Self-built ecovillage in L’Aquila (Italy) : community resilience as a grassroots response to an environmental shock

Fois, F ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6908-9726 and Forino, G 2014, 'Self-built ecovillage in L’Aquila (Italy) : community resilience as a grassroots response to an environmental shock' , Disasters, 38 (4) , pp. 719-739.

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Abstract

The paper applies the community resilience approach to the post‐disaster case of Pescomaggiore, an Italian village affected by the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. A group of residents refused to accept the housing recovery solutions proposed by the government, opting for autonomous recovery. They developed a housing project in the form of a self‐built ecovillage, characterised by earthquake‐proof buildings made of straw and wood. The project is a paradigmatic example of a community‐based response to an external shock. It illustrates the concept of ‘community resilience’, which is widely explored in the scientific debate but still vaguely defined. Based on qualitative methodologies, the paper seeks to understand how the community resilience process can be enacted in alternative social practices such as ecovillages. The goal is to see under which conditions natural disasters can be considered windows of opportunity for sustainability.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Environment and Life Sciences > Ecosystems and Environment Research Centre
Journal or Publication Title:	Disasters
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0361-3666
Related URLs:	Publisher
Depositing User:	F Fois
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2019 08:19
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2019 08:30
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/51050

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