Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of disaster rehabilitation interventions on bonding social capital in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda. Design/methodology/approach The data from the project are drawn from eight barangays in Tacloban City, the Philippines. Local residents and politicians were surveyed and interviewed to examine perceptions of resilience and community self-help. Findings The evidence shows that haphazard or inequitable distribution of relief goods and services generated discontent within communities. However, whilst perceptions of community cooperation and self-help are relatively low, perceptions of resilience are relatively high. Research limitations/implications This research was conducted in urban communities after a sudden large-scale disaster. The findings are not necessarily applicable in the rural context or in relation to slow onset disasters. Practical implications Relief agencies should think more carefully about the social impact of the distribution of relief goods and services. Inequality can undermine community level cooperation. Social implications A better consideration of social as well as material capital in the aftermath of disaster could help community self-help, resilience and positive adaptation. Originality/value This study draws on evidence from local communities to contradict the overarching rhetoric of resilience in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda.
Livelihood strategies that are crafted in 'extra-ordinary' post-disaster conditions should also be able to function once some semblance of normalcy has resumed. This article aims to show that the vulnerability experienced in relation to Typhoon Yolanda was, and continues to be, directly linked to inadequate livelihood assets and opportunities. We examine the extent to which various livelihood strategies lessened vulnerability post-Typhoon Yolanda and argue that creating conditions under which disaster survivors have the freedom to pursue sustainable livelihood is essential in order to foster resilience and reduce vulnerability against future disasters. We offer suggestions to improve future relief efforts, including suggestions made by the survivors themselves. We caution against rehabilitation strategies that knowingly or unknowingly, resurrect pre-disaster vulnerability. Strategies that foster dependency, fail to appreciate local political or ecological conditions or undermine cooperation and cohesion in already vulnerable communities will be bound to fail. Some of the livelihood strategies that we observed post-Typhoon Yolanda failed on some or all of these points. It is important for future policy that these failings are addressed.
After Typhoon Yolanda devastated the Philippines, ‘resilient’ was a term frequently used by the media, survivors, government officials and various other stakeholders in the city of Tacloban to describe those affected by the disaster. The focus of this article is therefore on how this term was articulated and experienced during this period. The analysis covers how resilience was discursively deployed to describe the condition of residents who were, in fact, often suffering from a double process of dispossession: once by the typhoon and once more by government policy and the inequitable distribution of relief goods and services due to the inadequacies of the disaster response. Despite these inadequacies, Tacloban was presented as ‘an exemplary centre’ of the post‐Typhoon Yolanda relief effort. I argue that the overarching rhetoric and strategies of resilience became rituals aimed at normalising modes of profit‐seeking and recreating the unequal socio‐economic status quo. These rituals occurred at multiple levels; however, the fortunes of Tacloban were indelibly intertwined with the political credibility and status pride of the Marcos/Romualdez family. I argue that ‘resilience’ is a complex, overused, manipulated and contested term and that a more transparent understanding of resilience for disaster relief and rehabilitation is needed.
Typhoon Yolanda brought major devastation to the local communities and infrastructure and also reshaped social structures and networks in the Philippines.During the immediate recovery process, bridging, bonding and linking social capital have had differential impacts and outcomes on how communities cope with the aftermath of the disaster. This paper investigates the interplay between the various types of social capital and their contributions to immediate coping strategies of Typhoon Yolanda communities. This paper also evaluates the complexity of defining social capital in a disaster context. In particular, it unpacks the blurring of the bridging and linking social capital at the immediate stage of rehabilitation in a post disaster context and its impacts on the social fabric of the communities. We deduce from this case study the social capital strategies necessary for a speedy recovery process both economically and socially for disaster-affected communities.
In this article Polanyi's double move and Waever's securitisation argument inform an analysis of poverty as a security issue. The inclusion of poverty on the security agenda confirms and complicates, rather than marginalises, the state as a central referent of security. It is argued that analytically and pragmatically qualitative and socially contextualised analysis of poverty offers deeper understanding than quantitative approaches. It is also argued that the rhetoric of inclusion currently espoused by the likes of the World Bank seeks to secure institutional hegemony rather than state or human security. Neo-liberal solutions to poverty premised on growth, as opposed to redistribution, mean that the states and peoples poorly equipped to compete in the capitalist game will remain impoverished. Markets and neo-liberal institutions serve to splinter, rather than coalesce, state and society.
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