Category Archives: Corinne

Ask, listen, regroup, repeat. Reflections on research process and methodology

Written 1/12/15

“Process is as important as content,” Father Bert reminded us yesterday. To say that this fieldwork program is unique is to force extraction of the full meaning of the word – rare, distinct, specific, containing differentiated features from anything else, anywhere – from any other academic trip in any location. I want to write about our research process here because now is such an incredibly unique time to be experiencing and investigating peacebuilding in Mindanao.

Our research process quickly reached a rhythm within two or three days in the field. Professor Iyer initiates the visit with introductions, our interest and purpose in Mindanao: to investigate and understand the local approaches and challenges to peacebuilding in the context of the conflict in Mindanao. We are her fifth cohort – previously she has facilitated student fieldwork in Cambodia, Nepal, India, and Sierra Leone – to study peacebuilding, development, and conflict resolution in areas recovering from violent war. Our hosts – whether grassroots NGOs, development agencies, peacebuilding advocates, political or religious leaders – provide a general overview of their mission and activities, followed by an open forum for questions.

First meeting in Davao City

First meeting in Davao City

Meeting with NGO Coalition leaders

Meeting with NGO Coalition leaders

 

Father Bert

Father Bert

Having the space and private attention to ask our questions is truly a privilege. This feeling is encouraged by our generous and unfailing Filipino hospitality. We are served cold water, juice, coffee, fresh fruit, or snacks as our thoughts fly, questions stream along, and answers are passed around the room. Even under the discomfort of a tense question, people do their best to give us a satisfactory response. To the community organizers at the development coalition center, “What are your greatest challenges to gaining participation in your programs?” I ask. They reply that it is difficult. When there is a newly funded livelihood project promising an income and opportunity, people will come and attend the trainings. But regular attendance and participation can be costly, and the pressures of poverty do not allow some people to get involved.

 

Our first community meeting

First community visit in Tulunan

Discussing family life in the community

Discussing family life in the community

As the days go on, our radar becomes more attuned to nonverbal communication, to the power dynamics in the room and how the perspectives are incentivized and shaped by the political forces of development. Professor Iyer provides key insights into unwinding these complex connections. The group learning process is endlessly fascinating – with each passing hour, we absorb new details, our minds our changed, and new themes become our priority. As though we are under a waterfall of puzzle pieces, scrambling to collect and make sense of them together.

Decades of struggle and violence have plagued the lives of Mindanaoans on varying scales and intensities. At one time, the Indigenous People were the victims of war and oppression, in another, the Moros, the Christians or the settlers. There is the feeling that all have suffered in this conflict. Most acknowledge that “others” (those of different clans, ethnicities, or religious identities) have also suffered unnecessarily in the long conflict in Mindanao, and deserve a say in the peace process. Many times there is no clear line between who are the victims and who are the perpetrators.

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Now, the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law is on the horizon. Long arduous months of negotiation between the Philippine National Government and the MILF – along with intensive community advocacy, inter and intra-faith dialogue, and public consultations – is culminating this year. The culture and rhetoric of conflict and peacebuilding is built into the culture in a way that is potent and persistent. Implementation is unclear yet hopes are high.

We leave when it is time, with many, many thank yous and handshakes. We have been connected for this brief time with people and their communities by the hard work, communication and logistics of the contacts of Professor Iyer and Catholic Relief Services. We have shared and gained great insights from them, another session amid countless other discussions of conflict and peacebuilding that have taken place all over the country. Romanticism aside, I hope that our group’s interests and line of questioning have brought new perspectives to light, and that our meeting has awakened new ideas in our hosts as well. Ideally it has been a mutual learning experience. We leave with a promise to share this rich information with wider audiences within our own networks and through MIIS, to tell their story, confront misinformation, and widen support for their goals and lasting peace.

It amazes me how our learning is progressing with geography. Days from Davao, the perspective from each community meeting have painted a different picture of what is peacebuilding. This approach is the building blocks of our research methodology. At this point in fieldwork, listening and recording are the most important skills. Upon reaching our last urban destination in Central Mindanao, we are somewhat familiar with the key actors, desires, history and struggles of the central stakeholders in the conflict. Parenthetically, we are as knowledgeable as much as possible after merely 7 days in the field. Though by no means familiar, we feel acquainted with the complex roots of the conflict. But there are still so many more questions to ask.

