Why do communities prefer to stay in place despite potentially dangerous changes in their environment, even when governmental support for outmigration or resettlement is provided? That is the key question this paper seeks to answer. Voluntary immobility is a burgeoning research topic in environmental change-related migration studies, although the role of local sense-making of perceived risks and migration pressures has received only little attention. In order to examine decisions for non-migration, we argue that we need to consider people’s ontological security, or subjective sense of existential safety, which shapes risk perceptions. We apply this to the case of Villa Santa Lucía in Chilean Patagonia, where the local population has rejected relocation policies after the village was severely damaged by a mudslide in December 2017. We show how this rejection is not based on the lack of abilities to move, but on a fundamentally different risk assessment grounded in locally specific social representations of nature and human-nature relations. This alternative understanding of environmental risks allows the local population to uphold their sense of ontological security while remaining in Villa Santa Lucía, and renders relocation to avoid exposure to natural hazards futile or even inconsistent with local identities. We conclude that local sense-making of environmental risks is an important component of a more fine-grained understanding of environmental non-migration decisions.

为什么即使环境得到了潜在的危险变化，社区也仍然愿意留在原地，即使在政府为移民或移民提供支持的情况下也是如此？这是本文寻求回答的关键问题。尽管与当地环境有关的感知风险和移民压力的作用只受到了很少的关注，但在与环境变化相关的移民研究中，自愿不动是一个新兴的研究主题。为了检查针对非迁移的决策，我们认为我们需要考虑人们的本体安全性，即主观的存在性安全感，这会影响风险感知。我们将其应用于智利巴塔哥尼亚的圣卢西亚别墅（Villa SantaLucía）的案例，在该村庄于2017年12月泥石流严重破坏后，当地居民拒绝了搬迁政策。我们展示了这种拒绝的方式并非基于缺乏移动能力，而是基于根本不同的风险评估，该评估基于对自然和人与自然关系的局部特定社会表征。对环境风险的这种另类理解使当地居民在留在圣卢西亚别墅时仍能保持其本体的安全感，并使人们能够搬迁以避免暴露于自然灾害中徒劳无益甚至与当地身份不符。我们得出的结论是，当地人对环境风险的理解是对环境非移民决策的更精细理解的重要组成部分。对环境风险的这种另类理解使当地居民在留在圣卢西亚别墅时仍能保持其本体的安全感，并使人们能够搬迁以避免暴露于自然灾害中徒劳无益甚至与当地身份不符。我们得出的结论是，当地人对环境风险的理解是对环境非移民决策的更精细理解的重要组成部分。对环境风险的这种另类理解使当地居民在留在圣卢西亚别墅时仍能保持其本体的安全感，并使人们能够搬迁以避免暴露于自然灾害中徒劳无益甚至与当地身份不符。我们得出的结论是，当地人对环境风险的理解是对环境非移民决策的更精细理解的重要组成部分。