UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)
Anthropological Association of the Philippines
and
Palawan State University (PSU)
40th Annual Conference
An International Gathering
OUR INTERCONNECTEDNESS:
DOING ANTHROPOLOGY IN A TIME OF ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
8-10 November 2018
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan
We invite participants to the 40th UGAT Annual Conference to reconsider the meaning of the adage, “All things are connected.” Once evocative of spiritual environmentalism, it now also calls up the messy entanglements of species, ecosystems, households, communities, economies, technologies, politics, and nation-states. Now more than ever and on unprecedented scales, organisms and persons, communities and environments are connected in complex ways, producing impacts and repercussions that may be beneficial to some, yet detrimental to others. These connections are not always visible or self-evident. Interconnectedness is recognized time and again in traditional ecological knowledge and now it is increasingly being acknowledged and probed across academic fields.
In this international conference, we aim to follow the multiple strands of our interconnectedness with the environment, and in so doing confront the ecological crises that threaten entire species and ways of life, as well as to pay attention to, and learn from human adaptability. What can we learn from local solutions or responses to climate change, extreme weather events, water and food insecurity, and the steady depletion and degradation of finite, life-supporting resources in the names of sustainable development and economic growth? Given that governments, transnational institutions, corporations, and civil society are part of these entanglements, we ask participants to consider and make explicit the practical and policy implications of their work.
In addition, we invite participants to reflect on the disciplinal and theoretical boundaries between anthropocentrism and biocentrism, and to consider the possibilities of shifting or removing these boundaries in this epoch we now know as the Anthropocene. We might examine, for example, how we have built bodies of knowledge on human-environment relationships, moving through ecological anthropology and political ecology, towards planetary anthropology, interspecies ethnography, and the investigation of the “more than human” or “other than human” aspects of anthropological work. Participants are encouraged to reassess theories, methodologies, and ethics, to revisit past studies, and to explore transdisciplinary, multi-sectoral collaborations in the light of the ecological crises we face.
We invite scholars and teachers from other disciplines, practitioners, advocates, policy-makers, development workers, and indigenous scholars, youth, and elders from around the world to be part of this reckoning in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, an island once known as the last Philippine frontier, now a site of swift environmental transformation.
We welcome abstracts for ethnographic papers or proposals for panels with a theoretical lens, community-led case studies, as well as transdisciplinary panels exploring novel methodologies and research questions on the following sub-topics:
- Cultural, linguistic, and biological diversity: the looming extinction of species, languages, and lifeways; the interconnections between health, health practices, and ecology; gendered interactions with the environment.
- Climate change: Resilience, adaptation and mitigation; disasters and disaster-response; food security; water security.
- Economies and ecologies: extractive industries and the questions of viability and alternatives; global neoliberal capitalism and its impact in local environments; class inequality and ecology; ecotourism; traditional and contemporary livelihoods.
- Interspecies ethnography: interactions and connections between humans and other species; the rights of animals, land, and bodies of water.
- Protected areas: nature conservation, sacred places, modified landscapes and seascapes; wetlands, marine ecosystems, riverine communities, forests, Indigenous Communities’ Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs).
- Ecological knowledge: traditional, local, and indigenous; environmental education; intersections between traditional ecological knowledge and science.
- Ethics and methodology for research in communities dealing with, or contributing to ecological crises.
- Revisiting early environmental ethnographies: How have things changed since? What predictions have come to fruition?
- Proposals for special panels on research conducted in Palawan (whether or not they fall under the theme or sub-topics) are welcome.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Organized panels: Proposals for organized panels may be comprised of three to four individual papers. The following must be submitted as a proposal: 1) an over-arching abstract (maximum 250 words) on the topic or argument of the panel; 2) abstracts for the individual papers that comprise the panel (please see submission guidelines for individual papers); 3) contact details of the corresponding proponent with whom UGAT may communicate directly.
Individual papers: Abstracts for individual papers (maximum 250 words) must be written in a manner that is accessible to non-academic audiences. The proponents’ resume and contact details must be appended (institutional affiliation, email address, telephone numbers, 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 ugat.conference@gmail.com.
SUBMISSION TIMELINE
The deadline for individual abstracts and panel proposals is 27 July 2018. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 15 August 2018 and will be asked to submit full papers on or before 31 August 2018.
For further information, please contact the conference secretariat at ugat.conference@gmail.com.
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Download PDF here: UGAT 40th Annual Conference CFA
