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
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