Natural Hazards

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04662-4

ORIGINAL PAPER

Worlding resilience in the Doña Juana Volcano‑Páramo,

Northern Andes (Colombia): A transdisciplinary view

Natalia Pardo1 · Mónica Lucía Espinosa2 · Catalina González‑Arango3 ·

Miguel Angel Cabrera4 · Susana Salazar5 · Sonia Archila2 · Nancy Palacios6 ·
Diana Prieto2 · Ricardo Camacho4 · Leonardo Parra‑Agudelo7

Received: 4 April 2020 / Accepted: 22 February 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021

Abstract
We present a transdisciplinary perspective for multiple actors interested in disaster-risk-
reduction strategies in inhabited volcanoes, based on the novel approach of complexity and
collaborative research. Our reflection is based on an ongoing research process that puts
into dialogue scientific knowledge and local knowledge from Andean campesino commu-
nities inhabiting the Doña Juana Volcano-Páramo in the Latin American tropics. These
local communities have experienced historically complex social, economic, and environ-
mental conflicts in their territories; currently, most of them live in the buffer zones of the
National Natural Park Doña Juana-Cascabel, which is part of Colombia’s national sys-
tem of natural protected areas. We address inhabited Andean volcanoes as complex sys-
tems, which combine multi-temporal and spatial processes that allow for the emergence
of nonlinear and heterogeneous social and ecological interdependencies. By transgress-
ing disciplinary boundaries, we see an opportunity for building horizontal dialogues with
communities inhabiting active volcanoes, understanding resilience, and eventually devel-
oping situated and collaborative disaster-risk-reduction strategies. The resulting vision
is proposed as a fundamental methodology in settings such as south-western Colombia,
marked by convoluted social dwelling patterns, and unequal biosocial and socioeconomic
histories. Detached from positivistic and victimising perspectives, we seek to build knowl-
edge on the antecedents, inheritance, persistence, and preservation of systems, ultimately
enabling response-abilities for decision-making. The motivations, knowledge, and self-
organisation capacities of the volcano inhabitants bring about new possibilities of doing
locally while thinking globally. The transdisciplinary research approach allows us to situate
our exchanges with the local community, and envision future collaborative paths towards
promoting community-oriented forms of appropriation and transformation of a volcanic
lifeworld.

Keywords Collaborative research · Complexity · Learning communities · Resilience ·

Socio-ecological systems · Transdisciplinary research · Tropics · Volcano-Páramo

* Natalia Pardo
n.pardo@uniandes.edu.co
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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Vol.:(0123456789)
 Natural Hazards

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e)

Fig. 1  Conceptualisation scheme of a volcanic lifeworld as: a a complex socio-ecological system, compris-
ing intertwining b geological, c climatic, d biological, and e social systems. An event with a predominant
action in one system will have interdependent, multidimensional effects on the other systems (b–e). The
crosslinks of these interdependencies result in the complex volcanic habitat (a)

1 Introduction

Within a systemic and complexity-informed approach Bar-Yam (1997), inhabited volcanic

territories are not restricted to the physical environment (i.e. geological, biological, mete-
orological); they also comprise socially constructed entities, memories, and cultural pro-
cesses (Sarmiento et al. 2017; Dove 2008). Under this perspective, an inhabited volcano
can be addressed as a complex system built over various generations of interacting human
societies, ecological systems, and climate and geological processes, which are also intrinsi-
cally complex in nature (Fig. 1). Thus, volcanic living environments are better understood
as complex socio-ecological systems (SES), where the notion of ‘lifeworld’ emerges from
the historical and ongoing relationships between nature and culture (Ingold 2000; Baleé
and Erickson 2006; Brierley 2010; Sarmiento et al. 2017). As a concept, lifeworld comes
from Husserl’s phenomenological tradition in philosophy and the importance given to lived
experience. Ingold revisits the notion of lifeworld in order to question the traditional Car-
tesian dichotomy between nature and culture, exploring instead the unit “organism plus
environment” (Ingold 2000). This perspective understands environments as fundamen-
tally historical. Likewise, beings are those who grow from the very soil of an existential
involvement in the sensible world (Ingold 2011, 2013). Issues of perception, attunement,
movement, growth, dwelling, and storying are part of this ecology of life in which different
kinds of communities and systems (human and more-than-human) interact with each other
at different temporal and spatial scales.

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Natural Hazards

We are interested in reflecting on inhabited volcanoes from a complexity-informed per-

spective. This allow us to explore “the kind of causal, generative mechanisms within the
extended causal framework, which are enabling for the driving forces that may enforce
complex, nonlinear phenomena in our complex nonlinear reality” (Jörg 2011, p. 7). In
this context, phenomena that have been typically addressed independently, such as the
uncertainty and contingency of geohazards (e.g. eruptions and mass movements, includ-
ing lahars and volcano-tectonic collapses), and the abrupt and recurrent resetting of bio-
physical conditions due to natural disturbances (e.g. fires, flows, waves, burials), need to be
reassessed. The coexisting multiple, changing, and often interdependent evolving realities
(bio-, geo-, social-, and cultural) (e.g. Dove 2008; Atallah et al. 2016) develop through
nonlinear dynamic processes at variable frequency, magnitude, and speed across diverse
temporal and spatial scales (Folke et al. 2002). Understanding of this multivariable and
multi-scalar interdependency from a historical perspective becomes central in how volca-
noes are perceived and inhabited by both people and other living organisms over time. This
is thus an opportunity to learn from emerging processes, such as those regarding social end
ecological resilience after volcanic events (e.g. Mercer et al. 2010; 2012).
Resilience is here understood in terms of the capacity of a socio-ecological system
(SES) to collectively “cope with” (i.e. absorb) disturbance, while adapting to the emerg-
ing social and ecological dynamic processes without losing the functionality of the sys-
tem (cf. Folke et al. 2003; Atallah et al. 2016). In specific contexts, unpredictable volcanic
phenomena generally referred to as “disasters”, have been shown to represent an opportu-
nity to recreate, reorganise, diversify, connect, share, learn, transform, and use the changes
of and within the landscape to the advantage of particular human and more-than-human
communities (Moseley 2002; Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 2002; Grattan and Torrence
2007; Dove 2008), hence the importance of the entangled concepts of adaptation, persis-
tence, and renewal (Fig. 2), as key strategies for dealing with changes forced by geody-
namic processes (e.g. Bankoff 2004; Dekens 2007; Dove 2008; Mercer et al. 2010). In this

1 3

Volcanic Growth,
disturbance increased connectivity
& diversity
3
1

4
2

2 4
Reorganization, Regular development
new structuring & maturity
& innovation

Fig. 2  Adaptive/generative cycle after disturbances triggered by a volcanic event, from stages 1 to 4, being
stage 1 the sudden perturbation. The transitions between stages (direction marked by arrows) rely on the
system’s capacity to remember and learn. A full loop is not necessarily accomplished, and the sequence can
be interrupted at any stage. Each disturbance emerges into a novel state, and therefore, into a new loop

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framework, the notion of becoming with arises, and is firmly based on posthuman perspec-
tives about life on Earth in which the dominant view of humans’ exceptionalism is criti-
cised in order to account for interdependency of living beings and systems. The notion of
becoming with builds on three interrelated perspectives. (i) The first is the centrality given
to being as a process rather than a state, hence the importance of becoming as an active
process of life, intermingling, and cohabitation (i.e. Palsson 2013). (ii) Human beings are
seen as deeply connected with more-than-human actants and dwellers (Ingold 2013), a per-
spective that hinges on a radical decentring of orthodox canons of knowledge and binary
thinking (i.e. nature vs. nurture). Finally, (iii) becoming with marks a political-ethical turn
towards improving our response-ability to the Earth we inhabit and the beings we coexist
with (Haraway 2016).
To build a culture of hazards as a way of becoming with for social resilience (Dove
2008) depends on the perception of risk, which is linked to the magnitude and frequency
of hazardous events within the historical scale of a particular society. For instance, cultures
of hazards are more common in societies living on, e.g. flood plains and used to seasonal
climate variations, where social memory and the legacy of knowledge on how to live with
natural phenomena is strong (Paul 1984). In volcanic environments, instead, uncertainty,
unpredictability and long (intragenerational) times of inactivity impose significant chal-
lenges. A volcanic eruption may represent an instantaneous, discrete event perturbing the
relatively slower evolving landscape, as well as the soil, climate, ecological, and social
systems. By resetting the existing conditions of each system, volcanic impacts offer an
opportunity for coexisting systems, normally evolving through diachronic timelines and
varied temporalities, to improve their resilience abilities (Fig. 3). In addition, the varia-
tion of volcanic phenomena parameters depending on topography and distance from the
vent produces a spatially heterogeneous pattern of change within each system, meaning
that upon any large and/or intense eruption the exposed systems (Fig. 1) are variably forced
to respond. The given response is a function of the ability of the systems to retrieve and
actualise their memory and their systemic interactions, emerging into a new state before
another volcanic event, once again, alters or resets the existing conditions (Figs. 2, 3). Thus,
volcanic activity promotes and forces new uncertain interdependencies of the exposed sys-
tems in terms of both time and space (e.g. Folke et al. 2002), offering new opportunities for
humans and ecosystems to become with (Dove, 2008; Ingold 2013; Palsson 2013; Haraway
2016). Given the spatial heterogeneity of volcanic processes, related social and ecological
memories emerging after disturbance are thus imprinted in a similar uneven way, and a
single volcanic event might promote different trajectories of response. The latter requires
considering historical settlement patterns of human societies and specific socio-economic
systems that might affect peoples’ abilities to become with.
Adapting to changes imposed by volcanic eruptions when a frequently erupting vol-
cano has been continuously inhabited by several generations of people, is rather common
in human history (e.g. Dove 2008; Torrence et al. 2009; Harmsworth and Awatere 2013;
Torrence 2016). However, the case of low-frequency erupting systems might be associ-
ated with discontinuous mechanisms of social memory and learning legacy. This is the
case of many highland communities inhabiting north Andean volcanoes hosting páramos
and Andean mountain forests. Páramos are tropical alpine ecosystems dominated by her-
baceous vegetation, occurring between the tree line at ca. 3500 m.a.s.l and the permanent
snow at ca. 4500 m.a.s.l. Together with Andean mountain forests, which cover the volcanic
slopes below the tree line, páramos are some of the richest and fastest evolving ecosys-
tems on Earth (Myers et al. 2000; Madriñán et al. 2013). In south-western Colombia, these
highland ecosystems are associated with complex social, economic, and environmental

