Benevolent discipline: governing affect in post-Yolanda disaster reconstruction in the Philippines

This paper analyses how affect and emotions are activated and embodied by the state in post-disaster rebuilding. It focuses on the reconstruction of Tacloban City, Philippines, which was devastated by typhoon Yolanda in 2013. I introduce the concept of benevolent discipline to characterise a mode of governing that is animated by the state’s narratives and performances of ‘benevolence’ as a way of regulating the conduct of constituents towards its aspirations for recovery. I show how the discourse of safety – used to justify the relocation of informal settlers from the city’s danger zones – coalesces with disciplinary techniques targeting the affective life of the urban poor to produce ‘governable’ subjects for the reconstructed city. I show that the state’s altruistic performances in this regard and the mobilisation of affect and emotions constitute mechanisms of power that serve to dispossess and marginalise displaced communities. I argue that affect and emotions play a critical role in the everyday experiences of recovery. A focus on affective dimensions of post-disaster governance helps expose the potentialities of power previously obscured in studies of disaster reconstruction.