Irregularity and Risk Management: Valle de Chalco in the 21st Century

Abstract

This article is centered on the management – if that is, indeed, the correct term – of risk in Valle de Chalco. Key moments here include the floods of 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2016, as well as, in a more marginal sense, the 2017 earthquakes. This management implies a basic problem to be addressed, and so we must question the origins of the physical and social vulnerability of Valle de Chalco and examine the social capital it has available to address the disasters that follow these events. Understanding the correlation between physical and social vulnerability allows us to make a contribution to the ongoing conceptualization of disasters and to demystify the idea that natural phenomena in themselves are the cause of disasters. This study of Valle de Chalco confirms the hypothesis that disasters are constructed as a sociohistorical phenomenon and that nature cannot be held wholly responsible.