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(a) millenia to millions of years (b) seconds to decades (c) decades to millenia

Disturb
Maturity Growth

ance
ation
Reorganiz

geological and geomorphological processes

orogenesis/surface processes* lavas, pyroclastic flows and ash clouds lahars and landslides river recovery
soil formation soil burial soil burning soil erosion volcanic soil formation
landscape evolution valley infilling and new landforms river terraces formation

climatic and meteorological processes

long-term climate cooling wildfire acid rain thunderstorms cloud precipitation greenhouse
soil burial soil erosion
biological processes
local and regional diversification local decrease/extinction pioneer colonization succession
connectivity isolation immigration and dispersal recovery/recolonization

soil burial
social processes
social and cultural diversity social interaction human loss and infrastructure damage isolation migration recovery/recolonization
social and cultural knowledge life-span memory inter-generational memory /historical dynamics

Fig. 3  Transdisciplinary approach to address explosive Andean complex volcanic systems. The coloured
bars at the bottom represent the simultaneous, nonlinear, and dynamic processes (grouped by system com-
ponents) dominating at different stages and exposed to potential volcanic-induced perturbances. At any a
volcanic quiescence period, each system component regularly develops over long-term scales; b the vol-
canic perturbance resets and promotes the re-organisation and new structuring of the exposed system com-
ponents towards (c) an enhanced stage of growth, connectivity and diversity (see also Fig. 2). This response
capacity depends on the overlain selective memories of the systems exposed to the perturbance and can
reach similar or novel states compared to (a)

historical patterns in multivariate and multi-scalar interdependences, deriving from reali-

ties that have arisen through rather convoluted historical, multicultural, socio-spatial pro-
cesses both in the past and in the present. Thus, páramos are not only strategic in terms of
their biodiversity value and environmental services but as continuously evolving biocul-
tural landscapes (Sarmiento et al. 2017).
Current local campesino and indigenous communities inhabiting Andean mountain for-
ests and páramos not only share the legacy of colonial and republican strategies of social
and territorial expansion, but also suffer from profound socio-economic structural inequali-
ties amid the country’s long-term armed conflict and the ongoing drug-related illicit trade
(PNUD 2014). Campesino families have high levels of multidimensional poverty, are
part of a pattern of extreme inequality, and have been administered by top-down strate-
gies of governance and territorial management. Social problems revolve around unequal
access to land and resources and inadequate forms of land use; the need of redistributing

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and formalising land tenure; the lack of credit and technological support; the lack of ade-
quate forms of commercial distribution for local producers; unequal access to education
and health; the need of political inclusion and the betterment of life conditions (González
2016; Machado 2017). However, in spite of dire conditions, these communities also show
an important level of self-management and self-regulation derived from living faraway
from administrative centres and the State’s central institutional governance. Our experience
has been enriched by their complex natural knowledge grounded in daily practice, societal
values, and their community-oriented forms of organising.
In this paper, we present our transdisciplinary perspective for understanding
human–environment relations at the Doña Juana Volcano-Páramo in south-western Colom-
bia (Northern Andes; Fig. 4), taking into consideration the particular context in which
campesino communities live. As we argued earlier, one of the main long-term purposes
of this ongoing research is to develop horizontal dialogues between scientific and local
knowledge (Mercer et al. 2012) as the basis of more effective and equitable environmen-
tal management decision. We look for systemic views regarding a volcano as a complex
socio-ecological system (SES) (Figs.1, 3) that counter the tendency to produce discipli-
nary-oriented studies. This goal requires an active process of (nonlinear) reciprocal assimi-
lation of diverse scientific disciplines and local knowledges and, hence, of knowledge co-
production. However, findings and results concerning our ongoing process of knowledge
co-production are still underway. The building of a learning community of academics and
local inhabitants is crucial. Our transdisciplinary approach (Thomspon 2017) reorients
the natural sciences’ focus on volcanoes towards the notion of the Volcano-Páramo as a
lifeworld, positioning what matters to those living there at the centre of the collaborative
research. We therefore look towards detaching disciplinary frameworks from positivist-like
stances, which might simplify peoples’ knowledge, and victimise or impose decisions over
their insights, knowledges, and worldviews (e.g. Mercer et al. 2012; IAVCEI Task Group
on Crisis Protocols 2016).

2 Background in context

The traditional approach from the geosciences and engineering to active, large-volume,
long-lived volcanoes has been examined from different perspectives: hazard mitigation
(de Boer and Sanders 2002; Siebert et al. 2015), resource exploration (Arnórsson et al.
2015; Dehn and McNutt 2015; Erfurt-Cooper and Sirgurdsson 2015), and the conserva-
tion of natural (UNESCO 2002), and archaeological heritage (Dull et al. 2001; Balmuth
et al. 2005; Sheets 2015; Toohey et al. 2016). However, in most cases, inhabited volcanoes
are seen as external geological entities that need to be described, measured, modelled, and
preserved to reduce the uncertainty of their eruption capability and forecast natural phe-
nomena that could eventually result in disasters for living beings (e.g. Mercer et al. 2010,
2012). Generally, the cultural perspective from the local inhabitants is minimised within
a risk-perception approach (Gregg et al. 2004; Dove 2008; Gaillard 2008; Haynes et al.
2008). How volcanoes become an essential part of lifeworlds and how the local inhabit-
ants’ knowledge of their environment contributes to social and environmental well-being,
planning, and decision-making are matters poorly considered (King et al. 2007; Mercer
et al. 2012; Williams 2013; Gabrielsen et al. 2017). We are interested in studying the pro-
cesses of renewal and coexisting strategies that ecosystems and people develop by living

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Natural Hazards

77.100° W 77.067° W 77.033° W 77.000° W 76.967° W 76.933° W

20mm/yr
1.567° N

Caribeann TAJUMBINA
Plate

To Ánimas
Panama
Choco Block
volcano

Nazca
Plate
1.533° N

54mm/yr
COLOMBIA

Peña Blanca
stream
N SAN
South American BERNARDO
La Florida
1.500° N

Plate
stream
betal
uaya

am lo
El G ream

re e
st arm
El
C st
l
ada
SAN Hum am
1.467° N

LAS str e
JOSÉ
MESAS
er
riv

Resina river
tú
ca
na
Ja
1.433° N

EL TABLÓN
DE GÓMEZ

Juanambú
river

Cerro Montoso Volcano edifices Age Ranges

Young Doña Juana / Young Ánimas
El Silencio lagoon
Totoral lava-dome(s) ≤ 5ka BP
Doña Juana Volcano
El Filo lava-dome
Regional Road Old Doña Juana ~ 231-77 ka
National Road Ancestral Doña Juana ~ 878-312 ka
Main Rivers Pre-Montoso
Towns Agualongo (sourced at Ánimas)
Doña Juana-Cascabel Sta Helena ~ 1125-1097 ka
National Park Metamorphic basement

Fig. 4  Simplified geological map of the Doña Juana Volcanic System Complex modified from Pardo et al.
(2019). The DJVC is located in south-western Colombia (inlet), as the result of the Nazca Plate subduction
under the South American Plate. The System Complex consists of three central volcanic edifices (Santa
Helena, Ancestral Doña Juana, and Old Doña Juana), and three Holocene lava-dome complexes (Young
Doña Juana, El Filo, and Totoral). The last eruption cycle (1897–1936 CE) was produced by the Young
Doña Juana lava-domes, and mainly affected the town of Las Mesas. It is important to reinforce that to the
northeast; the products of Doña Juana are interstratified with products sourced at the neighbouring Ánimas
volcano (Agualongo and Young Animas external lithosomes). Modified from Pardo et al. (2019)

with an active inhabited volcano (e.g. Cashman and Giordano 2008; Dove 2008; Torrence
et al. 2009; Torrence 2016; Riede 2019; Marín et al. 2020) (Figs. 2, 3).
Ecosystem disturbance promotes the renewal and regeneration of biological integrity
over time, favoured by the prevalence of tropical climates and their vicinity to other bio-
logically rich source areas such as the Amazon and the Chocó lowland forests. As a result,

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intricate spatial and temporal patterns might arise, offering a broad array of opportunities
for coexistence. During millennia, for example, north Andean ecosystems and human soci-
eties have persisted in spite of, and thanks to, the permanent geographical and temporal
disruption imposed by volcanic eruptions (e.g. Mothes 1998; Hall and Mothes 1999, 2008;
Le Pennec and van der Plicht 2008; Loughlin et al. 2018; Patiño and Monsalve 2018).
Doña Juana is a ~ 4250 m a.s.l. active composite volcano located in south-western
Colombia (Fig. 4), whose last eruption occurred between 1897 and 1936 CE but is poorly
documented (Espinosa 2012). Its geological record provides evidence of three lava-dome
fields generating multiple eruptive cycles in the last ~ 6.000 years (Pardo et al. 2019),
some of which are concurrent with reported cultural periods in the archaeological record
(Cadavid and Ordóñez 1992). The uppermost slopes of the Doña Juana are home to one
of Colombia’s páramo ecosystems and lay under the figure of the National Natural Park
Doña Juana-Cascabel, which was created by the Colombian government in 2007 as part of
the conservation strategy for the Andean Belt Biosphere (PNN-CVDJC 2015). We study
this setting in which low frequency (~ 1 eruption cycle/millennium) but medium magnitude
(VEI ~ 3) explosive volcanic events (i.e. Vulcanian eruption styles) and mass movements
occur through a rough topography and within the context of tropical climate environments
(Pardo et al. 2019). Although larger explosive eruptions are known to occur on Earth, local
writings and novels refer to the last 1897–1936(?) eruption cycle as “La derrota”, meaning
“the defeat”. After the most explosive pulse in 1899, most of the survival campesinos liv-
ing on the uppermost slopes and along the Resina River catchment area temporarily aban-
doned their homes. When people returned, stories recall the enhanced fertility of the new
soils (Microcentro de las Mesas 1989).
Currently, this Volcano-Páramo is inhabited by highland rural communities of small
farmers and cattle raisers whose historical patterns of settlement and economies are rooted
in colonial, republican and contemporary processes of territorial management and state
building. Most of the families live in the buffer zone of the PNN-CVDJC and have no
direct access to the protected areas. Many of them own small-size land properties or rent
land from larger owners. In the last four decades, their traditional farming and cattle rais-
ing activities have experienced profound transformations due to the proliferation of poppy
crops for the illicit drug trade. This transformation entails: (i) the expansion of agricul-
tural areas by clear-cutting and burning of Andean natural areas, (ii) the introduction of
poppy crops and the transformation of previous agricultural patterns and cycles, and (iii)
the entrance of toxic substances (i.e. glyphosate) through the aerial spraying program pro-
moted by the U.S. Colombian War on Drugs. Although the extension of poppy crops has
currently diminished, the complex disturbances produced by these events since at least
the 1980s are already part of this territory’s biosocial history. The population living in
the rural area has decreased significantly over the past decades, with a resulting increased
migration towards urban and peri-urban areas. This change is associated with soil fertility
decline, elevated costs of agricultural inputs, and diminished agriculture income. However,
the 2016 Peace Agreement, the possibilities of an Integral Agrarian Reform, the intended
programs of illicit crops substitution in association with the conservation and educational
activities promoted by the PNN-CVDJC have had positive effects in the local community.
Current initiatives on environmental education, ecosystem services, reforestation, ecotour-
ism, alternative crops, and dairy production are part of a renewed effort towards developing
local and sustainable modes of development, articulated to PNN’s strategies of protection.
In our research, we put together multiple views, records, and scales concerning a life-
world (e.g. Torrence et al. 2009), and diverse types of knowledge including non-academic
knowledge, seeking to produce a complex and transdisciplinary view of the Doña Juana

