UGAT 41st Annual Conference: Keynote Address

KEYNOTE ADDRESS 
Mythologies, Rebellions, and Hopes: The Indigenous Lumad's Struggle for Self-determination

Prof. Sarah Raymundo 
University of the Philippines, Diliman

The struggle for self-determination of Indigenous Peoples (IP) in the Philippines persists in the face of continued attacks on their rights. In the age of agribusiness, farm-to-market roads, malls, and increased environmental risks, the views of children who are bound to inherit the struggle of their ancestors for ancestral domain are worth documenting and analyzing. In particular, how school children describe how development looks like may not only be indicative of the current conduct of IP struggle. Its very documentation and discussion are persistent in an anthropological project which has made the discipline more inclined than others in the Social Sciences to unpack the "myths' which have been suppressed by colonialism and neoliberalism. Asked how a good life looks like, a group of Lumad school children agreed on a concrete vision: "When our parents no longer need to go to the city and buy our food from the grocery, we know life is good." This is in stark contrast to how most people perceive a good life shaped by a cash economy. Through qualitative research methods, this study aims to put forward the suppressed myths about the IP's construction of the good life. This study mainly argues that recognizing these "myths" as presence in our lives, research projects, and institutions is constitutive of a necessary critique of our monopolized market system and a compelling invitation to conspire with these myths long suppressed to make food sovereignty and respect for ancestral domain sound nothing more than just "myths."

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sarah Raymundo teaches at and directs the University of the Philippines-Diliman Center for International Studies. She is engaged in activist work in BAYAN (The New Patriotic Alliance), the International League of Peoples' Struggles. She leads the Committee for International Affairs of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers. She is the Chairperson of the Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal for Labor and Society (LANDS) and Interface: Journal of/and for Social Movements.


UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)
Anthropological Association of the Philippines and
Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

41st Annual Conference
FOOD (IN)SECURITY: An International Conference on Anthropology of Food and Eating
07-09 November 2019
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

UGAT 41st Annual Conference: Keynote Address

KEYNOTE ADDRESS 
Of Forests and Gods: the biopolitics of (un)making life and livelihood in the Philippine uplands

Dr. Wolfram Dressler
University of Melbourne

Acts of governing upland peoples and landscapes increasingly reflect biopolitical endeavours in the frontiers of Southeast Asia - endeavours that aim to enhance and optimise the possibility of life. Beyond state schemes, actors in civil society fixate on the uplands to govern and discipline indigenous peoples' bodies, beliefs and behaviours in the service of outsider aims. Today, indigenous uplanders negotiate an increasing number of non-state governance practices that aim to reform life and livelihood through sustained discursive and material disciplining. Bridging Foucauldian biopolitics and material studies, in this talk I describe how the intersection of NGO and missionary practices strive to optimise upland life in contrasting yet reinforcing ways by reordering the livelihood practices and food choices of Pala'wan uplanders towards 'modern' ideals and existence. In doing so, I explore how NGOs reify Pala'wan custom and tradition to optimise livelihoods and food preferences for forest conservation, and how Seventh Day Adventists prohibit certain myths, rituals, and associated (customary) foods for locally situated proselytization. I describe how these actors' efforts to condition and discipline Pala'wan bodies, behaviours and diets powerfully intersect, reforming how uplanders reproduce themselves over time and space. I conclude by asserting that indigenous sovereignty over life and livelihood matters now more than ever as biopolitical interventions intensify and manifest in the uplands.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Wolfram Dressler is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He works at the intersectionof anthropology, political ecology and agrarian change in Southeast Asia and the Philippines in particular.


UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)
Anthropological Association of the Philippines and
Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

41st Annual Conference
FOOD (IN)SECURITY: An International Conference on Anthropology of Food and Eating
07-09 November 2019
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

UGAT Membership

Interested to be a member of UGAT ? 

As per Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao, Inc. (UGAT) Constitution and By-laws, interested individuals can become regular members of UGAT. Regular members are those who:

• Have earned a degree (Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy) in Anthropology, or
• Are deemed acceptable by the committee on membership by reason of some special contribution to anthropology, anthropological research or the promotion of anthropological activities.

Any person eligible for and desiring admission to membership can take the following steps:

• Write a letter of interest addressed to the Committee on Membership,
• Fill in the application form and email it to the UGAT Secretary of the Board (this 2019, nmagno@ateneo.edu).
• Pay the membership fee of P1,000.00 by depositing to this account:

Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao, Inc. (UGAT)
PNB Checking Account: 108 670 007 171
UP Campus Branch
3 Apacible St., UP Campus
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

• Write your name on the deposit slip and send an image of the deposit slip to the UGAT Treasurer (this 2019, melvin.jabar@dlsu.edu.ph)

You will receive confirmation and a certificate of membership. Membership is valid for one year upon payment of the annual membership fee.If you apply now, you will become a member of UGAT for the term of November 2018 to October 2019.

Your membership entitles you to a free copy of the Aghamtao journal, which you can claim during the conference. It also entitles you to a discount on your registration fee for the conference.
Members also have certain duties to fulfill:

• contribute to the attainment of the goals of UGAT;
• attend annual meetings/conferences;
• pay the annual dues;
• elect the members of the Board of Directors;
• abide by the Code of Ethics; and,
• perform other duties as the General Assembly may decide for implementation.

Thank you for expressing interest in becoming a member of the Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao (UGAT). We hope to see you this year in the UGAT Conference 2019 at Visayas State University in Baybay, Leyte.

