Ke garne? How Values and Worldviews Influence Resilience to Natural Hazards: A Case Study From Mustang, Nepal

Abstract

Tourism is an important source of income for many mountain communities in Nepal. However, the tourism industry is highly vulnerable to a variety of natural hazards. The ability of local people to proactively prepare, protect, and support prevention activities against natural hazards drives a mountain community's resilience. Research on whether and to what extent people have adopted such proactive behaviors has shown that human action is determined not only by sociodemographic and socioeconomic conditions—such as age, gender, or income—but also by values and worldviews. In this paper, we present data from a 2-phased survey of 160 lodge owners conducted in 2017 and 2018 in Mustang, Nepal, focusing on lodge owners' activities in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and their values and worldviews. Classifying the preparedness and support for prevention (PSP) activities of lodge owners, we found 3 different PSP types. In a second step, these PSP types were contrasted with values and worldviews held by the lodge owners, as well as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. This revealed strong correlations between the lodge owners' values and their PSP type. These results indicate that when trying to explain an actor's DRR activities, his or her values might be as important as commonly used sociodemographic and socioeconomic indicators. We argue that a holistic concept of resilience—combining actors' values and worldviews as well as their sociodemographic and socioeconomic status—can strengthen efforts to build resilience.

Keywords

• natural hazards
• nepal
• preparedness
• prevention
• resilience
• segmentation
• tourism entrepreneurs
• value orientations