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Volcano-Páramo. Our case study differs from other studies that also rely on transdiscipli-
nary work (Mercer et al. 2010; 2012), in that they develop in slightly different contexts
where indigenous societies and local communities live with frequently erupting volcanoes
(e.g. Dove 2008). Our case focuses on campesino communities that have no apparent long-
term collective mechanisms and strategies for coping with natural hazards, but nonetheless
are engaged in resilient practices articulated with complex knowledge of the environment.
Resilience is thus fundamental in understanding intrinsic historical relationships between
human cultures, ecosystems, and landscapes. Our case study also differs from other rural
contexts in active Colombian volcanoes, such as Armero-Guayabal town with relation
to Nevado del Ruiz’s eruption in 1985 (e.g. Streva Project: https​://strev​a.ac.uk; Armijos
and Few 2017; Ramírez-Loaiza et al. 2017) and Tierradentro indigenous population with
relation to Nevado del Huila’s mudflows in 1994 and 2009 (Vitale 2017; Quiceno 2018)
(Table 1).
We understand transdisciplinarity as a long-term practice that goes beyond multidis-
ciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches (e.g. Lawrence 2010; Park et al. 2010; Stock
and Burton 2011; Volcanes, Riesgo y Territorio Project: http://www.volca​nries​goyte​rrito​
rio.gov.co) while reaching implications for the very production of knowledge, hence its
creative, reflexive, and transformative qualities (e.g. Morin 1992, 2011). Transdisciplinary
research actively promotes relational thinking and the articulation of knowledge production
with social commitment towards social and environmental justice (Paul 2005; Mittelstrass
2011; Pozzoli 2011). Building a learning community not only implies working on recip-
rocal assimilations among disciplines that previously worked in isolated fashion, but also
co-producing knowledge with non-academic actors (Thompson 2017). Thus, non-academic
stakeholders become active participants in the collaborative construction of new knowl-
edge and the research process itself (e.g. Dove 2008; Mercer et al. 2010, 2012). Learn-
ing becomes everyone’s task in order to ensure conditions of viability, quality, and equity
(Faris and Peterson 2000). By favouring symmetrical dialogues and pondering on the com-
plexity of the phenomena being studied (Morin 2011), we are producing an ongoing hybrid
(Mercer et al. 2012) learning community of academic and non-academic members, whilst
keeping a self-reflexive attention to knowledge co-production.

3 Methods

We take as a standpoint the inherent ecological embeddedness and ecological nature of

social systems (Crumley 1994; Brierley 2010; Flaherty 2019), which becomes especially
important when analysing the complex environmental and developmental relations among
humans and more-than-humans. The kind of social and environmental/ecological memo-
ries that result from this is of particular relevance for understanding geological, climatic,
and anthropogenic processes (Brierley 2010). We have to focus on multi-scalar and multi-
modal experiences, processes, material marks, and stories that are connected to human-ori-
ented habits, practices, and meanings. This also implies understanding that we experience
our present world in a context that is causally connected with past events and objects in
different cultural ways and by means of different mnemonic systems and values.
We use the anthropological understanding of social and natural memory as a heuristic
device to tackle different scales of human experience, including important contemporary
happenings (period 2006-present). We also examine the links to extended and complex sto-
ries relating to the human–environment interdependency that leaves traces on the landscape

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 Table 1  Comparison of contrasting examples of volcanic contexts in Colombia with ongoing resilience processes, excluding cases of urban settlements (i.e. cities larger than
100,000 inhabitants) built on active composite volcanoes
Increasing construction of an “in site” ‘culture of hazards’
13
Context
Volcanic activity frequency perceived by
the people living on the areas recently
affected
Perception of connectivity between the
affected area and the volcano
Nevado del Ruiz Volcano (Northern Doña Juana (SW Colombia) and Las
Colombia) and Armero town disaster in Mesas village and rural areas disaster
1985: lowland, small urban community in 1897–1936(?): highland campesinos
living > 150 km away from the vent community living within 10 km from
the vent
Intermediate: The 1985 event (syn-erup- Low: the poorly documented disaster
tive lahar) caused a disaster with more occurred in 1899, with more than 60(?)
than 25,000(?) fatalities. A century fatalities occurred (eruption producing 1994 (non-eruptive) and 2008 (eruption-
before that, a similar and even larger ballistics, PDCs and lahars), followed
lahar hit the same area, but the occur- by minor explosions and lava-dome
rence was not part of the local social extrusions, poorly reported until 1936. aster was highly present in the memories
memory. Armero was abandoned and Social memories of pre-1897 events are
some survivors migrated to the nearest unknown. The current senior inhabit-
safest town. Current ongoing resilience ants remember the 1936 lahar and the
process (see below) stories told by their parents about the
major eruption in 1899. Seismicity is
rarely perceived by the current popula-
tion. Gas emissions stopped a few
decades ago
In 1985, the Volcano was not perceived The Volcano is highly perceived and
(i.e. seen) from Armero, or it was per- inhabitants understand themselves as
ceived as very distant. People living in living on the Volcano. However, the
Armero back in 1985 did not perceived immediate awareness focuses on the
themselves as living on the Volcano or Páramo, forest, and water conservation. behaviour. Inhabitants understand them-
on an area physically connected to the Also, concerns about mass move-
volcano ments are stronger than about volcanic
activity
Nevado del Huila Volcano (SW Colom-
bia), Paez-Belalcázar village, and rural
areas 1994 disaster: highland indigenous
(Nasa) communities within 35 km from
the vent, experiencing another major
lahar event in 2009 with successful
response
High: eruptions are rare at Nevado del
Huila, but major lahars occurred in
related). The earthquake-related mudflow
caused > 1000 fatalities in 1994. This dis-
of the inhabitants experiencing the 2008
event, and response was successful. Vol-
canic seismicity is regularly perceived
The Volcano is highly perceived as part
of the communities worldview and
lifeworld; volcanic events are understood
as rulers of the environmental and human
selves as living on the Volcano and use
the volcanic perturbation in advantage of
their society
Natural Hazards
 Table 1  (continued)
Increasing construction of an “in site” ‘culture of hazards’
State’s decision on the disaster area After 1985, the old Armero town area
was declared as a Holy Ground and
survivors wanting to stay close were
relocated to the nearest safe town
Currently ongoing Resilience Processes https​://strev​a.ac.uk
References Armijos and Few (2017); Ramírez-Loaiza
et al. (2017)
Current surveillance https​://www.sgc.gov.co/volca​nes
https​://www2.sgc.gov.co/sgc/volca​nes/
Volca​nNeva​doRui​z/Pagin​as/gener​alida​
des-volca​n-nevad​o-ruiz.aspx
Volcanological and Seismological Obser-
vatory of Manizales-SGC
These contexts are not permanent in time, but change according to socio-ecological dynamics
13
The uppermost slopes and vent zone lay
within a Protected Andean Forest and
Páramo Area. The inhabited slopes are
part of the buffer zone
This study
https​://www.sgc.gov.co/volca​nes
https​://www2.sgc.gov.co/sgc/volca​nes/
Compl​ejoVo​lcani​coDon​aJuan​a/Pagin​
as/gener​alida​des-compl​ejo-volca​nico-
dona-juana​.aspx#
Volcanological and Seismological Obser-
vatory of Pasto-SGC
The uppermost slopes and vent zone lay
Natural Hazards
within a Protected Páramo and glaciated
Area, and belong to the Indigenous
Reserve. Discussions on relocation still
underway
Vitale (2017)
Quiceno (2018)
https​://www.sgc.gov.co/volca​nes
https​://www2.sgc.gov.co/sgc/volca​nes/
Volca​nNeva​doHui​la/Pagin​as/gener​alida​
des.aspx
Volcanological and Seismological Obser-
vatory of Popayán-SGC
 Natural Hazards

