Everyone is invited to attend the open lecture “The Reciprocity of Misfortune: The little tradition of disasters in the Philippines” this Wednesday, September 25, 2024 (4:00 PM to 5:30 PM) at Pavilion 2 Geography Conference Room (Pav 2 Rm 2248). Our guest speaker is Professor GREGORY E. BANKOFF, Professor of Modern History at Ateneo de Manila University. 

This talk explores the origins of community resilience in rural areas of the Philippines based on reciprocity and cooperation and how these customary practices form the basis of current national disaster risk reduction policies. The ceaseless struggle to feed and shelter a family and, at the same time, to contend with repeated hazards, whether natural or human-induced, promoted collective action. There was a need to cooperate with your neighbour, a web of dyadic and community relationships born out of necessity that constituted a “reciprocity of misfortune.” Utilising the Historical Data Papers, a hitherto largely untapped source on rural history, the dynamics of this little tradition of self-help and mutual benefit are analysed and the way in which its folk practices were universalised into the great tradition of community-based disaster risk management policy are explained. Just as there is a great and little tradition in religion and civilisation, so there is a great and little tradition in disaster.

This lecture is made possible through the collaborative effort of the UP Department of Geography (Geog 135 class and the Geographies of Disasters and Hazards Research Cluster), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series (with the Philippine Geographical Society), Geographic Society of the University of the Philippines (UP GeogSoc), Junior Philippine Geographical Society-UP Diliman (JPGS-UP Diliman), Geomajie Core Group, and the CSSP Office of the Associate Dean for Research, Extension, and Publications (CSSP OADREP).