Images of the devastation wreaked by typhoons, flooding, earthquakes and drought in the Philippines circulate globally as an important part of disaster discourses. This collection seeks to move beyond these simplistic representations of calamity by bringing together a group of Filipino and international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to grapple with the complex nature of disaster in the Philippines. Firmly grounded in the relationship between disaster and place, the volume’s contributors confront the challenges of the Philippine nation’s internal heterogeneity of language, ethnicity and class. In doing so, this book seeks to engage the specificities of place amid diversity, and explores two broad but interrelating avenues of investigation through case studies drawn from across the archipelago: How can environmental extremity in the Philippines help us understand disasters? How can disasters help us understand the Philippines?

Images of the devastation wreaked by typhoons, flooding, earthquakes and drought in the Philippines circulate globally as an important part of disaster discourses. This collection seeks to move beyond these simplistic representations of calamity by bringing together a group of Filipino and international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to grapple with the complex nature of disaster in the Philippines. Firmly grounded in the relationship between disaster and place, the volume's contributors confront the challenges of the Philippine nation's internal heterogeneity of language, ethnicity and class. In doing so, this book seeks to engage the specificities of place amid diversity, and explores two broad but interrelating avenues of investigation through case studies drawn from across the archipelago: How can environmental extremity in the Philippines help us understand disasters? How can disasters help us understand the Philippines?

Recognising the distinctive context of the Philippines, with its unique long history, and peculiar population distribution across thousands of islands, this edited collection analyses its decidedly familial culture. Why do Filipino families maintain perhaps the strongest family bonds of any culture? How have shown a unique ability to persevere, even when faced with the direst of circumstances? Covering a broad range of topics, chapters and commentaries delve into changing gender roles, poverty and family dynamics, mothering in prison, teenage fatherhood, dating and mate selection, rural family norms, the interweave of family and community, media representations on families, new forms of parenthood, remittances and familial support systems, and how overseas employment affects spousal and parent-child relationships. A highly comprehensive ethnographic analysis, Resilience and Familism demonstrates in a specifically Filipino context how strong familial ties can affect inner strength and outer determination.