Merchant Resiliency and Climate Hazard Vulnerability in the Urban Philippines: Anthropological Perspectives on 2011 Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae
Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations
ISBN: 978-1-78560-361-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-360-0
Publication date: 22 September 2015
Abstract
Purpose
This paper addresses how local retailers remain resilient in negotiating the lead up to and immediate aftermath of two major disasters (Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae) within a developing urban context (Dagupan City, Pangasinan). It highlights the specific mechanisms by which urban traders engage the Philippines’ more pervasive and highly resilient “culture of disaster” vis-à-vis conditions of chronic natural hazard.
Methodology/approach
This study relies predominately on the traditional anthropological techniques of participant observation and informal/semi-structured interviews to gather relevant project data. Supplementing these two core methods are findings derived from secondary sources like local and provincial newspapers, government records, public and university libraries, and census findings.
Findings
Findings suggest that a continual cycle of disaster impact and response does not overtly affect small retailers’ entrepreneurial initiative. It becomes clear that a persistent threat of natural hazards fosters a rather fatalistic sense of self-reliance.
Research limitations/implications
Study was designed and funded as a quick-response study; therefore, the research timeframe was rather compressed and the informant pool somewhat limited.
Social implications
The Philippines is widely recognized as a “culture of disaster” given its volatile position along the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire” and “Typhoon Alley.” This distinction assumes added dimension as the effects of global climate change become increasingly pervasive at the local level.
Originality/value
This paper adds ethnographic detail to a growing body of data on small business resilience within disaster prone areas of the Global South amid intensifying global climate change.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to acknowledge the insightful contributions of Josie Gonzalez, Mario Granada, Martha Heine, and Lorena Parker Matejowsky to this work. A particular thanks goes to Eric C. Jones for his valued feedback and involvement with the design and analysis of this research endeavor. Moreover, gratitude is extended to the University of Central Florida (UCF)’s Department of Anthropology and the UCF Southern Region for their assistance during this fieldwork project. Finally, deep felt appreciation is offered to the Natural Hazard Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder for their support of this ethnographic undertaking.
Citation
Matejowsky, T. (2015), "Merchant Resiliency and Climate Hazard Vulnerability in the Urban Philippines: Anthropological Perspectives on 2011 Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae", Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 239-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120150000035010
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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