Date of Publication

6-2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Language and Literature Major in Literature

Subject Categories

English Language and Literature | Poetry

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Literature, Department of

Thesis Advisor

Dinah T. Roma

Defense Panel Chair

Clarissa V. Militante

Defense Panel Member

John Iremil E. Teodoro
Michael Carlo Villas

Abstract/Summary

This study examines the narratives surrounding Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) through the theoretical lens of Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence, a form of environmental harm that unfolds gradually and invisibly across time and space. While Yolanda is widely remembered as a sudden and catastrophic event, this study argues that the disaster's long-term consequences—prolonged displacement, environmental degradation, and intensified socio-economic precarity—constitute a deeper, slower form of violence that disproportionately affects marginalized communities. By analyzing poems and personal narratives, the research explores how these literary writings construct the experience of environmental disaster not only as a moment of crisis but as a continuation of historical and political inequities. Furthermore, it examines how these texts reconfigure notions of place, belonging, and ecological responsibility, proposing a form of ecological literacy rooted in lived experience rather than scientific abstraction. Additionally, the study aims to reframe disaster narratives not as passive recollections of loss but as active interventions in climate discourse, capable of influencing policy, advocacy, and cultural memory.

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Keywords

Philippine literature (English); Poetry

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Embargo Period

8-12-2025

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