Growth and Renewal
The Sustainability of Charcoal Making Tradition of the Aeta in the Municipality of Capas, Tarlac, Philippines View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Erwin R. Mercado
Capas is a first-class municipality in the Province of Tarlac, Philippines. The town was a part of vast wilderness inhabited by the ethnolinguistic group known as Aetas that occupying the mountain ranges of Central Luzon. The ethnic group continue to practice the traditional cutting and burning of trees to produce “uling” (charcoal) called kaingin which the Philippine laws forbid and termed as illegal farming practices which causes soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, and landslide. Aware of its illegality, they do not have any alternative way of farming. This study considers the cultural meaning of kaingin of the Aetas and why they continue to practice it despite the environmental laws in the country. Data was gathered from focus group discussions (FGD) and one-on-one interviews with the tribal “kaingeros”. This study proposes an alternative upland farming for environmental and economic sustainability. Results show that kaingin is a part of Aeta culture and it is a source of their social and economic stability and therefore, cultural preservation.
Malakas na Barangay, Malakas na Bayan: Empowering Local Leaders Through Multi Sectoral Collaboration View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teodulo Cruz
The barangay which literally means village or community is the smallest political unit in the Philippine political structure. It is a common knowledge that barangay officials were elected not because of their credentials but because of popularity or how large the clan is. Barangay officials are the front-liners of providing basic services, executive, legislative and quasi-judicial functions among others. This project/study was conducted to strengthen the capacity of the barangay to carry out its mandate to promote poverty reduction, sustainable and inclusive human growth through the collaboration of selected government agencies, private institutions, the academe and the people of the community. The Focus Group Discussion was the method used in directly gathering the information and the results were used to effect appropriate interventions. The study yielded positive and negative results that can be utilized by future advocates to effect change and empower the barangay to carry out its mandate in the promotion of sustainable human growth and development.
Capturing Benin: Theft, Repatriation, and the Power of Photography View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Serena Jampel
The Benin Bronzes are some of the most contested art in modern history. Stolen from Benin City in 1897 by the British and subsequently displayed in museums of the Western world, these works of wood, bronze, and ivory have become central to the debate around art repatriation. While scholars mainly focus on the question of whether or not the bronzes should be returned, or on examining the art historical merit of the works themselves, none have studied photography of the Benin Bronzes and its complicity in colonial control. Photographs of the Benin Bronzes are the documentation of a painful process through which cultural heritage was stolen from the kingdom of Benin and sold for profit, and are simultaneously images meant for admirers to appreciate and distribute this art. I aim to uncover the biases of photographs considered aesthetically and artistically unimportant. I examine photographs of the Benin Bronzes from several different angles, beginning with in situ photographs of Benin and the 1897 British Punitive Expedition, to photographs distributed to art collectors at the turn of the century, to photographs in publications, museum finding aids, and digital resources. Through a combination of close looking and engagement with photographic theory, I argue that these photo-objects contain remnants of aggregate traumas — that of the object itself and that of the part-technological part-aesthetic decontextualized process of photography. In assessing a myriad of photographic sources both physical and digital, I ultimately challenge the claim of ownership to knowledge production implicit in the photo archive.
