Examining community-driven resilience and participatory adaptation in Latin American informal settlements: Insights from Argentina and Chile

The paper advances a rights- and justice-oriented approach to resilience, highlighting the need for multi-role state action regulatory, redistributive, and enabling-alongside gender-responsive care infrastructures and participatory data systems. Policy recommendations connect grassroots practices to structural reforms that can transform reactive coping into durable adaptation pathways.

Informal settlements across Latin America are disproportionately exposed to climate-related hazards while facing chronic infrastructural deficits and tenure insecurity. This qualitative study examines community-led adaptation and participatory practices in two cases-El Esfuerzo (Valparaíso, Chile) and Nuevo Alberdi (Rosario, Argentina) - to inform equitable urban resilience frameworks. Drawing on 28 key informant interviews, four focus groups, participatory mapping, and field observation, the analysis documents housing and infrastructure adaptations; local knowledge systems, mutual aid, and communication networks; and the enabling and constraining roles of urban policy, governance continuity, and tenure security. Findings show residents actively reduce exposure and cope with recurrent hazards (floods, wildfires, and landslides) through incremental housing upgrades, neighborhood works, and collective emergency practices, yet the scale, durability, and equity of these efforts hinge on secure tenure, integrated basic services, and institutionalized co-decision.