The Peace Table

Written Jan 12, 2015

One creative and unexpected totem of the peace process here in Mindanao is the peace table. In school, children that are disagreeing or fighting are brought to a designated “peace table” and made to discuss and settle their quarrel, sealed with a handshake. As a conflict resolution tool, the peace table is celebrated as a symbol of conflict resolution and motivation to practice peace making in the school setting. For teachers also, it encourages the integration of principles of dialogue, respect and conflict resolution throughout the school environment. This initiative is an essential component of Peace Education, as mandated nationally by the Department of Education’s Executive Order 570 in 2008.

We first heard about the peace table from the Archbishop in Davao on our second day, and then many more times this past week. Government officials, NGO representatives, principals, religious leaders and teachers referred to the peace table when asked to describe specifics of the peace education curriculum. Looking from the top-down, it seems to be a crucial product of the inter-religious dialogue and also a symbol of progress in the peace process. From the grassroots level, for the educators, the peace table is a source of pride and an effective teaching tool.

I think this an excellent example of how peace and “normalization” must be integrated into education and youth culture. For students, the ritual practice of bringing frustrations or fights to a designated safe space, sharing feelings openly and with respect, and develop skills of negotiation, is invaluable. In the process of advancing peace, the Philippines is also rolemodeling peace practices for the rest of the world.

Peace table for 3rd graders in a rural school

Peace table for 3rd graders in a rural school

 

En route to Mindanao

(Written Monday Jan 5, 2015)

Hello from the Philippines! I am blogging in flight from Manila to Davao – day five of travel. It was a long journey – more than 50 hours after leaving home in Oakland, one missed connection in LAX, a layover in Guangzhou, China – I arrived in Manila the morning of Sunday, Jan 4, 2015. The taxi ride from Ninoy Aquino International Airport into the heart of Manila was a hot, humid ride through the chaos of a true megacity. Under a bright white fog of pollution, we navigated through the bustling city activity, past transportation construction, cement apartments above open storefronts, weaving motorbikes and the famous brightly decorated jeepneys. Busy city activity flashed by and transformed into glitzy luxury hotels and landscaped avenues of Makati City, Manila’s financial district. The backpackers hostel most recommended on Hostelworld is called Our Melting Pot and located central to the commercial and entertainment district of Makati. At the hostel, Evyn and I ran into each other with perfect serendipitous timing, and soon headed out into the city for an afternoon of sight seeing. We visited Intramuros or Old Manila, the walled district of central Manila that, on this Sunday afternoon, housed quiet avenues of beautiful traditional colonial architecture and historical sites. We visited the famous Manila Cathedral-Basila, Casa de Manila, and Fort Santiago that included the museum and final resting place of the national revolutionary hero, doctor, poet, artist and icon Jose Rizal.

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Intramuros

Churches were the main center of activity with wedding parties, ongoing mass, tourists, and worshippers congregating in the sacred spaces. The face of Pope Francis appeared on banners, portraits, and signs everywhere anticipating his arrival later this month. It was an excellent (although short) day to experience Manila.

Back in Makati, the contrast was stark and quite dramatic. The area is indeed the consumerist capital of Manila with the bright lights and activity of shopping malls, fast food restaurants and lavish public Christmas decorations. In addition to the jetlag, it was an almost dizzying experience; even more so knowing we would be departing for Mindanao in the morning.

Looking ahead: Within this research project on conflict and peacebuilding, I am focusing on environmental justice within the peacebuilding process, looking to learn more about land rights issues, mining, pollution, and the impact on labor rights, health, food security and cultural identity of the people of Mindanao. At this point I’m somewhat familiar with some of the the academic lenses on the conflict and peacebuilding process, however I am eager to learn more through the political, legal, civil society, gender, ethnic identity and religious lenses from the communities themselves. I feel like a vessel ready to be filled (i.e. overloaded) with new knowledge in this immersive experience.

At this point, I wonder about my own cultural references to what is peace, and the activities of peacebuilding after violence. What are my frames of reference for justice? Human rights? What models of peacebuilding and development am I already socialized into through my studies in international development? The United States’ model of peace, aid and “nation-building” is notoriously wrought with violence. What alternatives are there to be explored in confronting challenges to peacebuilding?