ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests the resettlement projects effectively create a situation in which there is a de facto suspension of what might be considered the customary rights of the inhabitants. The suspension of these rights constitutes a state of exception, paradoxically produced by the rigid enforcement of an all-encompassing norm. In this way, very specific regulations created and supposedly put in place to avoid the negative effects of resettlement deploy forms of both symbolic and physical violence. The standard practices are divided into three main categories: those involved in the process of making a 'social diagnosis'; those that constitute the bureaucratic procedures necessary for the identification, evaluation and compensation of assets, and entitlements and the reconstruction of livelihoods; and those regarding the physical design of the new settlement. Most natural hazards result from the forms of occupation and use of landscapes and resources inherent in modern economic development and its addiction to carbon-based energy.