Fig. 5  Community-based mapping created by incorporating the local depiction of Doña Juana’s territory ▸
and significant geospatial relationships. a Community-based mapping integrates an extensive range of
multigenerational views of the inhabitants of Valmaría’s rural district nearby Las Mesas village. Note the
following: (i) significant places [ +] are often related with water sources, temples, and with Doña Juana
volcano—throughout the mapping making, people referred to it as ‘a friend’, ‘a father’ and ‘the most sig-
nificant feature of the territory’—(ii) vulnerable places [ ~] are associated with water sources due to pollu-
tion and indiscriminate fishing, with roads due to poor conditions, and with places where avalanches have
taken place; (iii) the community is aware of the geographic connectivity between the rural district of ‘El
Silencio’ and the Orchid’s Valley, at the headwaters of the Resina River, and Humadal stream. b 3D scene
of the same mapped area for geographical orientation. This scene was created using ArcGIS Pro® software
by Esri, and the Basemap was created from a 4-band PlanetScope Scene satellite image captured on 05 Feb-
ruary 2020 by Planet Team (2017)

and the evolutionary and life histories of organisms and biophysical processes. This is why
we focus on the concept of lifeworld. By recognising the Holocene as the obvious time
period potentially recording the interaction between the social and the natural (i.e. geologi-
cal, ecological and climatic) processes at the Doña Juana Volcano, we search for lessons
on how an SES evolves with volcano-related contingencies as an opportunity to emerge
in mutual coexistence. Our future goal is to produce an integrative view of the palimpses-
tic nature of landscapes as lifeworlds, based on knowledge co-production. Knowledge is
assumed as a social and historical construction (Boavida and Da Ponte 2011) that some-
times experiments epistemological shifts (e.g. Hong and Fiona 2009; Kenney and Phibbs
2015). For this to happen, it is important the flexibility of terms, concepts, and perspec-
tives not only in the dialogues among academic disciplines but also in bridging scientific
knowledge with the views, memories, experiences, and language of the Volcano-Páramo’s
inhabitants (Bennet 2010; Robbins et al. 2014).
In our approach, building a learning community implies reviewing the conventional dis-
tinction between researchers, the community, and conventional ways of seeing and specify-
ing the links between each other. We value intergenerational learning at the local level but
also the movement from the bottom up and from the inside out, as alternative ways to over-
come the traditional ways of acting (Torres 2000, 2002; Soler 2017). We began promot-
ing a learning community consisting of key local actors and families, and experts with a
background in social anthropology, archaeology, biology, civil engineering, design, educa-
tion, and geosciences. As part of our ongoing research process, we have carried out a four-
month ethnographic fieldwork to go beyond standard surveys and short-term field trips.
This methodological strategy is informed by social anthropology, which favours long-term
research in order to approach and understand the peoples’ views about their own reality
and dilemmas. We have developed different forms of qualitative research, including eth-
nography and participant-observation, informal and formal interviews, and workshops with
children and youngsters from educational institutions (basic and secondary school levels)
in the town of Las Mesas and the more distant and rural school of El Silencio (June–July
2018, 2019). The workshops have helped us to explore the local kids and teachers’ views of
the relationship of humans and environments and their direct experience with the Volcano-
Páramo, facilitating the building of a Learning Community.
During the 2019 ethnographic fieldwork, we were able to immerse ourselves (e.g. Mer-
cer et al. 2012) within the local communities through participant-observation and engage-
ments in daily life activities, conversations, workshops, focus groups, 132 in-depth inter-
views, participatory mappings, and community-based mappings. The latter blends modern
cartography with participatory processes to create a community-based mapping that depicts
local knowledge and important geospatial relationships (Flicker 2014) (Fig. 5). The com-
munity-based mapping (Fig. 5) is an effective means to (i) understand how people relate

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Natural Hazards

(a)

This map was made by Jennyfer Silva Bravo, Zuley Bravo, Elba Bravo Bolaños, Armando Bolaños, Cleotilde Bolaños,
Erley Martínez, Miguel Rocero, Darío Rocero

Roads Springs
Legend

Vulnerable places

Streams Significant places Places perceived as most hazardous

(b) Doña Juana

Volcanic Complex
NE

Cerro Montoso
Orch
id’s V
alley
El Silencio

Lava Alta
r

Valmaría
ve

Lava Baja i
na
R
i
es

am
S tre
dal
H um a

Las Mesas

to their territory; (ii) explore specific associations; (iii) position oral records in graphical
representations. In addition, we have applied a social and a stakeholder network analysis
in order to identify key stakeholders, analyse specific relationships within groups, and map

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 Natural Hazards

out these relationships. This allows us to understand hierarchy, proximity, and distance in
the intra- and inter-community relations (Fredericks and Durland 2005). We have carried
out interviews with different actors, including: (i) the staff of the Doña Juana-Cascabel
National Natural Park, which employs local inhabitants for keeping track of local envi-
ronmental education, looking after the safety of endangered fauna and flora, species sur-
veillance activities through different altitudes, and communication; (ii) campesino families
living in the uppermost limits of the buffer zone; (iii) families living in the town of Las
Mesas, including school teachers; and (iv) social collectives willing to reinforce the cul-
tural value of the volcano and to develop ecotourism projects.
One of the ethnographic research’s goals is to consolidate a learning community formed
by the scientific team and the local community, and based on educational and design prac-
tices in formal and non-formal schooling. The learning community is not only a means to
promote more horizontal dialogues between scientific and local knowledges, but also a way
to empower local communities, who become aware and conscious of their own traditions,
knowledges, and values. We have worked in finding common languages, gathering percep-
tions, and knitting place-enduring memories expressing the traits and values that constitute
the collective identity of the Las Mesas’ inhabitants (i.e. for methodology Ochoa 2016;
Sacavino 2015a, b). This is an ongoing process; the qualitative and quantitative informa-
tion gathered has been systematised in a QSR International’s NVivo 12 database, and is
available to all the transdisciplinary team. Data are still being analysed and interpreted.
Working on social memory, in which oral traditional and narrative knowledge is doc-
umented, recorded, constructed, researched, and/or preserved, anthropology, educational
sciences, and design have also helped to transform scientific languages, to bring dialogues
closer, and to develop strategies to include the voice of social actors. This collaboration has
encouraged the promotion of new places for collaborative education and reflection, includ-
ing spaces for innovation, transmission, and co-production of knowledge, in which we are
currently working.
We have combined the ethnographic approach with the use of design (Jung et al. 2008;
Bødker et al. 2017) as a strategy to find meaningful formats and spaces to bridge diverse
knowledge in the local contexts. Design also allows us to intertwine geological, ecologi-
cal, and social perspectives around emerging collective purposes. For instance, the artfully
integration of local and academic components into a series of artefacts assemblages pro-
vides a platform that is conducive to plural encounters. Early artefacts comprise 4 public
space murals rZng from the inhabitants’ perspectives, and several 3D printouts illustrating
the topography of the volcano, offering spaces to discuss and bridge academic and non-
academic knowing. As platforms connecting multiple people, stakeholders and artefacts
around a common interest, artefact ecologies (Dantec and DiSalvo 2013; Vasiliou et al.
2015) act as bonding agents that scaffold an overarching story that reveals and evolves as
circumstances change over time (Bødker and Klokmose 2012).
This dialogue, communication, and interaction with local families and persons (Wenger
et al. 2002; Wenger 1998) builds on what is identified as relevant by them rather than the
academics and government’s perspectives on what should be pressing matters. Hence,
there is a special emphasis on the socially negotiated character of meanings, where under-
standing and experience are in constant interaction and mutually constitute each other.
Dialogue develops horizontally and all people have the same possibilities to intervene and
act, as a means of common action and overcoming inequalities (Dörfler and Ackermann
2012; Beane 2019; Probst and Borzillo 2008; Wenger et al. 2002; Iverson 2011). In our
forthcoming fieldwork and workshops, we intend to apply a popular and community-based
transformative education (Kawharu 2000; Kenney and Phibbs 2015). Our goal is to assess

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Natural Hazards

local and self-organised networks, reformulating such dichotomies as what is important

in everyday life versus what is important in an emergency or contingency. In this way,
empowerment shapes as social actors transform practices and theories developed by all
members of the learning community under equal conditions (e.g. Dörfler and Ackermann
2012; Hadjimichael and Tsoukas 2019; Pyrkom et al. 2019). These alliances connect edu-
cational and research practices in diverse, formal, and informal social spaces (Mejía 1991),
while building a fruitful encounter between academia and local actors.

4 The complexity of an inhabited Volcano‑Páramo SES

The analysis of multi-scalar temporal and spatial interactions and interdependencies

retrieve the notions of antecedence, inheritance, persistence, and preservation (Trofimov
and Phillips 1992; Phillips 2001; Brierley 2010). The transdisciplinary exercise leads to
the consolidation of three interactive, interdependent and collaborative research cells: (i)
social memory, (ii) environmental memory (comprising geomorphological, geological,
climatic, and ecological memories), and (iii) communication and connectivity. By bridg-
ing the knowledge of local inhabitants with our academic views, we are able to weave the
memories of Doña Juana into an integrative perspective to create engagements. The result-
ing view is the north Andean (tropical) Volcano-Páramo as a lifeworld offering opportuni-
ties for emerging resilience processes (Figs. 1, 2, 3). Below, we explore the systemic nature
of this view.

4.1 Geological system component

North Andean volcano-sedimentary basins are particularly complex settings, with abrupt
topographic profiles ranging from volcano summits commonly higher than 4000 m.a.s.l.,
down to ~ 900–300 m.a.s.l. depositional centres within inter-Andean valleys. The configu-
ration of these basins results from intense crustal deformation and tectonic uplift in a tec-
tonic plate triple junction (Gutscher et al. 1999) interacting with a multivariate tropical
climate (Montgomery et al. 2001). The tectonic framework arises from the subducting oce-
anic Nazca (~ 6 cm/yr, from the west) and Caribbean (~ 1–2 cm/yr, from the north) plates
underneath South America (Taboada et al. 2000) (Fig. 4). The climatic setting develops
from atmospheric circulation over the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Orinoco and
Amazon River basins, as well as interannual and seasonal hydro-climatic variability phe-
nomena, such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the intertropical convergence zone,
low-level jets, and mesoscale convective systems (Poveda et al. 2011). In this context, deep
exhumation by tectonic and climatic forcing (inducing high precipitation and erosion rates;
Mora et al. 2008), favours deep river incision and abrupt landscape development. Rela-
tively slower erosion processes compete against episodic events of rapid volcaniclastic sed-
imentation rates disturbing hydrogeomorphic balance of the local drainage basins (Pulgarín
et al. 2004; Pierson and Major 2014; Major et al. 2016), and promoting geologically fast
changes on the landscape (e.g. Torrence et al. 2009; Veldkamp et al. 2012).
From the Earth’s Science perspective, the ~ 1.1 Ma-Recent Doña Juana is a large and
long-lived (polygenetic) composite volcano (Fig. 4), built on the thick, highly geodiverse,
and geodynamic Northern Andean continental crust (Montes et al. 2019). Together with
the neighbouring, less known, Ánimas Volcano, these subduction-related dacitic stratovol-
canoes are built on a faulted basement of high relief gradients, where topographic barriers,

