Abstract:
Over many thousands of years, human societies have tackled the basic
problem of providing shelter in a wide variety of ways, adapting to the
natural environment and making use of the materials it provides for the
construction (or adaptation) of sheltered space. The most basic motive for
building has been to provide shelter for a defined Kinship group, often within
a clearly marked, protected area.
The shelter always had two purposes. That is qualitative aspect and the
quantitative aspects. Privacy, Identity,9 Territoriality and Sense of
belongingness are considered as some of those qualitative aspects of a
shelter. The meaning of shelter varies from, the single housing unit to a
settlement which is the manifestation of self to community level.
As a result of social hierarchies, cultural beliefs, and economic and political
aspirations, such communities being segregated and that has resulted in so
many settlement patterns within one community itself. The settlement
patterns exist, as a result of socio-spatial organizations which co-existed
within a- society, and to establish one's reaction to a specific place, which
one refers to. When someone become place or location specific, he has to
be in a two-way conversation with the particular place, in order to make his
roots to that place.
Human, place relationships carry opportunities as well as threats to its
inhabitants, which some may be avoidable or unavoidable. Opportunities, no
doom, may result for the upliftment of a society, But threats would come in
the guise of natural and man-made disasters, which cause numerous harm to
the society.
Most instances "displacement" being the ultimate result of a disaster, it
uproots people from their original places, with severe physical, social and
psychological losses, which may reflect throughout many generations. This
losses, the very communal base of a society and make them placeless. Even
though, these threats does occur changes, long term or short term, in the
society, but the society has to exist some how, somewhere in the world. Also
life has to be continued. To keep this process in motion people "re-built" and
"re-place" themselves either in the same locality or in a nearby area. By
doing so, people generally "re-align" themselves for the continuous process
of place making.
Nevertheless, the act of dwelling may happen, based on social, cultural,
political and economical aspects, in varying degrees. To understand these
varying aspects, one has to have a deeper understanding and experience
regarding certain characteristics of a particular society.
This study thus, unravels the spatial experiences of the individuals and in
communal level, in their re-making or re-forming of places, after being
suddenly displaced by different disaster situations.
