Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät | Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften | Regionale Fachbereiche | Seminar für Südostasienstudien | 18 July: Bakwit as Protest: Displacements and Evacuations as Form of Resistance and Medium of Social Campaign

18 July: Bakwit as Protest: Displacements and Evacuations as Form of Resistance and Medium of Social Campaign

Lecture by Andrea Malaya Ragragio (Leiden University/University of the Philippines Mindanao)
  • Wann 18.07.2018 von 18:00 bis 20:00
  • Wo Room 117, Invalidenstrasse 118
  • iCal

Abstract:

 

I will present the historical context of and ethnographic case studies on the ‘displacement’ experienced/expressed by Manobo indigenous peoples (or lumad) of Mindanao (southern Philippines), in the context of state and development aggression in the past three decades that have seen an intensification of mass evacuations (locally called bakwit) into metropolitan centers like Davao City. Interacting closely with non-indigenous, urban-based groups for both material and non-material support, they learn to maximize their lengthening stays in their ‘places of refuge’ in metropolitan centers by launching broad social education campaigns like undertaking ‘people's political sojourns’ (lakbayan) to other major cities of the Philippines in order to popularize their causes. How do we view bakwit and lakbayan as a new mode of action in relation to the range of politico-cultural options historically demonstrated by Mindanao indigenous communities and radicalized peasants? How potent and sustainable is this mode of action? Is this phenomenon an indigenous movement equivalent to the early-21st-century surge of ‘occupy movements’? This presentation will argue that some insights, if not lessons, can be learned from the presented ethnographic cases as we reflect on the importance of intersections of struggles, visions and organizational forms that emerge from the ‘indigenous movement’ of southern Philippines.

 

About the speaker:

 

Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University. She is also currently with the faculty of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of the Philippines-Mindanao in Davao City, and helps edit BANWA, the in-house peer-reviewed journal of UP Mindanao. Previously, she worked as a graduate assistant in the Center for International Studies and as University Research Associate in the Archaeological Studies Program, both at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of the Philippines-Manila. Andrea writes about culture, education, and politics in her column Soyez Realistes in the online news outfit Davao Today (www.davaotoday.com). She is a Board Member of Salupungan International, an international solidarity network of indigenous peoples advocates, and a member of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers in the Philippines. She obtained her Master of Arts degree in Archaeology and her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.