Globalising myths of survival: post-disaster households after Typhoon Haiyan

Abstract

Disasters, as forms of crisis, offer opportunities to place in sharper focus historical and ongoing inequalities in the production and reproduction of everyday life. The opportunity for transformative change, however, risks being lost when representations of disaster increasingly obscure and silence the full costs and complexity of post-disaster recovery. This article identifies the construction and subsequent proliferation of survival myths in the context of the Philippines after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan disaster from a feminist perspective. Using data from in-depth interviews and surveys, we examine the experiences of middle and lower-class households in three heavily affected communities in Tacloban City to challenge three dominant survival myths: the local culture of mutual assistance (bayanihan), the endless resourcefulness of Filipinos in times of crisis, and the positive contributions of overseas migrant remittances. We argue that these myths have served as tools for reinforcing gendered inequalities during and after the disaster because they render invisible the feminisation of care burdens, and contribute to gender gaps in ensuring accountability for post-disaster governance. The evidence from this research underscores the importance of interrogating how similar survival myths are being globalised in disaster governance at the expense of forging substantive gender equality in post-disaster settings.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• disasters
• gender and crisis
• Philippines
• resilience

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their instructive feedback and the editor, for a supportive publication experience. We are also very grateful to Professor Ladylyn Mangada whose generosity, insights and mentoring facilitated the beginning of our collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

International Development Research Centre; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Yvonne Su

Yvonne Su is a Ph.D. candidate in political science and international development at the University of Guelph in Canada. Her research examines poverty and inequality, climate change, resilience, and migration. Yvonne has published on climate change-induced displacement, mainstreaming climate change resilience into urban policy, applying the capabilities approach to the global governance of migration and post-disaster recovery in the Philippines. Her current research is on post-disaster recovery, remittances, social capital, and development in Southeast Asia.

Maria Tanyag

Maria Tanyag is a Lecturer at the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Monash University Centre for Gender, Peace and Security where she was also awarded her PhD in 2018. Maria’s current research interest is in theorising how the standpoints of indigenous and internally displaced women reconceptualise climate change as an integrated global security, rights and development agenda.