Social infrastructure and disaster risk in the Philippines
By Lauren Hocking, University of Sydney Honours student, and Catarina Agostino, Sydney Environment Institute.
Catarina Agostino: What was your inspiration behind studying social infrastructure?
Lauren Hocking: I am really interested in learning about how people relate to their built environment, as well as how the built environment can have a positive impact in terms of wellbeing, safety and community life. Coming from a combined degree with Civil Engineering (Honours) and Science with a Geography major, studying the cities around us allows me to delve into more technical aspects of how infrastructure projects come to life, as well as the deeper layers of meaning that are attached to these places, through the surrounding political landscape, economic actors, power structures, and social and cultural characteristics.
Social infrastructure is one such type of infrastructure. I am studying social infrastructure as the places and spaces in a community that facilitate meeting, gathering, networking and forming connections with others. There is growing evidence suggesting these social spaces can play an important role in mitigating and recovering from shocks, through reducing social vulnerability and increasing capabilities. I am excited to be investigating the mechanisms through which social infrastructure spaces increase capabilities, by looking into how these sites allow people to develop their relationships, which they can then draw on in a disaster. Additionally, research on social infrastructure has only been focused on a few countries, and it will be interesting to examine the case of the Philippines where this concept has received relatively little attention, and where disaster risk is very high.
What insights have you gained from your fieldwork in the Philippines?
Having the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in the Philippines was an incredible experience that I am very grateful for.
I spent three weeks in Tacloban City, in the province of Leyte, conducting over 45 interviews with community members, community leaders and city officials, as well as examining in-person the social infrastructure spaces that were mentioned in the interviews.
The interviews revealed that in the context of the Philippines, community infrastructures such as barangay (local community) halls, basketball courts and markets were the most significant sites that facilitate social interaction and allow people to develop bonds with their family, friends, neighbours and authorities. These locations were commonly used for organising meetings, disaster response training, mediating conflicts and holding events, and as such are central to strengthening relationships within the community. However, the importance of online social spaces for developing community capacity to respond to disasters also became evident, as many interviewees mentioned that they source trustworthy disaster-related information from verified, official pages on Facebook.
Before and after conducting fieldwork, I was hosted by the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute (UPRI) in Manila. Here I had the chance to learn about the incredible work UPRI is doing to increase awareness of disaster risk in the Philippines. We were grateful to receive valuable feedback on our research and preliminary findings from the fieldwork.
What impact do you hope your research will have?
Strengthening infrastructure and considering economic, social, structural, technological and environmental impact assessments is recommended by the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to best assist communities with managing risk. Infrastructure which has a known and quantifiable benefit to reducing disaster risk and an understood economic, social, and environmental value is important to policymakers and planning officials. I hope that my research will produce new knowledge of the usage and value of social infrastructure, and that this will aid policymakers in identifying the types of infrastructure projects to prioritise in vulnerable communities that will be the most effective in working towards sustainable development outcomes.