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variable channel width, breaks in the slope, and various types of lithological contacts pro-
vide multiple segments along the rivers that rapidly change from erosional to depositional
zones (e.g. Pierson et al. 1990; Manville 2002).
The volcano stratigraphy revealed at least three, spatially overlapped edifices (Fig. 4).
During volcanic quiescence times, between an edifice collapse-event and the next rebuild-
ing of a new volcanic edifice, climate-dependent, regional surface processes, such as per-
iglacial, aeolian, gravitational, or fluvial erosion, together with tectonic uplift, slowly shape
the landscape and set the pace for river systems to recover their own equilibrium profile
(over ~ ­103–105 years).
The Holocene geological record for Doña Juana comprises volcaniclastic deposits
younger than ~ 6 ka, related to the lava-dome collapse and vulcanian-style activity of three
lava-dome fields (Pardo et al. 2019). Alternating effusive and explosive eruptions (e.g. Cal-
der et al. 2015; Cassidy et al. 2018) have produced multiple and steep lava-domes, block-
and-ash flows, shock-waves, ballistic jets, < 20 km convective columns, ash dispersal reach-
ing more than 200 km, and PDCs of variable transport regimes, as described in the last
1897–1936 CE eruption cycle (Espinosa 2012). Moreover, the interaction of the ejecta with
a rough basement topography, the hydrogeological system, the existing tropical climactic
conditions, and seismicity derive into multiple mass movements, such as landslides, rock-
avalanches, river dams, and lahars (Pardo et al. 2019) capable of modifying the landscape
within hours (e.g. Major et al. 2016). Particularly, the current geomorphological setting on
the south-western flank of the Doña Juana Volcano (Figs. 4, 5, 6) marks a preferential path
for mass flows, mobilising material from fractured lava-dome spines, unstable pyroclas-
tic deposits, erosion processes alongside valleys, and the potential of overtopping the still
water bodies nearby, or blocking the river paths leading to a potential dam-break scenario.

Fig. 6  Schematic cross section through the western flank of the Doña Juana Volcanic Complex, showing
the abrupt topographic profile allowing the development of altitude-dependent ecosystems (from higher
páramos to lower Andean forests), and neighbouring human communities, varying from rural sparse houses
(El Silencio) to lower towns (Tablón de Gómez). The shaded horizontal backgrounds provide a guide to the
altitude-dependent socio-ecological systems

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Natural Hazards

Many of these surface processes and sudden changes in landscape are ingrained in the
social memories of the last eruption cycle affecting the nearest town of Las Mesas (Espi-
nosa 2012; Figs. 4, 5, 6). Also, the topic often arises in conversations with local inhabitants
who have experienced some of them over one or two generations.
The ultimate perturbation of soil, water bodies, landscape, and atmosphere on volcanic
and mass-movement events pose a latent threat perceived by the communities in the nearby
rural settlements and the nearest town of Las Mesas, by potentially affecting their ecologi-
cal and economical dependencies.

4.2 Soil and ecological system components

Before exploring the human-volcano ecosystem interdependencies, we need to understand

the significance of the volcano ecology, where slow evolutionary processes offer a long-
term framework for the coexistence of biological entities, and superimposed short-lived
processes impose novelty, unpredictability, and heterogeneity. The geologically recent
uplift of the Northern Andes has served as an incredible evolutionary engine, promoting
the relatively recent formation of exceptionally rich floras and faunas (Antonelli et al. 2018;
Hoorn et al. 2013). More recently, climatic glacial-interglacial cycles have fostered succes-
sive phases of connection and isolation of high Andean landscapes, acting as an additional
mechanism for biological diversification (Flantua et al. 2019).
The great potential of Andean ecosystems to accumulate biomass, and thus biodiversity,
is closely related to the ability of volcanic soils to accumulate organic matter, and nutrients
(Tonneijck et al. 2010), which is probably one of the main reasons for making them attrac-
tive for agricultural practices throughout human history. On the other hand, the vegetation
cover affects the amount and type of dead biomass supply to the soil, as well as the acidifi-
cation, weathering, and erosion processes (Tonneijck et al. 2010), while the fog and cloud
cover on top of these particular volcanic mountains makes for a unique environmental
characteristic. The meeting of geological (volcano) entities with atmospheric (cloud, fog,
lightning) ones is also manifested as biological singularities. For example, there are a great
variety of plants that rely on saturated atmospheres, such as ferns, orchids, and bromeliads,
which are vital to enabling the arrival of secondary colonisers after disturbance. Moreover,
volcanic lighting is one of the most important natural mechanisms for fixing atmospheric
nitrogen and making it available for plants, enhancing soil fertility and initiating natural
succession (Vitousek et al. 2013); however, it may also serve as an ignition source that
shapes the natural fire regime, and thus biodiversity (Horn and Kappelle 2009).
From long and well-resolved palaeoecological records, we have learned that Andean
ecosystems are sensitive to volcanic eruptions of intermediate intensity, but they might
recover relatively quickly, in the order of decades (Figs. 2, 3) (González-Carranza et al.
2012). This ability for fast recovery, and to reach relatively similar states to those pre-
ceding the eruptions, suggests that Andean ecosystems are quite resilient to volcanic
activity, and this quality might well rely on the high level of soil fertility, on the fast
ecosystem metabolism promoted by tropical climates, and on the connectedness with
neighbouring areas mediated by local topography. The period of reorganisation follow-
ing the rapid release of accumulated resources (nutrients, biomass, diversity), begins
by supporting natural succession trajectories. These depend on the degree of loss of
biological memory that is stored in the soil as organic matter, nutrients, seed banks,
and microbial communities. If soil is completely lost during the eruption (by erosion
or burial), then natural succession has to start over by pioneer colonists (soil microbes,

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lichens, fungi), and follow the local circumstances created by chance, landscape hetero-
geneity and vicinity (del Moral and Wood 1993). If the soil is not completely destroyed,
then the system has the opportunity to build on the fragmented legacies and restore its
ecological integrity in shorter times. The systems that experience disturbance frequently
are far from generating features that are too complex, and they tend to remain relatively
simple and resilient. In the long term, the living components of landscapes are modu-
lated by topography, soil, and microclimate heterogeneity, and reflect the long-lasting
tension between rivers and volcanoes. Modern landscapes are then, the living archive of
past fragmented legacies of adaptations and materials that support recovery and interact
through time and space domains. At shorter time scales, the recent history of landscapes
might be stored in sedimentary and living archives such as soils, lake sediments, plants,
as well as in culture, that together allow for a comprehensive understanding of the natu-
ral bases of reorganisation, persistence, and recovery after disturbance in an SES.
Thus, the soil system is a key element to understand social and ecosystem resilience.
Moreover, soils are living archives collecting, preserving, and sharing crucial informa-
tion on human and non-human (environmental) interactions. The pedological concept
of soil, traditionally defined as a natural body resulting from the continuous interac-
tion between climate, organisms, relief, and parent material over time (Jenny 1994), is
being reviewed upon considering humanity an additional soil-forming factor (Ibañes
2006; Richter et al. 2011). Over long geological timescales (> ­103 years), erosion plays
a major role in chemical weathering, promoting soil development; however, when ero-
sion is enhanced by anthropic deforestation or agricultural practices (short timescale.,
i.e. < ­103 years), it produces the opposite effect, inhibiting soil development and ulti-
mately limiting resources for ecosystems and human societies (e.g., Rothacker et al.
2018). Subsequently, soils reveal information on how humanity changes the soil and the
soil–environment interactions and how soil change affects humanity and vegetation (e.g.
Richter et al. 2011; Fig. 3).
In our research context, soils and buried soils are the interphase merging memories
of long-term environments (palaeoclimate, palaeotopography, palaeoecology; Tabor and
Myers 2015) and memories of short-term volcanic explosions and humanity’s effects on
soil development (Fig. 3). In the Northern Andes, the Holocene soils developed on volcanic
páramos are mainly non-allophanic Andisols (Poulenard et al. 2001). From a non-human
perspective, soil formation in Doña Juana is a continuous processes highly determined by
the interaction of the distinct tropical climate, with the corresponding high precipitation
rates (1500–2000 mm/yr; Poulenard et al. 2001), the strongly altitude-dependent páramo
ecosystem (Podwojewski et al. 2006) (Fig. 6), and the sporadic accumulation of volcanic
ash. The soil profile reflects the uneven timelines of these interacting systems, allowing
the reconstruction of changes of natural environments over time (e.g. Thomas 2001). For
example, upon explosive volcanic eruptions at Doña Juana or the neighbouring Animas
volcano, the addition of new parent material favours the development of andic soil prop-
erties at different rates depending on the distance to the source (Podwojewski and Poule-
nard 2004). In addition, soil development varies across space, as represented by the highly
irregular Andean and inter-Andean landforms and is influenced by its proximity to the vari-
ably explosive volcanic vents. Ash composition and grain-size strongly affect weathering
and soil formation rates (Podwojewski and Poulenard 2004). Over inter-eruptive and post-
eruptive periods instead, precipitation reinforces chemical weathering, increasing gravita-
tional processes and generating new landforms (Alcalá-Reygosa et al. 2016). New volcanic
eruptions may instantaneously add, bury, erode, or burn pre-existing soils and landforms,
favouring new changes, inducing soil diversity. The current landscape (Figs. 4, 5, 6) can

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therefore be seen as the resulting collection of mosaics and palimpsests inherited from past
natural environments (Thomas 2001; Brierley 2010) over 1­ 02–106 years.
The subtle soil-vegetation-climate interdependence becomes particularly explicit when
andic soils develop under páramo vegetation. Here, the sustained dynamic interaction of
andic soils with cold climates and low evaporation rates, leads to a high-water retention
capacity and the prevalence of wetlands, mires, and lakes (Podwojewski et al. 2006; Pod-
wojewski and Poulenard 2004). As a feedback process, the associated vegetation protects
the soil from erosion, and supplies organic matter, that due to the little biological decom-
position forms an enduring protective sponge that acts as an important factor in ecosystem
water-regulation (Podwojewski and Poulenard 2004).
Thus, the resulting coupled soil-vegetation system and the availability of healthy soil
profiles prone to generate food resources has significant implications in human settling (cf.
Podwojewski et al. 2006). Andisols are among the most productive soils in the world (Shoji
et al. 1993) and consequently, vestiges of early civilisations are common near the active
volcanoes (Shoji et al. 1993). Doña Juana is not the exception (Uribe 1985; Cárdenas
1989a, b; Groot de Mahecha and Hooykaas1991; Cárdenas 1992a, b; Fernández-Medina
1994), and we hypothesise that soil diversity in the inhabited slopes and volcaniclastic
terraces has important implications for understanding the preference of past and current
human societies for inhabiting the volcano (Fig. 3).

