Local people's perceptions of recovery are commonly overlooked, even though they should be at the centre of the recovery process. This paper aims to understand the ways in which locals view recovery and, more specifically, how the local definitions of recovery compare with the concept of ‘building back better’ extensively used by policy makers, scholars and humanitarian agencies. The study draws on 460 questionnaire-based surveys with people affected by Typhoon Haiyan in three barangays, the smallest administrative unit in the Philippines, in Tacloban City as well as twenty key informant interviews with community leaders, and staff from non-government organizations and the government. The paper shows that a large majority of affected people see recovery as coming back to normal and only a few associate the recovery with reducing disaster risk. It further identifies a divide between outside organizations and local people on how they perceive “build back better”, where a lack of common understanding of what ‘better’ means and limited support, can lead to unsuccessful recovery.

当地人对恢复的看法通常被忽视，即使他们应该处于恢复过程的中心。本文旨在了解当地人如何看待复苏，更具体地说，是将当地的复苏定义与决策者，学者和人道主义机构广泛使用的“更好地重建”的概念相比较。这项研究利用了460基于问卷调查，在三个受台风海燕人各镇，是塔克洛班市（Tacloban City）菲律宾最小的行政单位，并对社区领导人以及来自非政府组织和政府的工作人员进行了20次重要的线人访谈。该文件显示，大多数受影响的人认为恢复已恢复正常，只有少数人将恢复与减少灾难风险联系在一起。它还进一步确定了外部组织与当地人在如何看待“更好地重建”之间的鸿沟，在这种情况下，对“更好”的含义和有限的支持缺乏共识会导致失败的恢复。