1.12.2009
14 december:
lezing over oorlogsschade in de Filippijnen door professor Greg Bankoff
In het kader van de Asia Lectures houdt Greg Bankoff, hoogleraar Environmental History and Disaster Studies aan de Universiteit van Hull, een Engelstalige lezing onder de titel 'Valuing Nature: The Philippines War Damage Commission 1946-1951'. Omdat de Amerikaanse president beloofd had dat alle oorlogsschade vergoed zou worden, werd een commissie ingesteld om de schade in beeld te brengen.
Introduction (English)
Wars are increasingly costly affairs: Not only are they more and more expensive to fight but they are also giving rise to larger and larger claims for compensation. The Second World War is still the costliest human conflict in real terms given its global geography and its total nature and it also spawned an enormous number of claims for damages to persons and properties. In the case of the Philippines, still an American colony till 1946, President Franklin Roosevelt promised its people that they would be paid for everything they lost right down to the last nipa hut and last carabao. The Philippines was one of the most fought over countries of the war suffering Japanese attack, three years of occupation and then an American invasion and reoccupation, all of which were fiercely contested. Large parts of the most densely inhabited and intensively farmed areas of the country were devastated and much of the capital, Manila, was left in ruins including the old Spanish citadel that remains largely that way till today. Under the Philippine Rehabilitation Act of 1946, a War Damage Commission was established to investigate, assess and compensate these losses. The most common claims made were based upon the total or partial destruction of small houses, simple tools, work animals (mainly carabaos, pigs and chickens), and stocks of wood. Others, however, were for much larger amounts and included corporate and business losses and damage to public property and utilities.
Professor Bankoff looks at how wartime damage to the Philippine environment was assessed and how such losses were calculated at both a personal and societal level. He explores what war meant for the people most affected, not the combatants per se but those whose fields, homes and businesses provided the battlefields where the conflict was played out. Also, by examining the decisions of the Commission, he tries to unravel the value systems at work by assessing the worth attached to certain aspects of the environment over others because of some defined characteristic such as utility, property, usufruct, or rights. War, it seems, often makes us value the environment more than peace does.
Algemene informatie
Datum: December 14, 2009
Tijd: 15.00-16.00 PM
Lokatie: Vergaderzaal, Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), Herengracht 380, Amsterdam Spreker: Professor Greg Bankoff. Environmental History and Disaster Studies. Department of History. University of Hull. Voertaal: Engels
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