Paper short abstract:

The article analyzes the causes which the communities of the Xai-Xai, remain in areas at risk of natural disasters, and show that it results from disputes, conflicts and negotiations around the meanings of risk attributed by communities and the state and distrust communities resettlement processes.

Paper long abstract:

This article examines the resistance of communities to remain in the areas of risk to natural disasters in Xai Xai,

province of Gaza, from the point of view of an arena, where various logic's and strategies on the conception of risk on

natural disasters Confronting, on the one hand, communities and the state and NGOs. The basic assumption is that

regardless of the type of organization or mode of intervention, a resettlement action of communities residing in areas

considered as risk inevitably gives rise to the interaction between two social actors belonging to Different worlds (the

state and communities) whose knowledge standards are regulated by a variety of logic's. The analytical incursion of

this research shows that during the period in which resettlement interventions in Xai-Xai were in effect, they allowed a

series of confrontation, disputes and negotiations between the actors involved in the arena (communities and the

state. In this sense, the research shows that the actors and strategic groups are in constant negotiations, disputes

and confrontation. On the other hand, although the actors were heterogeneous and with differentiated interests, within

the community of Xai-Xai, all have the power to interfere in their context even if it is in an unequal way. It was

evidenced that the actors and strategic groups not only have different interests and resources, but also act according

to different modes of action and cultural points of view of the world.