preliminar População em Situação de Rua - Diagnóstico com base nos dados e informações disponíveis em registros administrativos e sistemas do governo federal). Brasília: Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship (in Portuguese).

[15] Bringel B, Varella RVS. Militant research in Latin America today: Reflections about inequalities and the knowledge production possibilities (A pesquisa militante na América Latina hoje: reflexões sobre as desigualdades e as possibilidades de produção de conhecimentos). Revista Digital de Direito Administrativo, 2016, 3(3): 474-489 in Portuguese)

[16] Cannon T, Titz A, Krüger F. Cannon T, Schipper ELF, Bankoff G, Krüger F. The myth of community. World disasters report 2014: Focus on culture and risk, 2014, Geneva, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies92119

[17] Carlos, A.F.A., and C.S. Rizek. 2022. Right to the city and right to life: Critical perspectives on the urban in contemporary times (Direito à Cidade e Direito à Vida: Perspectivas Críticas sobre o Urbano na Contemporaneidade). São Paulo: Instituto de Estudos Avançados da Universidade de São Paulo (in Portuguese).

[18] Chancel L, Piketty T, Saez E, Zucman G. World inequality report 2022, 2022, Paris, World Inequality Lab

[19] Chandrasekhar D, Zhang Y, Xiao Y. Nontraditional participation in disaster recovery planning: Cases from China, India, and the United States. Journal of the American Planning Association, 2014, 80(4): 373-384

[20] Cheek W, Chmutina K. Building back better is neoliberal post-disaster reconstruction. Disasters, 2021, 46(3): 589-609

[21] Cheek W, Chmutina K. Measuring resilience in the assumed city. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2022, 13(2): 317-329

[22] Chmutina K, Lizarralde G, von Meding J, Bosher L. Standardised indicators for “resilient cities”: The folly of devising a technical solution to a political problem. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 2023, 14(4): 514-535

[23] Chmutina K, von Meding J, Sandoval V, Boyland M, Forino G, Cheek W, Williams DA, Gonzalez-Muzzio Cet al.. What we measure matters: The case of the missing development data in Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction monitoring. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2021, 12(6): 779-789

[24] Clark-Ginsberg A, Blake JS, Patel K. Chowdhooree I, Ghani SM. Disaster risk reduction in cities: Towards a new normal. External interventions for disaster risk reduction: Impacts on local communities, 2020, Singapore, Springer123134

[25] Corrêa Junior JE, Junior OA, Carvalho JG. Latifundia as a form and exclusion as a rule: Obstacles to agrarian reform in Brazil based on the case of the Quilombo Campo Grande Encampment (O Latifúndio como Forma e a Exclusão como Regra: Obstáculos à Reforma Agrária no Brasil a partir do Caso do Acampamento Quilombo Campo Grande). Retratos de Assentamentos, 2024, 27(1): 222-243 in Portuguese)

[26] Dundon LA, Camp JS. Climate justice and home-buyout programs: Renters as a forgotten population in managed retreat actions. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2021, 11(3): 420-433

[27] Easton S, Lees L, Hubbard P, Tate N. Measuring and mapping displacement: The problem of quantification in the battle against gentrification. Urban Studies, 2019, 57(2): 286-306

[28] Escobar, A. 2010. Territories of difference: Place, movements, life, networks (Territórios de diferença: lugar, movimentos, vida, redes). Envión, Colombia.

[29] Faas AJ. Disaster vulnerability in anthropological perspective. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 2016, 40(1): 14-27

[30] Fantin, M., J.C. Tavares, J.C. Pedrassoli, I.L.F. Coelho, A.C. Oyama, and B.M. Melo. 2020. Counter-hegemonic cartographies as tools for enforcement of rights: The case of the Banhado Community, São José dos Campos, SP. REDE – PRODEMA Electronic Journal 13(1): 56–67.

[31] Faulhaber, L., and L. Azevedo. 2015. SMH 2016: Evictions in Olympic Rio de Janeiro (SMH 2016: Remoções no Rio de Janeiro Olímpico). Rio de Janeiro: Mórula.