4.3 Social system component (inter‑generations/memory)

4.3.1 People in the past: searching for the roots of social memory surrounding Doña
Juana

Archaeology studies past social systems and is a discipline that leads us to think about
ancient human societies for epic periods (< ­ 104 years). In this respect, archaeology
intends to explain how changes and transformations of social systems occurred during
the past in different places and at different times. The spatial dimension of archaeology
implies that it seeks to tackle human–environment contexts where traces of this interac-
tion can be followed, recorded, and investigated. Since archaeology involves both tempo-
ral and spatial dimensions of the life process, it is quite useful for the comprehension of
what Ingold (2000) calls temporality of the landscape. On the other hand, current multi-
species approaches in archaeology suggest that past human and non-human interactions
can be seen from a perspective that avoids the anthropocentric view of human–environ-
ment relations, and that allow us to go beyond the classical Western dichotomies such
as human–non-human, nature–culture, wild–domesticate, hunter–farmer, body–mind,
past–future (Harris and Cipolla 2017).
It is in the modern landscapes and soils where archaeology finds the traces of past
lifeworlds (Figs. 1, 2, 3). These traces, that is to say, the archaeological vestiges found
in soil systems, include both artefacts and ecofacts (Renfrew and Bahn 2008). The for-
mer are portable objects manufactured by humans. The latter refer to any waste mate-
rial derived from activities that involved mutual interactions between humans and
non-humans, such as hunting, plant gathering, farming for food production, and man-
ufacturing of tools. Thus, ecofacts may include animal bones, plant remains, shards,
lithic flakes, and sediments derived from any human activity (Renfrew and Bahn 2008;
Dincauze 2000). Artefacts and ecofacts are incorporated into the soil system during the
process of archaeological site formation, whereby human agents are one of the various

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elements involved in the process of soil formation. From a multispecies archaeological

perspective both artefacts and ecofacts might be analysed as the material expressions
of human and non-human interactions where minerals, plants, and animals are involved
with each other in a continuous mutual relation.
Traces of past human activities have been recorded in the towns of Las Mesas, San José
de Albán, San Pablo, La Cruz, and Tajumbina and areas surrounding the Doña Juana Vol-
cano-Páramo (Camargo 1989) (Fig. 4). These traces include artefacts such as lithic tools,
ceramic vessels, monoliths in the shape of human bodies and metal adornments; they also
include ecofacts such as faunal and plant remains. In addition to artefacts and ecofacts,
other archaeological vestiges in the region include monuments such as the petroglyphs
carved on the surface of rocks, and cemeteries where people buried their dead (Ortiz 1965;
Sotomayor and Uribe 1987; Groot de Mahecha and Hooykaas 1991; Cadavid and Ordoñez
1992).
Although we do not know precisely when humans began to inhabit Doña Juana, it is
clear that several human societies were already well established in the region when vol-
canic activity occurred during the Holocene (~ 6000 yrs. ago). Monoliths and shards were
found by local inhabitants within the ~ 3470 to ~ 2920 cal yr BP Doña Juana pyroclastic
deposits and within a soil radiocarbon dated at ~ 1700–1540 cal yr BP, providing evidence
of human presence in the western slopes. Burials along the Tajumbina River (Fig. 4), to the
east and northeast, were mostly found within the ~ 5210–4820 cal yr BP Animas volcano
PDCs (Pardo et al. 2019). Grave goods found in human burials at the Tajumbina ceme-
tery (Cadavid and Ordoñez 1992) include ceramic vessels, metal adornments, stone beads,
and animal bones. Archaeological radiocarbon dates indicate that this cemetery was used
between ~ 1256 and 434 cal CE (Cadavid and Ordoñez 1992; Garzón et al. 2007; Gómez
2009).
Currently, we do not have enough archaeological data allowing us to describe the par-
ticular human–environment interactions at Doña Juana. However, we can expose some pre-
liminary hypotheses for future work. Taking into account the findings and dates mentioned
above, we may hypothesise that humans co-existed with volcanic activity and social resil-
ience processes could have occurred in the past. In this context, it is possible that soil diver-
sity, which is a characteristic trait of the inhabited slopes and volcanic terraces of Doña
Juana (and Ánimas), has influenced people’s choices in terms of establishing permanent
settlements and agricultural fields for food production. As such, the creation of housing
and agricultural landscapes could result from mutual interaction between soils, topography,
and humans, as seen today (Figs. 3, 5).
In addition, other human activities in the past could occur in Doña Juana’s soils, reliefs
or river terraces as today’s lifeworlds, beyond the economic use of soil and ecological sys-
tems. For example, the manufacturing of tools, pottery, stone, and metal adornments sug-
gests different human and non-human interactions. Also, the establishment of cemeteries as
places to commemorate death, such as the one located at the Tajumbina settlement (Cada-
vid and Ordoñez 1992), is of particular relevance. Mortuary practices and funerary rituals
allow life cycles to be continued, and in these places, objects and human bodies became
memory motifs for the ancient inhabitants. This kind of preliminary hypotheses could
guide future research to understand if objects such as monoliths representing humans,
ceramic vessels in the shape of birds, metal adornments, and so on, could express par-
ticular forms of the human-Volcano-Páramo interdependence, reflecting a close relation-
ship between final objects and the raw materials. Objects and humans are made together
(sec. Ingold 2000), and they acquire agency once they enter into the cycle of their own life
history.

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Natural Hazards

On the other hand, future studies are needed to understand the relationship between pre-
sent day people and the archaeological objects and sites as elements of memory. In order
to understand people’s perceptions and the meanings that they give to the past, we must go
beyond the hegemony displayed in the authorised heritage discourse (Smith 2006). The
latter usually requires scientific and expert knowledge to determine contents concerning
how humans acted in the past, who owns that past, what are the changes between past
and present, and so on. For example, stereotypes of past human communities as poor,
rich, powerful or mystical are typical of nationalist State discourses, which persist in the
Colombian State policies about archaeological heritage. In order to tackle this issue, a
public archaeology approach could attempt to understand the relationship local communi-
ties had established with the archaeological heritage. Such an approach would allow us
to involve local communities in the production of more horizontal knowledge about past
social groups, and to understand the complexity of the relationships between people and
these past and present lifeworlds.

4.3.2 Doña Juana’s people today: situating socio‑natural memories

and the Volcano‑Páramo as a lifeworld

In the case of the contemporary social systems, we come face-to-face with the scales,
legacies, and tremendous fluidity of anthropogenic memory, interconnected with geologi-
cal and climatic memories in complex ways. Socio-natural memories are at the heart of
the cultural view of landscapes, and temporality is a key feature. As we approach human
agents and more-than-human actants dwelling in the present, the perspective of temporality
is rechannelled into an active and unfolding lens that resituates the relationship of present,
past, and future in terms of spatiality (location) and uneven temporalities (Fig. 3). Instead
of drawing a huge temporal line or a model of causal precedence and consequence based
on significant events and large timescales, we have first to listen to, observe, and com-
prehend human speakers experiencing and interpreting the present, as well as envisioning
futures. Informed by social anthropology and a phenomenological perspective, we focus
on Doña Juana’s inhabitants as they engage daily life, and recount personal and collec-
tive memories, most of them in the form of oral histories and narratives than have been
passed down from generation to generation. A preliminary analysis of such oral registers
has allowed us to understand the way in which local inhabitants become with the Volcano-
Páramo as an Earth Being with agency, who is the main character of many folktales; but
also, we have understood the Volcano-Páramo is a lifeworld that they know intimately,
through daily experience walking up and down the hills, understanding natural cycles, fol-
lowing the moon cycles for cultivation, observing, enjoying and living off the cloud forest
and its different beings.
The community-based mapping (Fig. 5) pointed out that the community values the
most, places with a hydric, religious, or volcanic meanings and/or components. Dur-
ing the interviews, the inhabitant Armando Bolaños stated that “The hill (Doña Juana’s
volcano) is what identifies us (…) it is an important part of us [because] it is like the
world’s lungs; it is its breath. Life arises from it -the hot springs, the lagoon, the fauna,
they all come from it.” Likewise, Elba Bravo described, “the volcano is a friend, is our
father (…) well it is a bit dangerous, but still, it is the most beautiful thing up here and
I believe that it is the best thing we have.” In addition, the volcano’s kinship with the
Páramo and soil fertility emerged; as the inhabitant Ulises Sarasty recalls, “[When] the
volcanic eruption occurred, ash spread over these fields (….) it was a blessing because

13
 Natural Hazards

ash contained many biochemical components, [which were] very good and there was
productivity.” The perception of the volcano and its activity is mostly respectful and
acknowledging, rather than fearful or catastrophic. Instead, places referred as “scary”
are often associated with (i) sites where mass movements have taken place, (ii) loca-
tions of waste mishandling, and (iii) water scarcity, all clearly referred as related to
misleading anthropic activities, such as the expansion of the agricultural frontier and
the influence of former illicit economies. Throughout the discussions, inhabitants rein-
forced their concern about the Páramo and soil sensitivity to environmental change,
which often rises as a major concern compared to the volcano activity.
Altogether, human agents and more-than-human actants are part of complex ecological,
social, and historical interdependencies. We have come to learn that this co-habiting has
shaped the particular cultural landscapes of Las Mesas village. Such landscapes have been
also modelled by the changing dynamics of campesino economies, which are always in co-
dependency to larger resource extraction processes, including illicit economies.
Memory is a rich horizon from which to think of social and natural interconnections.
Our approach recognises the multi-layered scales and temporalities embodied in cultural
landscapes and the need to understand the links of natural and social memories. However,
we also acknowledge that anthropogenic memory and geographical landscapes are subject
to complex processes of persistence and change. As Brierley (2010, p. 80) argues: “Time-
frames over which different landforms and their associated memories are erased reflect
landscape position and the effectiveness of reworking events”. This means that each land-
scape is a palimpsest, that all landscapes have a partial or selective memory of past events
and processes, and that the unevenness of time is a main feature of landscape evolution.
Although much more research is needed in order to properly understand landscape biogra-
phies, it is important to note that there is a process of reciprocity and distinctness between
landscapes and life histories that is captured by notions of palimpsest, selective memory,
and unevenness of time.
Landscapes as lifeworlds imply that dwellers create and reshape each other in one con-
tinuous movement, weaving individual life cycles into long-term histories (Figs. 2, 3). As
Kolen and Renes (2015, p. 21) argue, landscapes “shape their own life histories on differ-
ent timescales, imprinted by human existence, affecting personal lives and transcending
individual human life cycles”, hence the complex intertwining of personhood and place,
reciprocity, and distinctness. Some authors in the phenomenological orientation, such as
Ingold (2000), account for the different kind of tasks humans undergo, which produce
material marks and are embedded culturally oriented ideas of landscape. But this emphasis
does not undermine the fact that landscapes are not the exclusive lifeworlds of humans,
as Ingold himself suggests, hence the importance of keeping a perspective on more-than-
human approaches. This latter emphasis is, however, yet to be adequately developed by
means of a multispecies perspective. On the other hand, the dialogue between anthropol-
ogy and archaeology is crucial to understanding the rhythms, layers, memories, and tem-
poral dimensions of landscape. This works not only in terms of time as experienced from
within the horizons of past lifeworlds, but also concerning landscape as heritage (Fig. 3).
With this approach, we account for the unevenness, coevalness (we are witnessing, col-
lecting and interpreting events and processes as they are experienced at the same shared
time), and selective memory of both landscapes, and human and more-than-human systems
and system components (Fig. 1). This imposes a particular challenge on the problem of
complexity, especially considering the capacity for contemporary process-form relation-
ships to achieve a state of equilibrium. It is not only a matter of persistence, which is based
on the sensitivity/resilience and the degree of connectivity within the system, but also

