The Role of Sense of Place in Social Resilience in Relocating Settlements: A Case Study of Dahouiyeh Village after Zarand Earthquake

The quality of human-environment relationship is one of the most important issues in reconstruction after disasters. This quality, however, is often neglected because of prioritizing other reconstruction problems, especially physical reconstruction. Relocating affected rural communities following earthquakes for reducing vulnerability often affect the sense of place and subsequently affects social resilience. The main reason is ignoring the existing rural structures in relocation programs and paying attention to physical dimensions only. There is no consensus on the concept of ‘sense of place’ after relocation and reconstruction However, and because of the importance of maintaining and building social resilience in reconstruction programs, in this paper the role of relocating and sense of place in Dahouiyeh rural community after the 1383 Zarand earthquake and its impact on social resilience is studied. Using an exploratory lens, the paper adopts a causal-comparative approach and a mixed method. The data was collected through field observation, semi-structured interviews with reconstruction officials, local informants and village administration. Furthermore, we used questionnaires to compare the level of resiliency and sense of place in two different communities currently living in one town; one with a forced relocation from Dahouiyeh and the initial community living in the town. Sampling strategy was stratified random and the number of samples from each community was calculated according to their population. Based on the Cochran formula, 47 samples were selected for the research; 20 from relocated villagers and 27 from the initial residents of the town. According to the findings, in spite of passing 12 years after the earthquake, a desire to return to the home village and a reduction of the life expectancy in relocated villagers indicates a loss of sense of place. This problem has been caused by issues such as the disappearance of group norms and public place; flaw in people networks; separation from valuable environmental elements to which community were attached, ignoring the potential role of natural landscapes and inappropriateness of the built and housing condition in relation to the climatic and social condition and activities of rural households. In comparison with villagers, who along with the continuous flow of life, had free choice in selecting and creating their social and physical surrounding, a reduction in the level of social resilience was revealed in forced relocated community. It seems that the problem of losing a sense of place in relocated villagers can be overcome through joint efforts of the initial community, who has a higher level of social resilience and sense of place, and through activities such as community ceremonies, strengthening community relationships and integrated social participation and creating public place, along with improving the rural natural landscape.