[32] Few R, Marsh H, Jain G, Singh C, Tebboth MGL. Representing recovery: How the construction and contestation of needs and priorities can shape long-term outcomes for disaster-affected people. Progress in Development Studies, 2021, 21(1): 7-25

[33] Freire, P. 1968. Pedagogy of the oppressed (Pedagogia do Oprimido). São Paulo, Brazil: Paulo Freire Institute (in Portuguese).

[34] Gaillard JC. The invention of disaster: Power and knowledge in discourses on hazard and vulnerability, 2022, New York, Routledge

[35] Gaillard, J.C., and J.R.D. Cadag. 2009. From marginality to further marginalization: Experiences from the victims of the July 2000 Payatas trashslide in the Philippines. JAMBA: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 2(3). https://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v2i3.27.

[36] Gaillard, J.C., and R. Jigyasu. 2016. Measurement and evidence: Whose resilience for whom? Resilience Development Initiative, Working Paper Series, No. 11.

[37] Galeano, E. 1971. Open veins of Latin America. Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores.

[38] Gamburd MR. The golden wave: Culture and politics after Sri Lanka’s tsunami disaster, 2013, Bloomington, Indiana University Press

[39] Gould, K.A., and T.L. Lewis. 2021. Resilience gentrification: Environmental privilege in an age of coastal climate disasters. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities 3: Article 687670.

[40] Haas JE, Bowden MJ, Kates RW. Reconstruction following disaster, 1977, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press

[41] Harvey D. The right to the city. The City Reader, 2008, 6(1): 23-40

[42] IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). 2022. Census 2022 – Favelas and urban communities. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: IBGE.

[43] Imperiale AJ, Vanclay F. The mechanism of disaster capitalism and the failure to build community resilience: Learning from the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila. Italy. Disasters, 2021, 45(3): 555-576

[44] IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Climate change 2023: Synthesis report, 2023, Geneva, IPCC

[45] Iuchi K. Planning resettlement after disasters. Journal of the American Planning Association, 2014, 80(4): 413-425

[46] Iuchi, K., and J. Mutter. 2020. Governing community relocation after major disasters: An analysis of three different approaches and its outcomes in Asia. Progress in Disaster Science 6: Article 100071.

[47] Jerolleman, A., E. Marino, N. Jessee, L. Koslov, C. Comardelle, M. Villarreal, D. Vries, and S. Manda. 2024. People or property: Legal contradictions, climate resettlement, and the view from shifting ground. Cham: Springer Nature.

[48] Joseph, J., S.M. Irshad, and A.M. Alex. 2021. Disaster recovery and structural inequalities: A case study of community assertion for justice. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 66: Article 102555.

[49] Klein N. The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism, 2007, London, Allen Lane

[50] Krenak, A. 2019. Ideas to postpone the end of the world (Ideias para Adiar o Fim do Mundo). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras (in Portuguese).

[51] Lam LM. Asymmetrical power relationships in disaster reduction remain the key barrier to sustainable recovery: Neoliberalism and Nepal’s post-earthquake recovery experiences. Sustainable Development, 2024, 32(2): 1483-1495

[52] Lees L, Shin HB, López-Morales E. Global gentrifications: Uneven development and displacement, 2015, Bristol, Policy Press

[53] Lefebvre, H. 1968. The right to the city (Le Droit à La Ville). Paris: Anthropos.

[54] Loewenstein A. Disaster capitalism: Making a killing out of catastrophe, 2015, London, Verso

[55] Marchezini, V. 2010. Challenges in managing temporary shelters: A sociological analysis of insecurities and risks in the daily lives of sheltered families (Desafios de Gestão de Abrigos Temporários: Uma Análise Sociológica de Inseguranças e Riscos no Cotidiano de Famílias Abrigadas). Master’s thesis. Postgraduate Program in Sociology, Federal University of São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil (in Portuguese).

[56] Maricato E. The land knot (O Nó da Terra). Revista Brasileira de Direito Ambiental, 2008, 4(15): 191-195(in Portuguese)

[57] Memorial Petropolis. 2022. Number of victims of rainfall per year (Nº de vítimas das chuvas por ano). https://www.memorialpetropolis.app/linhadotempo. Accessed 2 Feb 2025.

