UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)
Anthropological Association of the Philippines
39th Annual Conference
THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS:
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON WHAT IS AND WHAT OUGHT TO BE
9-11 November, 2017
Capitol University, Cagayan de Oro City
Participants to the 39th UGAT Annual Conference are invited to consider ‘rights’ as a lens by which to weigh the realities of people’s daily lives against what they believe they are entitled to in their lives, in terms of goods or benefits, services or resources, or respect and human dignity. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that there is a difference between what is and what ought to be; a difference that demands analysis in terms of context and causation, and understanding in terms of appreciation of peoples’ perceptions of their situation and their agentive responses thereto. This project is timely, given the new, sometimes unsettling times and spaces people now occupy.
In this way, we may seek to foster further critical reflection upon the state of our country, people, and communities today; encourage theoretical and methodological refinement in the work of academics, activists, development workers, media practitioners, policy-makers, legislators, government officials, educators, health practitioners, and other actors; and perhaps provide a platform for dialogue on the possible role of anthropologists and other scholars and practitioners in light of the presentations and discussions in the conference.
Proposals for panels and paper that rely on local, ethnographic, or community-generated case-studies are particularly invited to address the following topics:
- Roots of rights: indigenous or Philippine understandings of rights and obligations; reflections on religions and rights
- Indigenous rights: assessing the IPRA on its 20th year; realizing self-determination; changing discourses (e.g., national minorities vs. indigenous peoples); indigenous concept of justice and rights in conflict resolution; recognition of rights according to the customary laws of indigenous communities
- Human rights 1: consequences of war (e.g., secession, drugs, insurgency, etc.; the phenomenology of counter-insurgency; ethnographic reflections on state and anti-state violence)
- Human rights 2: ethnographies of silence (or public acquiescence to violence); public secrets; scholarship in times of trouble
- Women’s rights: continuities and changes; the state of Philippine feminism and feminist anthropology
- Gender rights: sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions; LGBTQ+ rights
- Moro rights: Islamic notions of rights; reflections on Moro identity and resistance; anthropological insights into the Moros’ road to peace
- Governance and self-determination: issues in sovereignty; individual rights and human security; state power and instrumentalities
- Rights of the displaced or dislocated: ethnographies of the internally displaced; the plight of informal settlers; issues arising from displacement or dislocation due to conflicts and disasters
- Labor rights: continuities and changes; labor conditions in new and/or ‘shadow’ industries
- Farmers’ rights: assessing the state’s agrarian reform program; the impact of climate change; the state of farmers and farming in the country
- Property rights: transnational companies and local land grabs; the phenomenology of urbanization; issues in tenure systems
- Environmental rights: continuities and changes in environmental advocacy; local responses to global climate change; articulating the rights of Nature; biodiversity conservation
- Consumer rights: the ethnography of traffic; the phenomenology of disaster and life after disasters; reflections on the right to information; the internet as venue for activism and anti-activism
- Rights of the disabled: reflections on/by people with physical and mental disabilities; inclusivity in the workplace; access to basic services; assessment of the implementation of the Magna Carta for disabled persons
- Media rights: access to media and information; issues and concerns in various media (e.g., print, broadcast, new, social, etc.)
- Children’s rights: the ethnography of young people; children in conflict with the law; the right to basic education, play and self-expression; issues on bullying
- Language rights: struggles against the extinction of languages; the language of rights, the language of impunity
- Rights to the past: Heritage and the materiality of symbols; struggles against revisionism; who owns the past?
- Intellectual and privacy rights: copyright and ownership issues of creative, scholarly and other intellectual pursuits; informed consent and rights of research subjects
- Non-human rights: rights and obligations in human and non-human relations; multispecies ethnographies; do spirits, plants, and animals have rights?
Conference Convenor: Atty. Augusto Gatmaytan, PhD
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
- Proposals for papers must include an abstract (250 words) written in a style that is accessible to non-academic audiences. Sub-themes into which the abstract falls may also be indicated.
- Proposals for panels, must include a panel abstract as well as paper abstracts.
- Please include author’s name(s), institutional affiliation, and complete contact information (email-address, contact number and mailing address).
- Students intending to join the Student Paper competition must indicate this in the submission. Please specify the degree program, year level, and university.
- Kindly email your proposals as an attachment (in MS Word format) to ugatconference@gmail.com.
Deadline: 10 August 2017
Notice of acceptance of proposals will be issued by email by September 2017.
For further information, please contact the conference secretariat at ugatconference@gmail.com (Jessie Varquez, Jr.) or 09273037081 (Lilian de la Peña).
Monitor UGAT on FB for updates: www.facebook.com/groups/ugat1978/.
