Paper short abstract:

We offer a look at how climate risk relocation policies are being implemented and contested in the informal settlements of Bogota, Colombia, based on voices from communities directly affected. This view may contribute to illuminate the approaches to resilience considering relevant aspects of justice

Paper long abstract:

This manuscript introduces the panoramic of informality, risk, and managed relocation in Bogota, Colombia, to contextualise the presentation of testimonies from local communities affected by climate risk and relocation policies, grouped around a civic platform called Arraigo.

The voices of Arraigo speak to attachments to place, the need for due recompense and respect for livelihoods, the importance of local perceptions (including accounts of the broader socio-ecological causes of risk), and the failure of inclusive urban governance in areas of poverty and informality. Uncovering such voices offers a different pathway for considering climate-related relocations and articulating alternative visions of risk reduction in urban spaces to remark that urban citizens must get involved in deliberating how relocation options are justified and enacted on the basis of understanding the multiple social and spatial dynamics that lead to the production of risk, and in the context of reshaping urban space in the interests of social justice and sustainability.

Community platforms such as Arraigo can play a vital role in making visible the human impacts of relocation and informing the ways in which relocation plans and policies can become adjusted in partnership with communities