[58] Moretti, R.S., K. Canil, and C.S. Carvalho. 2019. The use of risk as an argument for generalized evictions (A utilização do risco como argumento para remoções generalizadas). BR Cidades, 28 March 2019 (in Portuguese).

[59] Muir, G., and A. Opdyke. 2024. Deconstructing disaster risk creation discourses. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 111: Article 104682.

[60] Nogueira FR, Souza BRM. The myth of eviction as an alternative to risk elimination (O Mito da Remoção como Alternativa para a Eliminação dos Riscos). Diálogos Socioambientais, 2020, 3(8): 24-26(in Portuguese)

[61] O Globo. 2022. Tragedy in Petrópolis: After the 2011 rains, city halls in the Serrana region received only 50% of the resources made available (Tragédia em Petrópolis: Após Chuvas de 2011, Prefeituras da Região Serrana Usaram Só 50% dos Recursos Disponibilizados). https://oglobo.globo.com/rio/tragedia-em-petropolis-apos-chuvas-de-2011-prefeituras-da-regiao-serrana-usaram-so-50-dos-recursos-disponibilizados-25398321. Accessed 7 Jan 2025 (in Portuguese).

[62] Oliver-Smith A. The martyred city: Death and rebirth in the Andes, 1986, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press

[63] Oliver-Smith A. Haiti and the historical construction of disasters. NACLA Report on the Americas, 2010, 43(4): 32-36

[64] Olshansky RB, Hopkins LD, Johnson LA. Disaster and recovery: Processes compressed in time. Natural Hazards Review, 2012, 13(3): 173-178

[65] Oxfam. 2025. From private profit to public power (Do lucro privado ao poder público). https://www.jornalopcao.com.br/economia/no-brasil-63-da-riqueza-esta-nas-maos-de-apenas-1-da-populacao-aponta-relatorio-da-oxfam-723101/. Accessed 10 May 2025 (in Portuguese).

[66] Oyama, A.C. 2024. The recurrence of the “ends of the world” for marginalized groups in climate disaster and recovery contexts: Perspectives on gentrification and displacement. In 14th Annual Conference of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management: Disaster Resilient Communities for Life, 28–30 August 2024, Cartagena, Colombia.

[67] Oyama AC. Ochiai C, Carrasco S, Tsai SL. Disasters by design: Analyzing the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the eviction of Vila Autódromo from a disaster perspective. Disaster and displacement: Exploring the physical and social dimensions of resettlement and reconstruction, 2025, Singapore, Springer341359

[68] Pinaud, C.P. 2014. Chile: Neoliberal and vulnerable cities. Post-disaster reconstruction and resistance. In Take back the land! The social function of land and housing, resistance and alternatives, ed. C. Mathivet, 32–39. Passerelle: Ritimo/Aitec/Citego.

[69] Pinheiro, F.D. 2015. INEA’s work in the Cuiabá Valley, Petrópolis, RJ: Displacements and rights violations as justification for protecting the lives of those affected (A Atuação do INEA no Vale do Cuiabá, Petrópolis, RJ: Remoções e Violações de Direitos como Justificativa de Proteção à Vida dos Afetados). O Social em Questão XVIII, No. 33: 215–238 (in Portuguese).

[70] Platteau J-P. Monitoring elite capture in community-driven development. Development and Change, 2004, 35(2): 223-246

[71] Rivera DZ. Disaster colonialism: A commentary on disasters beyond singular events to structural violence. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2022, 46: 126-135

[72] Rolnik R. The possible dream of the oppressed people in the villages, queues, slums (O Sonho Possível do Povo Oprimido nas Vilas, Filas, Favelas). Diálogos e Debates da Escola Paulista de Magistratura, 2001, 1(5): 58-61(in Portuguese)

[73] Sarmiento, J.P., V. Sandoval, and M. Jerath. 2020. The influence of land tenure and dwelling occupancy on disaster risk reduction. The case of eight informal settlements in six Latin American and Caribbean countries. Progress in Disaster Science 5: Article 100054.

