Hazardousness of place : a new comparative approach to the Filipino past

© Ateneo de Manila University. The historiography of the Philippines has been largely bounded by the nation-state, which has defined how its past has been conceived and to whom its peoples are mainly compared. A more transnational environmental history, however, seeks to situate the archipelago within the context of the daily threats that its peoples have to face. This article focuses on the hazardous nature of living in the islands and explores the ways in which Filipinos have adapted to natural hazards as a frequent life experience over time

Under the volcano: Mount Mayon and co-volcanic societies in the Philippines

Rich volcanic soils have long attracted human settlements, which have traded the risk of eruption against the benefits of higher agricultural yields. Yet little research has been done on how societies have normalised the risks and adapted to living in proximity to volcanoes, or how those modifications, in turn, might have influenced the effects of eruptions and their consequent hazards. In short, people have co-evolved with volcanoes to create 'co-volcanic societies'. By looking closely at the Philippines and focusing on one region of southern Luzon around Mount Mayon, this article addresses the question of how people and the volcano have 'co-adapted' to living in proximity to one another over time. It also suggests that to make societies more resilient to volcanic hazards, a better understanding of this relationship is required not only to improve current disaster risk reduction policies but even to inform everyday urban planning and civil engineering decisions

Comparing vulnerabilities: toward charting an historical trajectory of disasters

'Katastrophen haben zwei historische Verlaufskurven, eine 'natürliche', insofern sie ein oder mehrere physikalische Risiken umfassen, und eine gesellschaftliche, insofern sie wesentlich kulturell bestimmt sind. 'Historisch' sind sie, da beide Faktoren mit der Zeit einen Wandel durchlaufen. Eine historische Verlaufskurve von 'Verwundbarkeit' zu kartieren, erlaubt Vergleiche darüber, wie geschickt unterschiedliche Gemeinschaften und Gesellschaften in der Vergangenheit mit allen Formen klimatischer und seismischer Gefahren umgingen. Eine vergleichende Sicht, die nicht von der Annahme ausgeht, dass die Herangehensweise einer Kultur der anderer überlegen sei, ermutigt dazu, nicht nur daraus zu lernen, was Menschen vormals taten, sondern auch aus dem, was heute andere tun - insbesondere, wie gegenwärtige nicht-westliche Gesellschaften mit der Vorbereitung auf Katastrophen, der Schadensminderung und dem Prozess der Wiederherstellung umgehen. Und schließlich ermutigt uns der Vergleich von Verwundbarkeit auch, Katastrophen als mehr als bloß kurzfristig zerstörerische Ereignisse zu verstehen, nämlich auch als längerfristig verändernde Handlungskraft.' (Autorenreferat)'Disasters have two historical trajectories, one 'natural' in that they involve one or more physical hazards and the other societal in that they are largely culturally determined. They are 'historical' in the sense that both forces change over time. Charting an historical trajectory of vulnerability allows us to compare how skilfully different communities and societies in the past managed all kinds of climatic and seismic risks. A comparative perspective that does not start with the assumption that any one culture's approach is superior to any other's encourages us to learn not only from what people did previously but from what others do now, how especially non-western societies go about disaster preparedness, mitigation and recovery in the present. Finally, comparing vulnerabilities also encourages us to see disasters as more than purely destructive events in the short term and also to consider them as transformative agents in the longer term.' (author's abstract

Winds of colonisation: The meteorological contours of Spain's imperium in the Pacific 1521-1898

This paper examines the relationship between prevailing weather systems and colonialism in the context of Spanish possessions in the Pacific from Magellan till the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that any historical appreciation of Hispanic colonialism and culture would be incomplete without due consideration of the role meteorological phenomena played, both at the macro-level in terms of the form and extent of empire and at the more micro-level as manifest in the daily experience of communities. © 2006 The White Horse Press

Old ways and new fears bayanihan and covid-19

© Ateneo de Manila University. In times of trouble, Filipinos traditionally turn to one another for help. This form of community assistance is popularly known as bayanihan. Historically, Filipinos have met the challenges of life in their perilous homeland, whether it be from natural or human causation, by working together. Except, apparently, it no longer does, and Filipinos are now told that the same properties that made their communities so resilient in the past have been transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic into their greatest vulnerability. Even the term bayanihan has been overtly redefined through legislation and government programs to reflect entirely different purposes

Blame, responsibility and agency: “Disaster Justice” and the State in the Philippines

The notion of ‘disaster justice’, that is that governments have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable seems premised on a particular conception of the state that conforms to a Western liberal democratic model. Indeed, the failure of the state to protect its own is regarded not only as an injustice but as ‘a breach of democracy’s fundamental obligation to its citizens’. The state is seen as having a mandatory duty to shield people from physical harm through its laws and policies as well as to manage the social vulnerability consequent upon inequitable social systems. So what happens when societies are not democratic or free (or otherwise ‘free’) and where the state is premised upon a very different set of criteria? If injustice demands someone to blame, does justice require someone to absolve? By looking closely at the nature of hazards and people’s expectations of the state and state actions in one region of southern Luzon around Mt Mayon, one of the most active volcanoes in the Philippines, this paper explores whether and how a sense of responsibility for vulnerable populations developed over time. It takes a comparative perspective through an examination of the colonial and contemporary state periods to discover what relevancy the concept of disaster justice has in different temporal and contextual situations

Aeolian empires: the influence of winds and currents on European maritime expansion in the days of sail

Historiography has paid insufficient attention to the influence of winds and currents. The rise of Western European states to global dominance and world empires from the sixteenth century is usually characterised as maritime but should more fittingly be described as Aeolian or 'wind-driven'. This article examines the role winds and currents played in influencing the outline, structure and nature of Western European seaborne empires. It incorporates the patterns of winds and currents in each ocean, and the endeavours and ventures of each major European maritime power into a single global portrait that reveals the extent of the historical influence such factors exerted in the age of sail

Under the volcano: Mount Mayon and co-volcanic societies in the Philippines

Rich volcanic soils have long attracted human settlements which have traded the risk of eruption against the benefits of higher agricultural yields. Yet little research has been done on how societies have normalized the risks and adapted to living in proximity to volcanoes, or how those modifications, in turn, might have influenced the effects of eruptions and the consequent hazards. By looking closely at the Philippines and focusing on one region of southern Luzon around Mount Mayon, this article addresses the question of how people and volcano have "co-adapted" to living in proximity to one another over time. It also suggests that to make societies more resilient to volcanic hazards, a better understanding of this relationship is required not only to improve current disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies but even to inform everyday urban planning and civil engineering decisions