Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1,500 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
The common use of the term bayanihan has inspired NGOs, governments, and the media evoke this principle after major disasters to demonstrate the resilience of the Filipino people. But what is bayanihan in theory and practice, and does this Indigenous principle really serve to increase resilience in urban communities suffering from widespread poverty and frequent disasters? Drawing from two separate but overlapping case study research projects in the province of Leyte after typhoon Haiyan and drawing on the ‘insider-outsider’ dimensions of doing disaster research, we argue that despite its popular use after disasters, calling on communities to evoke bayanihan is often an inadequate policy response to the collective action problem that commonly exists in post-disaster recovery. As such, we call for a more critical examination of the potential and limitations of using bayanihan as a post-disaster response in the Philippines. In addition, echoing the concerns of others, we caution against the over-reliance on bayanihan and other Indigenous Filipino coping strategies as a source of post-disaster community resilience, particularly if doing so shifts pressure away from governmental institutions and humanitarian organizations with formal responsibilities.
This chapter is based on an independent and follow-up study on integrated child-centered disaster risk reduction and management (IC-DRRM) programs and activities of the Department of Education, concerned local government units (LGUs), and select communities in Bohol, Philippines, that were the project-implementing partners of the School-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Management in the Philippines. Adopting the insider and outsider perspectives of doing qualitative research provide an in-depth and objective analysis in examining whether the project interventions during the Bohol earthquake post-disaster response and partners’ initiatives are sustained and/or scaled up that promote resilience among children and communities. Results of the study demonstrate the synergies, child participation, and how the Department of Education, the two pilot LGUs (Maribojoc and Loon), and their communities have adopted and scaled up to sustain an integrated child-centered DRRM as they move forward in resilience building. The conclusion underscores the much-needed IC-DRRM and resilience building and its requisites for safer and resilient schools and communities and ‘disaster risk proofing development’ towards sustainable development.
This chapter provides a narrative inquiry on the practice of applied theater that aims to recenter grassroots participation as a post-disaster recovery program. Through auto-ethonograpy, the author reflects, complicates, and envisions ethical methodology of co-producing and co-creating community-based theater that deals with the impact of climate crises in local communities. A thematic centering on the renewal of creativity in the aftermath of disaster, the author asserts that collective creation in community-based theater performances underscores an attentiveness in agentic representation of social trauma brought by climate crises. He also argues that empowerment in post-disaster work is always a shared responsibility. Using the processes of applied theater, the author foregrounds the multivalent possibilities of mobilizing creativity, relationality, and solidarity.
This is the concluding section of the book which synthesizes the themes and chapters and implications beyond the Philippines.
Disasters open up opportunities for women’s participation and engagement beyond the traditional gender roles. It draws attention toward empowering contributions (for example, financial, decision making, and community participation) and the transformation of gender roles. As a case in point, women’s capacity to take on the role as partners in community building is highlighted in disaster recovery efforts. Through these shifts in traditional gender roles, women are rendered visible in comparison with past experiences of invisibility and marginalization. This chapter expands beyond women’s vulnerabilities and marginalized status to explore the experiences of low-income, rural women in a disaster context.
Braun and Clarke’s thematic framework highlights narratives of women’s struggles to survive and rebuild. Revealed is the stark reality of women burdened by caregiving yet embracing new roles to help with family and community recovery. Women’s active role and engagement in disaster recovery reflect the UN’s agenda for Sustainable Development specifically to achieve gender equality. Toward this end, women must be recognized for their active involvement and contribution to community building. Their capabilities and strengths in disaster and post-disaster contexts need to be harnessed to reinforce and maintain shifts in gender roles.
Bringing together the voices of local scholars in the Philippines, this book offers critical insights into one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions.
The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world, with the effects of climate change contributing to rising sea levels and increasingly frequent typhoons and floods. Case studies in this book examine such disasters, including the aftermath of 2013 super typhoon Haiyan. Discussions are centred around four themes: women and empowerment, economics and recovery, community and resilience, and religion and spirituality.
Through its analysis, the book demonstrates the scopes, inequities and inefficiencies of policies and responses, as well as forms of empowerment and resilience, in meeting challenges in disaster-afflicted communities in the Philippines. Its conclusions provide a more nuanced and grounded perspective of policies, practices and approaches in the sociology of disasters today.
Disasters in the Philippines: Before and After Haiyan is a collection of original works produced mostly by local scholars and specialists in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries. Case studies examine the disasters in the Philippines using selected themes such as women empowerment, children, disability, economics and recovery, communities and resilience, and religion. Disasters caused by natural hazards are likely to increase in frequency and severity due to the global impact of climate change, yet the scholarly examination of its social and economic dimensions in vulnerable areas in the Asia-Pacific region like the Philippines is not well established. This new collection provides a more nuanced and grounded perspective of policies, practices, and approaches in the sociology of disasters today.
Traditional division of labor and gender roles are evident before a disaster. Gender issues can be heightened during disasters but the blurring of boundaries, its extent and fluidity have not been fully understood. The gender role of caregiving influences a woman’s own and her children’s nutrition and health outcomes during disasters. In 2009, tropical storm Ketsana (Ondoy) and typhoon Parma caused major flooding disasters in the Philippines.
This chapter used an adapted UNICEF food and nutrition framework with a care model to understand how nutrition and health preservation with women’s contributions prevailed in Laguna-affected communities. Mixed-methods research was undertaken describing demographic, health, nutrition, and household food security profiles 18–24 months post-disaster. A total of 20 mothers were interviewed to explore the nexus between gender and food and nutrition security. Mothers and children were more food insecure post-flood disaster. Women engaged in overt coping strategies to adapt. Women’s caring role is a strong contributor to child nutrition preservation during disasters. Challenges in women’s social role highlight the need for support for women and households during and after disasters.
The extent of the damage that was brought about by super typhoon Haiyan creates an avenue for the numerous survivors to tell stories of how they suffered, survived, and moved on during and after the disaster. This is an ethnographic study about the residents of San Juan, Sta. Rita, Samar, who were survivors of super typhoon Haiyan. As a qualitative approach, data were collected through a series of visits, interactions, and interviews among the research participants, mostly the women of San Juan. From their narratives, the women’s pre-Haiyan socio-economic realities were similar to those of women in rural poor communities characterized by very low incomes, unmet basic needs, low levels of education, despondency, and constraint. This worsened after the disaster. However, this hopelessness changed when they were able to access financial assistance which they used to tap their entrepreneurial skills in ecotourism. These positive transformations that surfaced among the women were in dark contrast to their pre-Haiyan disposition. The women are agents of change benefiting the whole community of San Juan. While the women are not conscious of it, these changes are initial steps toward the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goals that every country aspire to in the year 2030.
As issues about climate change, global warming, and the environment have become part of discourse and policy around the world, the relations between gender and labor market regimes arising in post-disaster communities seem paramount. Gender is a recognized aspect of the differences between men and women in survival rates and impact on their economic and social well-being during and after the onset of disasters. Post-disaster communities are unique in their own ways of survival, resilience, and dynamics of intervenors in reconstruction efforts and development strategies. Governments, non-profit organizations, international aid agencies, and individual philanthropy work together or independently to rebuild economies. The interplay of these actors in creating labor market regimes in post-disaster communities affects local populations: for example, who benefits from it, who participates in it, and how they participate. This chapter explores the relations between gender and labor market regimes in post-disaster communities. After a natural disaster, the gendered composition of households changes due to death and or migration. The issue of who is left behind is crucial to the household’s participation in employment and the type of employment generated. Feminist analysis infused data from fieldwork in urban and rural areas.