Reference: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ugnayang-pang-aghamtao-ugat/ugat-membership/721776121612563/

UGAT 41st Annual Conference - Final Call for Papers

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS

UGNAYANG PANG-AGHAMTAO, INC. (UGAT)

Anthropological Association of the Philippines

and

Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

41st Annual Conference
FOOD (IN)SECURITY:
An International Conference on Anthropology of Food and Eating
07-09 November 2019
Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines

Food is an essential means of sustaining human life. Yet despite massive efforts on technological and scientific innovations in intensifying and improving food production and distribution on a global scale, food-related issues such as hunger and famine still beset ‘local’ communities. This precarity is further exacerbated by interlocking issues such as environmental degradation (e.g., massive biodiversity loss), disasters caused by climate change (e.g., prolonged droughts and strong typhoons), weak political institutions (e.g., food aid failures), unsound economic policies (e.g., food prices impact on family hunger), and social inequality, among others. As a consequence, the emergence of counterculture mass movements due to food (in)security, such as slow food movement, locavorism, vegetarianism and veganism, among others, is becoming popular and powerful, irrespective of national boundaries and identities.

There is thus a need to reexamine and rethink how food is produced, circulated, and consumed. Food and eating has to be interrogated and unpacked in the context of local understandings vis-à-vis global processes in various human conditions and temporalities. While global processes shape and inform foodways and eating habits, anthropology pays attention to myriad and contested ways on how specific contexts understand, interpret and articulate the meanings of food and the practices of eating.

This year’s UGAT Annual Conference organizers are accepting papers, panels, and short film/video proposals that consider ‘security’, or lack thereof, as the key frame in understanding themes and issues concerning food and eating. The UGAT conference aims to provide an arena for reflexive and critical discussions on food-related issues, and to foster meaningful and engaged discussions among practitioners of anthropology – whether in academe, development and cultural work, media, art, advocacy, policy and governance, community work, or other forms of social action.

Proposals are welcome to address any of the following topics:

• Global Issues -- authenticity (food identities, heritage, heirloom veggies, agricultural tourism, tourism and gastronomy; security and hunger (insecurity and internal displacement, food sovereignty, impact of climate on food and nutrition, sustainability)
• Ethnographies -- Production (bayanihan farming, innabuyog, fishing, hunting, farming, subsistence vs surplus, seasonality, material culture in preparation, distribution and consumption); Processing(boiling, gata, sugab, kilaw, seasoning (Japanese dashi), kakanin); Distribution(tabu, tiangge, palengke, supermarket, hypermarket, food sharing, gift-giving); Consumption (sociality, manners, food etiquette, structure of the meal, feasting, fasting & famine)
• Economy and Environment -- food trade, trade wars, multinational corporations, plantation economy and agribusiness, food and agriculture, farming systems, livestock, food and the sea; environmental decline, biodiversity loss; more-than-human anthropology (human-animal, human-plant relationships), producing non-food cash crops, overharvesting, genetically-engineered food and transgenics
• Indigenous and Local Knowledge Systems and Practices -- ethnobiology, ethnoscience, endemic food; recipe studies (historical, contemporary, cross-cultural, regional, importance of place)
• Health, Medicine, Nutrition, Food Safety -- diets and fads, child overweight and adult obesity, food as medicine, hidden hunger and malnutrition; hygiene, food science, food education, fake food
• Eating Ideologies and Practices -- organics, vegetarianism, veganism, locavorism, culinary triangle (raw, cooked, rotten), fast food vs slow food, food fallacies, food rituals, food taboos; food and gender: body image, gender roles, gender stratification through food and eating
• Archaeology of Food -- ancient diet, reconstructing diet from human remains, material culture, hunger and famine in archaeological contexts, food cultures in prehistoric societies
• Aesthetics and Sensibilities -- food as art, culinary art; food tourism and gastronomy; prestige food and pride of place, food memories
• Food Rights -- geopolitics, governance and regulation, development goals, land grabbing, displacement, land conversion, dispossession, access to food, household intake and urban poor, food policies
• Communication, Media, Folklore, History -- the language of food; food metaphors; navigating the internet: food porn, emojis, and social media; literature on food, food documentaries and histories
• Non-food Food -- food for the soul, forgetting hunger, pantawid gutom, metaphorical food

Proposals that do not fall under any of the identified topics above will be given consideration.

CONFERENCE CONVENORS

Cynthia N. Zayas (University of the Philippines, Diliman)

Jessie G. Varquez, Jr. (De La Salle University - Manila)

Guiraldo C. Fernandez, Jr. (Visayas State University) 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Submissions must use the prescribed Submission Form (http://bit.ly/2Go1AZ7) which includes an abstract (250 words) written in a style that is accessible to non-academic audiences.
• Proposals for panels must include a panel abstract as well as paper abstracts (see second page of the Submission Form).
• Proposals written in Waray, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Filipino are accepted. 
• Kindly email the completely filled-out Submission Form (in pdf) to ugat.conference@gmail.com

Deadline:  15 August 2019

Notice of acceptance of proposals will be issued by email by September 2019.

For further information, please contact the head of the conference secretariat Ms Annabelle Bonje (+63 915 547 7877) or at ugat.conference@gmail.com

To learn more about our conference venue, you can check the webpage of Visayas State University at https://www.vsu.edu.ph

Please like our UGAT page on FB for updates https://www.facebook.com/ugat1978/