UGAT 28th Annual Conference - The Philippines Unbound: Anthropological Critiques of Globalization

UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)
Anthropological Association of the Philippines

28TH Annual Conference of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines
"The Philippines Unbound: Anthropological Critiques of Globalization"
26-28 October 2006
Silliman University, Dumaguete City

This theme offers a wide range of options for contributed papers and panels. These should draw on empirical evidence toward assessing the complexities and outcomes of globalization – negative, positive, or mixed, which reaches to the corners of every sitio and province in the Philippines, and which world process is carrying Filipinos to every corner of the globe. Paper and panels should raise important theoretical, methodological, and practical action and policy issues. Possible topics fall into four broad areas:

- CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
- VIRTUAL, IMAGINED, AND DIASPORA COMMUNITIES - POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
- THE NEOLIBERAL PARADIGM, and GROWTH, TRADE LIBERALIZATION, AND LOCAL ECONOMIES

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 12 August 2006

Abstracts should be 1-page long (single-spaced) and should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation and contact details (mailing address, telephone no., mobile phone no., e-mail address). They should be sent to UGAT Office, Philippine Social Science Center, Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City or to ugat_aap@yahoo.com. For further inquiries, please contact Monica Santos (0917-5336578), Rosa Castillo (0917-6298949) or Butch Rufino (0917-8991112) or send e-mail to ugat_aap@yahoo.com. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified through mail, phone or e-mail.

Papers read in the conference may be published in Agham-Tao, the official publication of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines.

Student Paper Competition The UGAT encourages active participation of graduate and undergraduate students. Student paper presenters will be scheduled in appropriate conference sessions. Awards will be given to best papers in the graduate and undergraduate levels. Winning papers will be published in the Agham-Tao.

For more details, please go to www.geocities.com/ugat_aap/UGAT_conference28.htm or e-mail ugat_aap@yahoo.com

THE PHILIPPINES UNBOUND: ANTHROPOLOGICAL CRITIQUES OF GLOBALIZATION (Concept Paper)

Anthropological perspectives portray globalization in what Xavier and Rosaldo (2002) say as “the intensification of global interconnectedness….where borders and boundaries have become increasingly porous, allowing …peoples and cultures to be cast into intense and immediate contact with each other.” This “world in motion” highlights accelerating flows of capital, people, commodities, images, and ideologies in a framework of densely-linked networks. People experience a compression of time and space, communicating instantaneously and interacting in virtual space. Local happenings are shaped by events far away, while global events are affected by local happenings.

The controversies of globalization swirl primarily around its economic dimensions. Critics castigate its hegemonic neoliberal agenda exalting the free market, competition, and profit as fuel for “the engine of human progress.” Anti-globalization protesters criticize the privatization of public services; the commodification of personal relationships; the weakening of nation-states; the belief in economic growth as the cornerstone of wealth creation and human progress; and the overwhelming influence of corporations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund as the major institutional bearers of neoliberalism. Further criticisms target the increasing dominance of finance capital in international trade, the drive toward a unified global market, and problematic trade regimes under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Critics of economic globalization further highlight its negative effects on people and communities – marginalizing social goals, cohesive community values, and fundamental human needs. They stress the widening gap between the rich and the poor in both developing and industrialized countries. Likewise lamented are the decreased access of poor people to potable water, health services, basic education, and decent shelter, reduced biological diversity and environmental sustainability, destruction of local cultures, undermining of ethnic and national identities, and decision-making concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Ever conscious of the role of human agency in people’s management of their everyday lives, anthropologists have challenged many of the generalizations made about globalization. They draw attention to distinctive cultural representations rather than a homogenizing world, to South-North and South-South flows contradicting assertions of unidirectional North-South flows, and to intersecting systems of meaning rather than core-to-periphery flows. Since human agency in a globalizing world, they argue, is also part of globalization, human groups are finding ways of capturing its benefits, diminishing or avoiding its more detrimental elements, and reforming or transforming globalizing processes into positive forces for ordinary people.

The 28th UGAT Annual Conference with “The Philippines Unbound: Anthropological Critique of Globalization” as its theme offers a wide range of options for contributed papers and panels. These should draw on empirical evidence toward assessing the complexities and outcomes of globalization – negative, positive, or mixed, which reaches to the corners of every sitio and province in the Philippines, and which world process is carrying Filipinos to every corner of the globe. Papers and panels should raise important theoretical, methodological, and practical action and policy issues. Possible topics fall into four broad areas:

CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
- Identities, heritage and images
- Food, clothing, shelter, education, health and medicine
- Music, art, drama, film, television, radio, media
- Gender: feminist, gay, lesbian, transsexual communities

VIRTUAL, IMAGINED, AND DIASPORA COMMUNITIES
- Migration and transnational families
- Global networking through digital technology: NGOs, POs, religious and faith-based groups, civil society
- The digital divide

POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND THE NEOLIBERAL PARADIGM
- Impact on indigenous groups; or rural/agricultural/fishing/mining/upland farming communities; or people in cities and towns; or rural-urban transitions
- State-generated aggression: warfare and militarization, dam-road-railroad-airport-commercial construction and displacement of peoples, large-scale mining and its impact on residential communities, agricultural policy and food security/hunger; tourism and its human consequences
- Terrorism, crime; violence

GROWTH, TRADE LIBERALIZATION, AND LOCAL ECONOMIES
- Small and medium scale business enterprises under trade liberalization
- Employment, underemployment, seafaring, call centers and income
- Corruption
- WTO (World Trade Organization) developments, government policy, and the implications for people’s everyday lives