Sense of home in post-disaster reconstruction: A study of resident experiences of living in rebuilt houses after the wenchuan earthquake in China

Natural disasters are common around the world. They cause casualties, displace millions of people and have psychological impacts on survivors. Most post-disaster reconstruction processes focus on rebuilding tangible items like houses and facilities, and intangible aspects like rebuilding people's sense of home are neglected, especially in developing countries. This is problematic as abundant evidence has shown that sense of home and people’s wellbeing are closely related. However, the majority of research on the link between sense of home and wellbeing has been undertaken in developed countries in non-disaster situations. This thesis investigates how people experience and understand sense of home in their rebuilt houses and neighbourhoods in a post-disaster reconstruction context of a developing country, and explores whether any correlations exist between the different approaches implemented in housing reconstruction and residents' understandings of sense of home. The thesis draws on place research to understand home not only as a physical setting, but also an emotional and social construct. Sense of home is defined in the thesis as meaningful relationships between people and physical settings of dwelling in social context. The research uses a case study approach to consider these issues in one region of China affected by the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. This included in-depth interviews (n= 30) and a survey with local residents (n= 774). A pluralistic methodology that draws on phenomenology, social constructionism, materialism and environmental psychology is developed and used in the analysis of the interviews to investigate the relationships between people and physical settings in social context. Results from the in-depth interviews demonstrate that people experience and understand sense of home through personal relationships with physical settings and social relationships within physical settings, and suggest that rural Chinese notions of sense of home differ to some extent from dominant conceptions of sense of home in the Western literature. The survey employed an approach informed by environmental psychology. Results from the survey provide information about specific aspects of reconstruction approaches that are correlated with people's sense of home, allowing practical suggestions to be made on how to facilitate people's sense of home after natural disasters.