Understanding rhythms: The role of social and volcanic temporalities in risk communication

Latin American societies coexist with volcanic forces that have shaped the Earth's surface and made it habitable. Although some eruptions force populations to leave temporarily, humans persistently choose to reoccupy volcanic territories. Understanding how these forces interact with human responses at multiple scales (i.e., from individual, household to land-use planning and during and after an eruption) requires reflecting on social rhythms that shape settlement patterns and livelihoods rooted in volcanic lands. On the other hand, these scales are related to structural vulnerabilities that shape risks, which materialise in the short or long term depending on the different eruptive rhythms. The question is raised regarding the mutual influence of social and volcanic temporalities and why communicating disaster risk at each rhythm matters. This paper intends to begin an overall reflection on this, using three illustrative Chilean cases (namely, Calbuco, Villarrica and Lonquimay volcanoes, based on literature review and empirical data) to understand the relevance of communicating risk according to the different tempos of people’s everyday life and volcanic crises; and to visualise the volcano as an agent around which different human temporalities converge with different learnings for disaster preparedness.