2nd Call for Papers
The Philippine Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) Two Decades Later: What Worked, What Failed, What Now?
Special issue for Aghamtao, Official Journal of Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao, Inc. (UGAT/Anthropological Association of the Philippines)
New deadline March 31, 2021
This special issue will engage in a praxis-based exploration of the Philippine Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), a law passed in 1997 intended to protect the rights of indigenous peoples (IPs) or indigenous cultural communities (ICCs), by focusing on the work of anthropologists in both institutional and non-institutional settings. As one of the earliest laws of its kind in postcolonial contexts, insights from the Philippine experience have the potential to shape the increasingly globalized discussion of anthropological research ethics in ways that examine neoliberal assumptions about rigor and representation. IPRA was informed both by national jurisprudence on land rights and mediated by the post-EDSA 1987 Constitution, as well as by transnational shifts towards shared frameworks for IP rights as expressed in various UN declarations, working groups, and permanent fora. One outcome of the law has been the routinization of research among ICCs/IPs in ways that were intended to flesh out the ethics of consent and empower those communities as research gatekeepers. How have these processes shaped anthropologically informed endeavors in scholarly and applied contexts?
We invite brief contributions (2,000-5,000 words) in English or Filipino that present, explore or assess how the law’s manifest shifts have influenced field-based scholarly and applied research in the past two decades. Emphasizing praxis as a starting point for reflection, we seek works that address constraints, innovations, barriers, responses, etc. vis a vis research on/by/alongside Philippine Indigenous Peoples. We especially encourage emerging, mid-career and/or nontraditional scholars and practitioners who engaged in fieldwork post-IPRA that include members of ICCs/IPs. This special issue intends to bring together professional, scholarly and community-based perspectives informed by anthropological practice in various contexts --- academe, community health, museum-based work, interreligious dialogue, civil society, government (GOs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), etc. --- and drawn from research conducted in Northern, Central and Southern regions of the country. Though the special issue ultimately seeks to amplify both practice-based and within-community perspectives in dialogue with legal and ethical frameworks, we are particularly interested in papers that engage in empirical, field-based inquiry.
Conceived as a means of facilitating an open and wide-ranging conversation, the special issue encourages submissions of in-process works that will benefit from brief written commentary from discussants (up to 1000 words); paper authors will similarly be invited to respond (up to 500 words), with papers, commentaries and responses pooled together as integral parts of the publication. By facilitating a focused exchange among those who study/engage/work with IPs/ICCs and their knowledge systems on the ground, this special issue will offer reflections on key developments pertaining to the law, conceptual and theoretical formulations arising from empirical research, as well as insights into new methodological perspectives and research directions.
Editors:
Maria F. Mangahas, University of the Philippines Diliman, Aghamtao Editor
Cherubim Quizon, Seton Hall University, Special Issue Guest Editor
Contributions may be sent to:
with the subject line “Aghamtao Special Issue IPRA” by 31 March 2021
The special issue will follow the formatting and style guidelines of Aghamtao; please consult previous issues in the PSSC Knowledge Archives.
Papers should be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 250 words.
As indicated above, minimum length for papers in the special issue is 2,000 words.