13
Natural Hazards

of interconnected processes that diminish, damage, or activate the ability of systems to

unravel controls (e.g. Moore 2016; Soriano 2018a, b).
We rely on a thinking in complexity aimed at describing and understanding reality anew.
In these times in which humans are agents of geomorphic changes, and human and more-
than-human communities are deeply interconnected by capitalist relations, sometimes in
terms of negative entropy, creativity, novelty, and innovation have to go hand-in-hand.
Hence, we need to recall three key premises on complexity from the social perspective:
(i) reality is a process; (ii) nature is a structure of evolving processes; and (iii) the greater
the complexity, the larger the reality. Since we are dealing with a dynamic interweaving of
various systems and system components, with what seems to be spiral developments and
interactive causality, we have to better understand not only the adaptive character of com-
plex systems, but the generative processes involved in reciprocal causality. Human com-
plex systems teach us that resilience is also tied to novelties that build upon old certainties,
which are put to test, reshaped, or abandoned.
Thus, we approach the Doña Juana Volcano-Páramo and its local dwellers as part of
larger processes and memories characterised by dynamic interweaving and, probably,
reciprocal causality. We understand that geological, ecological, and social systems are co-
dependent, although temporalities, processes and interconnections supersede human life
cycles (Figs. 1, 2, 3). In the analysis of social systems, we seek to address the interpretive,
fluid, and complex positionality and temporal-spatial enactments of speakers/dwellers, as
they relate to multi-temporal and multi-modal processes and experiences.
We have analysed available information on the ways in which local communities have
responded to, understood and represented volcanic events, and have called upon control
(i.e. temporal to long-term migration patterns) in order to reach equilibrium in daily life.
However, it is important to note that the historical written record is meagre. For this reason,
oral history has become key. As it has been argued before, the case of low-frequency erupt-
ing systems seems to be associated with discontinuous mechanisms of social memory and
learning legacy. Nevertheless, there are important clues to follow through the connection
of evolving campesino social and economic practices and the repository of local folk tales
and mythologies. We are currently systematising information about generational memo-
ries, folk tales, and narratives about living with Doña Juana. Our in-depth ethnographic
research has allowed us to better understand the complex historical, social and natural rela-
tions and multi-scalar processes that shape the lives of local inhabitants in the present.
From the point of view of an engaged and critical anthropological practice, we have
emphasised the importance of intersubjective reflection and epistemological tuning. Our
perspective of the researcher as an active agent in knowledge co-production is key to
anthropology and has largely informed our transdisciplinary approach. Building a learn-
ing community of scientists, humanists, and local peoples has been a quite complex pro-
cess because it requires a critical stance at knowledge production—especially concerning
scientific knowledge, specialised fields, data gathering, and objectivity standards—and a
grounded view about horizontal collaboration with local communities. In terms of the new
thinking in complexity, this perspective requires us to become reflective about our viewing
and doing science (Flaherty 2019; Jörg 2011), as well as our way of communicating find-
ings and strengthening collaborative research.
To sum up, anthropological analysis and interpretation have allowed us to understand
the volcano as an inhabited landscape that carries within deep socio-natural memories;
hence, the concepts lifeworld and becoming with are central to our research. The notion of
the Volcano-Páramo accounts for experiential dimension of the local inhabitants. In this
sense, we are learning about the way in which local campesino families interact with the

13
 Natural Hazards

cloudy forest and the páramo and the kind of bioclimatic parameters that they use for dif-
ferent productive purposes, which are deeply ingrained to agriculture practices, cattle rais-
ing, and knowledge about the surrounding forest.
The case of northeast Nariño (south-western Colombia) is of particular importance, as
it comprises heterogeneous spatial patterns and contested memories, largely connected to
geopolitical qualities of this socio-natural corridor, and the role it has played in the com-
mercial and communication networks between urban centres such as Quito, Popayán,
and Bogotá. We have developed archival and documentary research about the complex-
ity of spatial and economic patterns since the Spanish conquest and colonisation, between
the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and the way in which territorial strategies and
policies by the Colonial state were transformed during the establishment of the Republic
and the emergence of “regions” in modern Colombia. We also have identified the ways
in which such territorial and economic changes are directly related to patterns of struc-
tural violence, natural resource extraction, and agricultural and cattle industries that have
silenced indigenous’ socio-ecological legacies and the lifeways of campesino communities.
We are also in the process of analysing how twentieth century state formation and region
building produced a fragmented nation, in which different regional elites coexist with
diverse forms of campesino colonisation and settlement formation. More recently, we are
focussing on the emergence of illegal economies in the region (coca and poppy crops), and
their impact on landscapes, soils and campesino economies and agroecological practices.
We thus seek to combine an ecology of life with a political ecology, in which multi-scalar
and socio-economic dimensions are interwoven with an in-depth view of situated daily life.
This is what glocal research is about.
Based on our dialogues with the inhabitants of Las Mesas, we have identified self-
organising and self-regulation capacities and societal strength as a community. The cor-
relation among historical patterns of migration and settlement in this region that plays as a
geopolitical corridor, the evolution of colonial and republican campesino economies, their
dependency to larger commercial networks based on natural resource extraction, the inad-
equate road infrastructure, as well as the sense of a distant State for local people has both
positive and negative effects. On the one hand, there are patterns of social and economic
exclusion that affect campesino communities (we have not researched the problematics of
indigenous communities); however, on the other hand, these local communities have man-
aged to develop their own lifeways and create semi-autonomous modes of self-regulation
and social support.
Our interest in collaborative research and knowledge co-production is thus connected
to this local strategy of self-regulation. Doña Juana’s inhabitants know their lifeworld and
have been able to develop local-oriented forms of social well-being with some planning
and decision-making at the local level. The 2007 creation of the Doña Juana-Cascabel
National Natural Park sets a new scenario for local communities and their relationship with
the State. We need to better understand this juncture and the historical context in order to
approach both current social vulnerability and resilience capacities.
Based on the ethical and critical premises of anthropological research, participating
local social actors have had a crucial role in knowledge production. They not only have
provided us with information about the pathways and thematic study-sites, but also, about
short-term (< years) changes in the landscape, commonly blurred in the geological and
palaeoecological record, such as the 1936 lahar (Pardo et al. 2019), recent erosion pro-
cesses, mass movements, weather patterns, and fires. They have also shared their knowl-
edge on ethnobotanics, on the trajectory of the ecological succession after the last vol-
canic eruption cycle, and on uses of the vegetation covers and substrates across the variable

13
Natural Hazards

altitude-dependent ecosystems. Furthermore, they show how they organise themselves for
collective purposes (i.e. mingas, which are very common in Andean Indigenous commu-
nities and that campesino communities have appropriated in their own terms) and their
experience in dealing with mass movements using local resources and collective networks.
They have taught scientists the terms to describe materials, processes, locations, and events
in a language that replaces technical words and reaches the community. Finally, they have
taught us to read the Páramo, showing the importance of understanding the inhabited vol-
cano as a lifeworld (Figs. 3, 5). For them, the Páramo is not limited to the altitude-fixed
ecosystem defined in science, but it is a low-atmospheric entity linked to drizzling clouds,
and with determination, decision power, and specific strategies to appear during each sea-
son, to move across space (i.e. it moves upward and downward along the volcano slopes),
and to respond to human disturbances. The Páramo is able to “push people away” from the
mountain (Figs. 5, 6). Hence, inhabitants grow up learning to read its messages and decid-
ing their daily activities and practices according to the “Páramo’s mood.” We have come
to understand that in Doña Juana, it is not the volcano that is perceived as the main ruler of
the territory, but the Páramo. The Páramo regulates the territory by providing life, mainly
through sustaining the water cycle and other ecosystem services, but also by becoming
dangerous if needed, depending on human and more-than-human behaviours (the latter is
the case of two big mammals: the spectacled bear and the tapir). The perception of danger
emerges when human life is threatened by reduced visibility and difficulty to return home,
low temperatures, lightning and also, by volcanic eruptions. The perception of the danger
is also evident if signs of the spectacled bear or the tapir are seen or heard in proximity. In
this aspect, the significance of the Páramo’s role on Doña Juana might be similar to the
role of volcanoes according to other native communities in the Andes (Faust 1989; Qui-
ceno 2018) and elsewhere (Skewes and Guerra 2016; Marín-Herrera 2018).
This process of knowledge exchange in which local people have a central role not only
implies that they are informing our research, but also that the learning communities seek
that they empower themselves by valuing and acknowledging their own traditions and
knowledge, and seeking new venues for social participation and local self-management.
Finally, this process favours a macro-perspective that incorporates knowledge about dia-
chronic rhythms of geo-bio-cultural processes (Figs. 3, 7) and a better understanding of
uncertainty, detaching it from the negative view of hazards, and searching for alternative
narratives and practices that take into account the moods of the Volcano-Páramo and the
valuable knowledge and experience of local inhabitants.

