Disaster resilience

The concept of resilience is actually a metaphor that originated from physics. However the same concept has later been applied to social sciences meaning the adaptive capacities of individuals, communities and larger societies (Norris et al. 2007). In Hyogo Framework for Action resilience is defined by UNISDR (2005) as ”the ability of individuals, communities and states and their institutions to absorb and recover from shocks, while positively adapting and transforming their structures and means for living in the face of long-term changes and uncertainty”. As part of the broader concept of resilience there exists a concept of disaster resilience. The Hyogo Framework for Action defines disaster resilience as the degree to which individuals as well as public and private sector are capable of learning from past disasters and reduce the risks to future risks at all levels (UNISDR 2005). The ways in which communities, governments and civil society can be encouraged to create a supporting environment for building disaster resilience are varied, but include

such actions as local capacity building and ensuring the participation of everyone, especially vulnerable and marginalized groups (Turnbull et al. 2013). The three major global processes that are trying to stabilize the concept of resilience are Hyogo Framework for Action, post-2015 goals focusing on sustainable development and the new international climate change agreement. Due to its different nature resilience needs different funding compared to traditional humanitarian assistance, and it requires changes in policies and structures. In a best possible case resilience can act as a bridge between humanitarian and development aid (GHA 2014).

2.7.1. Community disaster resilience

In this thesis I will focus on community resilience as it applies to disasters. Community resilience has roughly the same definition as individual resilience but the concept of community has varied meanings. A community is often described as a unity with geographic boundaries that are made up of natural, social, economic and built environments that are all linked to each other in various ways (Norris et al. 2007). That above-mentioned description of a community will be employed in this study, and therefore a community in the empirical data is understood as one barangay.

In order to build resilience in communities the local people should be engaged in risk reduction, be flexible towards unexpected situations, create participatory organizations, strengthen decision-making skills and confirm the functionality of information sharing and ensure more equal division of resources. The resilience should be seen as a process instead of an outcome. The level of resilience can be measured in the way and pace in which the community returns to the situation before the disaster. Nevertheless resilience does not mean that the community would not suffer from any stress, but instead a resilient community returns to functioning faster and the stress is only a passing phenomenon (Norris et al. 2007).

The Figure 1 illustrates the idea of community resilience as a set of adaptive capacities that are linked to each other. There are four main points in the figure that are divided into subcategories. The first one is economic development that contains the equality of resources and the diversity of economic resources. The second box, information and communication consist of for instance good information sources and responsible media.

The third box is community competence that deals with such issues as community empowerment and flexibility. The most important box in the figure is the last one, which is

social capital. I will emphasize the role of social capital in this study because it includes important characteristics for a geographical disaster study, such as attachment to place and sense of community. Also, as the topic of this study is approached from the perspective of crisis-affected people the role of social capital in resilience is particularly important (Norris et al. 2007).

Figure 1.The factors that contribute tocommunity resiliencedivided infour maincategoriesandvarious subcategories. Figure from: Norris et al. (2007).

The first subcategories of social capital in Figure 1 are received and perceived social support and informal ties. Received social support refers to the actual help that has been received, whereas perceived help refers to the idea that people believe that there is help available if they are in need. In a disaster situation social support, such as the ability to borrow money, the possibility to stay at other people’s house or sharing of vital goods, is particularly important. Social embeddedness or informal ties refer to the social relationships between people and the benefits that people gain from their social ties (Norris et al. 2007).

The last three sub categories are citizen participation, sense of community and attachment to place. Whereas social support mainly stretches from family to friendships these three dimensions encompass largely the whole neighborhood and community. The sense of community is understood as a significant factor for community resilience. It means that people in one community have shared values and concerns, trustful relationships and respect for each other. A sense of community is a feeling where people belong to the same group together. An unexpected event, such as disaster may either strengthen or disrupt the sense of community among community members (Norris et al. 2007).

On the other hand place attachment has more to do with the actual location of a place. It refers to the emotional ties to a place, such as city or a neighborhood. It does not refer so much to the connections to other people that live in the same place. Place attachment may be an essential factor in disaster recovery because natural disasters are spatial events and often cause damage in the natural environments. It is not rare that some people are displaced during or after a disaster and that might cause barriers for the community recovery. Actually, the role of place attachment is contradictory but most often it helps in a way that people in the community have a common will to rebuild the place again where they are deeply rooted (Norris et al. 2007).

Citizen participation is the participation of people in organizations, such as neighborhood watches, resident associations and self-help groups. Participation has been seen vital in disaster resilience because it increases the community engagement of people. People are given opportunities, roles and responsibilities and the community improves its organizational structure (Norris et al. 2007).