[74] Schuller M. Killing with kindness: Haiti, international aid, and NGOs, 2012, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press

[75] Siena, M. 2012. Social assistance policy in the context of rain-related disasters: A study on the municipality of Ribeirão Preto/SP (A Política de Assistência Social em Contexto de Desastres Relacionados às Chuvas: Um Estudo Sobre o Município de Ribeirão Preto/SP). In Sociology of disasters: Constructions, interfaces, and perspectives in Brazil (Sociologia dos Desastres: Construções, Interfaces e Perspectivas no Brasil), Vol. III, ed. N.F.L.S. Valencio, 38–61. São Carlos: RiMa Editora.

[76] Spivak, G.C. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Marxism and the interpretation of culture, ed. C. Nelson, and L. Grossberg, 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

[77] Stone, J.T. 2021. The new Louisiana purchase: Gentrification and disaster in the heart of New Orleans. Vancouver: The University of British Columbia.

[78] Susman P, O’Keefe P, Wisner B. Hewitt K. Global disasters, a radical interpretation. Interpretations of calamity, 1983, London, Allen and Unwin274276

[79] Tierney K. Resilience and the neoliberal project: Discourses, critiques, practices – And Katrina. American Behavioral Scientist, 2015, 59(10): 1327-1342

[80] Tierney K, Bevc CA, Kuligowski E. Metaphors matter: Disaster myths, media frames, and their consequences in Hurricane Katrina. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2006, 604(1): 57-81

[81] UBS Global Wealth Management. 2025. Global wealth report 2025. Zurich, Switzerland: UBS Global Wealth Management.

[82] UN (United Nations). 2005. Post-disaster recovery: Guidelines and good practices. https://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/meetings/2005/docs/RECOVERY%20guidlines.pdf. Accessed 7 Jan 2025.

[83] UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015–2030, 2015, Geneva, UNDRR

[84] UOL News. 2011. Rent prices soar in Petrópolis with the release of social rent money (Preço dos Aluguéis Dispara em Petrópolis com Liberação do Dinheiro do Aluguel Social). https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2011/01/27/preco-dos-alugueis-dispara-em-petropolis-com-liberacao-do-dinheiro-do-aluguel-social.htm. Accessed 7 Sept 2024 (in Portuguese).

[85] Vainer, C., R. Bienenstein, G.M.M. Tanaka, F.-L. Oliveira, and C. Lobino. 2013. The Vila Autódromo Popular Plan: An experience of conflictual planning (O Plano Popular da Vila Autódromo: Uma Experiência de Planejamento Conflitual). In Anais do XV Encontro Nacional da Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação em Planejamento Urbano, XV Enanpur, 20–24 May 2013, Recife, Brazil (in Portuguese).

[86] Valencio, N. 2010a. Disaster as a locus of barbarity: Notes on the Brazilian case (O Desastre como Locus da Barbárie: Notas sobre o Caso Brasileiro). In Sociology of disasters: Construction, interfaces, and perspectives in Brazil (Sociologia dos Desastres: Construção, Interfaces e Perspectivas no Brasil), Vol. II, ed. N.F.L.S. Valencio, 31–52. São Carlos: RiMa Editora (in Portuguese).

[87] Valencio N. Disasters, social order and civil defense planning: The Brazilian context. Saúde e Sociedade, 2010, 19(4): 748-762

[88] Valencio, N.F.L.S., and L.E.S. Darós. 2012. Water tragedy in Niterói and the abandoned condition of the survivors (Tragédia das Águas em Niterói e a Condição de Abandono dos Sobreviventes). In Sociology of disasters: Construction, interfaces, and perspectives in Brazil (Sociologia dos Desastres: Construção, Interfaces e Perspectivas no Brasil), Vol. III, ed. N.F.L.S. Valencio, 230–253. São Carlos: RiMa Editora (in Portuguese).

[89] Valladares, L.P. 2005. The invention of the Favela – From the origin myth to Favela.com (A Invenção da Favela – Do Mito de Origem a Favela.com). Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas (in Portuguese).

[90] Vieira, F.B. 2024. Mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, rains and the disasters of local capitalism (Região Serrana do Rio de Janeiro, Chuvas e os Desastres do Capitalismo Local). Opera Mundi, 26 March 2024 (in Portuguese).

[91] Wisner B, Blaikie P, Cannon T, Davis I. At risk: Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters, 2004, London, Routledge

[92] World Bank. Poverty and Inequality Platform: Gini index – Brazil, 2024, Washington DC, World Bank

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s)