5 Doña Juana volcanic lifeworld: a transdisciplinary collective vision

to empower decision‑making

Revisiting a volcanic territory as a SES and lifeworld is a key window to approach com-
plexity and resilience through transdisciplinary research and knowledge co-production. We
have opened up a multi-modal and plural learning community aimed at retrieving multi-
scalar notions of becoming with (Fig. 7). Worlding this SES means studying the complex
system from within diverse perspectives, including local ones, concerned with resilience-
building processes. We recognise the difficulties of providing definitive or generalising
answers, but the following questions guide our conceptual reflection: (i) How, when, and
why does an inhabited volcanic system lead to numerous and multi-scalar human and non-
human interdependencies? (ii) What is the best way to develop and reach an integrative

13
 Natural Hazards

Global
10000 km
ial Climate Change
oc
n ds e
a g ion
1000 km ral ed lut
ENSO
u ltu nowl l e vo
tio
n
C k ica olu
100 km o log e ev
Volcanic B i a p
eruption sc
nd
La
10 km Ideologies

Clouds and fog

1 km
Mass Human settlements
movement
100 m Ecolog
logical
succ
cessio
on
Sub-group immediate
actions Soil
lightning formation
1m Growth & Bio
Biomas
m s Nutrieent Chemical
storag
agee cyycling
cyc
yc weathering

1 cm

ce
da

de
se

10

10

1
m

ye
we
ho

M
inu

on

nt
co

ca

00

00
ar
ur

ek

yr
ur
th
nd

de
te

0
yr
y

yr
Fig. 7  Spatial (Y-axis) and temporal (X-axis) distribution of geological, climatological, biological and
social systems and processes in a volcanic socio-ecological systems and complex adaptive/generative
domain systems. Note the multiscale overlapping among systems and processes. The processes occurring
at wider timescales (e.g. geological, biological, and social/cultural evolution) might actually be extended
throughout the whole time–space range. Processes indicated in bold lettering are central for the understand-
ing of the development of inhabited Andean Volcanoes

transdisciplinary study of inhabited Andean volcanoes? (iii) How could we establish hori-
zontal dialogues with inhabitants that value and include their perceptions on living and
self-transforming with volcanism? and (iv) Could we establish a common ground for
developing an inclusive and collective understanding of living with volcanic phenomena?
By building an ongoing learning community, we enter into a systematic dialogue
both among us, the academic team, and with the local community. We have learned and
unlearned from our academic disciplines and from participating in activities with local col-
laborators, listening to their wisdom. We are all contributors and receivers of knowledge in
continuous feedback. By listening to different perspectives and finding common grounds,
we are engaged in collaborative and committed research aimed at transforming knowledge
asymmetries and producing knowledge dialogues. This is for us an important means to
empower local communities. At the same time that families, collectives and persons recall,
recover, and systematise their own experiences and memories as long-term dwellers, they
become acquainted with scientific perspectives.
The local schools and other governmental and non-governmental educational actors are
decisive agents in the execution of actions. Together with their possibility of influencing
different social actors, such actions may contribute to the consolidation of local-grounded
and community-oriented forms to dealing with phenomena that could alter the everyday
life (Dettmer 2002; UNDRR 2007). As part of this process, we have materialised mid-term
products that may be used to encourage community-centred decision making and long-term

13
Natural Hazards

resilience strategies. These include: (i) the co-design of pedagogical tools concerning
the Volcano-Páramo for the schools; (ii) the co-design of a thematic pathway as a ‘liv-
ing museum’ for non-formal education outside the classroom (open classrooms); (iii) the
generation of multi-thematic 3D-maps as a communication tool for discussion and deci-
sion making; and (iv) the formulation of a new project focussed on co-designing mitigation
strategies for mass movements based on local capacities. Regarding the latter and during
the community-based mapping exercises, the inhabitants pointed out their concerns about
the recurrent mass movements generated along the Humadal Stream (Fig. 5). This stream
was also identified in the geological mapping as one of the main pathways for PDCs threat-
ening Las Mesas. Finally, the officers of the National Natural Parks identified Humadal
micro-basin as a priority area to reinforce ecological connectivity between the protected
area and the buffer zone. By putting into a symmetrical dialogue all views, we agreed on
the relevance of the ecological restoration and protection of the Humadal Stream, and of
the saddle bridging it with the micro-basin directly linked to the volcano (i.e. the Valle de
las Orquídeas-Spanish name for orchid’s valley; Fig. 5). This is a tool for environmental
and hazard management, and therefore for future policymaking.
In sum, by approaching Doña Juana as a Volcano-Páramo lifeworld, embedded in cul-
tural meaning, and by empowering the local community, we collectively learn about the
local capacities to live within such a geodynamic environment, and to best understand our
role as academics. Through this exercise, we believe we can cooperatively set a new basis
to encourage decision-making and empower long-term social and ecological resilience to
volcanic eruptions. An important and singular aspect of this lifeworld is the inhabitants’
capacity for self-organisation, their willingness to participate in the learning community,
and their profound emotions and values about their “paradise,” as they call it. There are of
course challenges; they include: (i) warrantying the continuation of the process; (ii) articu-
lating the initiative with state-sponsored institutions contributing to better policy making
in disaster-risk reduction, such as the Geological Survey (Servicio Geológico Colombiano-
SGC) and the National Unit of Disaster Risk Management (Unidad Nacional de Gestión
de Riesgo de Desastres-UNGRD), as well as local government (municipality and depart-
ment); (iii) managing the local community’s expectations, given the strong social memory
of accumulated frustrations related to the tortuous economic, social and political history
and what appears as a distant and low-effective State. This is also linked to problems of
paternalism and victimisation that are part of local clientele political networks and that
sometimes get transferred to the relationship of our research team (made of professors from
Colombia’s capital cities) and the local community. We also need to remain alert to the
project being perceived as a political opportunity for local parties; for this reason, clarity,
confidence, and hence, effective communication, are of the utmost importance.

6 Future perspectives

Addressing the study of volcanic territories in the Northern Andes of south-western

Colombia from a SES perspective and through a transdisciplinary framework (Figs. 1, 3,
7) allows us to tackle challenges when considering the collective process of designing and
pursuing research among different bodies of knowledge (e.g. scientific, social, and non-
academic), which may be applicable elsewhere. Resilience arises as a natural and emergent
property in these settings, typically characterised by the interplay of human and natural
components, the interconnection of several temporal and spatial scales, and the coexistence

13
 Natural Hazards

of plurality and diversity. We invite academic researchers to look for strategies and condi-
tions leading to emerging possibilities by recognising and connecting with these condi-
tions, rather than reducing the scientific action to valuing the catastrophic view of disasters
and victimising the communities. We invite policymakers to become deeply aware of the
daily requirements in terms of the way in which people experience shifting social processes
and avoid simplistic land-planning proposals detached from the symbolic and cultural view
of the inhabited spaces. We invite the multiple actors involved in disaster risk reduction to
detach from their judgement of societies living on active volcanoes for generations, to find
languages beyond the limits of separate disciplines, and develop knowledge dialogues in
order to empower community capacity building. Beyond the need for a concluding remark,
this is an invitation to reinforce flexible thinking, open dialogue, and the ability to connect
diverse views, to find practical and enduring ways to deal with uncertainty and promote
resilience.

Acknowledgements This ongoing research is founded by the Vice-Chancellor of Research at Universi-

dad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). We thank Silvia Restrepo for believing in the process and helping
to materialise it as a Research Portfolio on Historical Ecology and Social Memory at Universidad de los
Andes. In addition, funding was also obtained from the Patrimonio Autónomo-Fondo Nacional de Finan-
ciamiento para la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación Francisco José de Caldas, under the grant agree-
ment No. 164-2019. This project would be impossible without the help of the Don Tomás Bravo’s family,
Guido Gallardo, Ricardo Villota, Manuel Chávez, the staff at Doña Juana-Cascabel National Natural Parks
during the entire process, particularly Leonardo Martínez, Guillermo A. Ordóñez, and Richard Muñoz. We
also thank Bernardo Pulgarín (Servicio Geológico Colombiano), and the staff from the Volcanological and
Seismological Observatory of Pasto and the Banco de la República of Pasto (Nariño). Last but not least, we
thank the community of Las Mesas for their patience and trust in the collective research process. Tiziana
Laudato is greatly thanked for the final English writing editorial process. We also thank Guido Giordano
and an anonymous reviewer who extensively contributed to improve the final version of this manuscript.

Funding This ongoing research is founded by the Vice-Chancellor of Research at Universidad de los Andes
(Bogotá, Colombia). Funding was also obtained from the Patrimonio Autónomo-Fondo Nacional de Finan-
ciamiento para la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación Francisco José de Caldas, under grant agreement
No. 164–2019, Colombia.

Code availability Not applicable.

Declarations

Conflict of interest Not applicable.

Availability of data and material Not applicable.

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institutional affiliations.

Authors and Affiliations

Natalia Pardo1 · Mónica Lucía Espinosa2 · Catalina González‑Arango3 ·

Miguel Angel Cabrera4 · Susana Salazar5 · Sonia Archila2 · Nancy Palacios6 ·
Diana Prieto2 · Ricardo Camacho4 · Leonardo Parra‑Agudelo7
Mónica Lucía Espinosa
moespino@uniandes.edu.co
Catalina González‑Arango
c.gonzalez2579@uniandes.edu.co
Miguel Angel Cabrera
ma.cabrera140@uniandes.edu.co
Susana Salazar
ssalazarj@unal.edu.co
Sonia Archila
sarchila@uniandes.edu.co
Nancy Palacios
n.palaciosm@uniandes.edu.co
Diana Prieto
dm.prieto1443@uniandes.edu.co
Ricardo Camacho
r.camacho1599@uniandes.edu.co
Leonardo Parra‑Agudelo
leonardo.parra@uniandes.edu.co

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1
Departamento de Geociencias, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12, Bogotá D.C, Colombia
2
Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12, Bogotá D.C., Colombia
3
Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12, Bogotá D.C.,
Colombia
4
Departamento de Ingeniería Civil y Ambiental, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12,
Bogotá D.C., Colombia
5
Escuela de Geociencias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Medellín, Calle 59 A No. 63‑20,
Medellín, Colombia
6
Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12, Bogotá D.C., Colombia
7
Departamento de Diseño, Universidad de Los Andes, cra 1#18A‑12, Bogotá D.C., Colombia

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