Re-membering typhoon Yolanda : oral historical reconstruction of Yolanda experience in selected coastal barangays in Pandan, Antique

Abstract

This study examines the disaster narratives of barangay officials in the wake of Super Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines in November 2013. Using oral history, fifteen village heads (Punong Barangay) were asked to reconstruct their disaster experience. This study is guided by Walter Fisher’s narrative theory (1984) and Greg Bankoff's culture of disasters theory (2006) which affords the researchers the opportunity to fully explore how the village heads reconstructed their disaster experiences as well as how they characterized their disaster experience through humor in their disaster narratives. This study reveals that there exists a narrative continuity in the disaster narratives of the village heads. The narratives are chronological and linked through a sense of directionality and causality. They focused on the resolution aspects of the stories, reflected in the long descriptions and evaluations of the stories of reconstruction and causal attribution found at the end of the narratives. Several themes also emerged in the beginning, middle, and end of the disaster narratives: stories of preparation, destruction, heroism, physical reconstruction and causal attribution of the disaster. Moreover, this study indicates that the characterization of disaster experience through the use of humor in the narratives helps to trivialize the disaster experience. It means that the use of humor is not necessarily a cure; instead it enables people to make sense of the event, cope and carry on in the aftermath of disasters. Gender and personality differences were two factors related to the use of humor in the disaster narratives. Men are more likely to use humor in their narratives than women and tend to be the creators of humor than the latter.