00:00.74 archpodnet Welcome to heritage voices episode 72 I'm Jessica yu quinto and I'm your host and today we are talking about working with indigenous communities in the Philippines before we begin I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the nooch. Peopleil's treaty lands the Dana and the ancestral pueblo and homeland and today we have Dr Una peredes on the show. Una peredes is associate professor of southeast asian studies in the department of asian languages and cultures at ucla. She is the author of a mountain of difference. The lumad. Yeah sorry I didn't scroll down on the page to where the pronunciation was so let me start that sentence's over. Okay, um, she is the author of a mountain of difference the lumad in earlier in early colonial mindda now. 00:47.16 Oona It's okay, okay. 00:56.58 archpodnet Published in 2013 as well as multiple academic articles on indigenous peoples in the Philippines and she was born and raised in the Philippines so welcome to the show una. 01:12.51 Oona I'm delighted to be here. Thank you. 01:16.28 archpodnet Yeah, okay, so I'm really excited about this conversation. Um like you and I talked about before we we started. There's there's lots to cover here that I think will be new and interesting for our listeners and so I'm really excited. To dive into all of that. Also I I didn't mention this beforehand but it's kind of funny to be talking about the Philippines today because it snowing pretty hard here in Southwest Colorado so it feels a little funny to be topic talking about you know a tropical place when it's it's snowing pretty good. 01:42.90 Oona Ah. 01:49.11 archpodnet But um, but yeah so to get us started. Ah, could you talk a little bit about like what got you into this field. Um, how did you get interested in this kind of work. 01:53.88 Oona Yes. 02:04.20 Oona Well, um I sort of stumbled into anthropology um in college. Um I yeah I guess I've always been interested in culture and different cultures. Um, growing up in the Philippines. It's a very multicultural kind of place every. New Island you go to or every section of of of an island that you go to. There's a different language a different culture group different heritage. Ah, and so I was exposed to all of that you know from you know, an early age. Um. And so I've always been interested in that kind of stuff and when it came to deciding on what to major in. Um I think I was already in my junior year and um I wanted I still had to pick a major and I sort of realized that all the books on my shelf were about culture and about anthropology and ethnography and. And so I ended up majoring in anthropology with a minor in history and between um, um, myba and graduate school I interned at cultural survival foundation and um. In Cambridge Massachusetts and ah, um, if you're not familiar with cultural survival. Um, you know they're they're one of these um ngos that work on. Um I guess sort of trying to they work on indigenous rights. Um. 03:34.55 Oona And or at least that's their you know focus is a lot of stuff about preserving disappearing cultures but that kind of approach you know and in that internship I sort of I thought well I you know I'd really like to do this but I realized I didn't know that much about the. You know the indigenous groups in the country that I grew up in in my own Homeland and so it sort of um, started from there and I eventually landed in the community that I've been working ah with for over 20 years now. Um about Over Twenty five years I think and um and that's basically how it happened it just sort of just sort of fumbled along and and and landed where I did. 04:23.54 archpodnet Yeah, so I mean with the Philippines having so much diversity and you know so many different um people and islands and places you could have worked. How did you? How did you choose the the community that you've been working with for the past twenty years 04:41.69 Oona Ohm well yeah, that's a good question. Um I think most when most people think about the Philippines and indigenous communities indigenous peoples but they think of the north the igorots are I think more famous around the world than any other. Sort of Subcategory of um, indigenous minority groups in the Philippines um, ah but I thought but you know I'd like to um, um, learn more about um where I grew up and I'm from the island of mindanao which is in the south. And a lot of people in the Philippines are you know, just look at mindinanao with trepidation. we' sort of really sort consider it to be a very dangerous sort of area. Um, sort's the front was the frontier for filipino settlers and um, ah you know in terms of internal migration. Um, and so but that's where my family's from and um, ah so but it was hard. It was really it was really difficult to find um ethnographies of of such groups in mindinanao and I landed upon one by a a um. An anthropologist priest named Gabrielle Casal ah and it was on the tiboli of mindinanao and they're from southota they're from kotabato which is in the north. Ah sorry the south west portion of mindinanao. 06:10.60 Oona And it was you know a really lovely sort of um I would say sort of a B flat type of ethnography very sort of romanticized sort of something produced in the sixty s I think his book was and so initially I went over there and um. Sort of again fumbled my way through met some cool people talked to some people hung out and um I thought maybe I can you know, go back and do something serious here and but it just so happened that at the same time that same year and that that same sort of. 06:44.97 Oona Period when I was in minddenanao um, one of my uncles was dying and he happened to be my favorite uncle and he was from my you know home province in the north I'm from the Northern Coast of of Minddenanao Island so went over there and um, you know he was dying. Well we didn't know he was dying then he was in a hospital and and he. Actually wanted to talk to me and um and so I went over and talked to him at the hospital and he said why are you studying the teboli when we have our own we have our own you know tribes is you know what we call them in the Philippines at Tribo. Um. Have our own um Trebo in you know in our home province and I didn't know that and so he told me yeah I talked to my you know this this colleague of his who I knew and um I said all right and a few couple of days after that he died and so. I basically it was sort of I mean not to be too melodramatic about it but it it literally was a deathbed promise for me to go. You know, ah go to to this this ah this community and so I um I managed to arrange a trip up there and um. Ah, and I've just been working with them since everything just sort of clicked and and they I think in in part were willing to tolerate my presence because of my uncle because he had worked with them in the past he was a local government official. He was a mayor um of the town that he was in and he. 08:18.97 archpodnet Um, yeah, well. 08:20.57 Oona Had um, spent a lot of time in that community. Um, there's been and still ongoing There's been a lot of um, there's been ah, sort of an ongoing insurgency a rebel movement in in the Philippines and a lot of it is in minddaanao um, especially in the more remote. Sort of um upland areas where a lot of the indigenous minorities live and he ah had been helping um the the tribe out in terms of keeping the peace and making sure that they got left alone by both the military and the rebels. 08:56.91 archpodnet A. 08:57.94 Oona And so he he that was part of his work as Mayor and I think he just sort of endeared himself to the to the um ah to to just the the tribe as a whole um and you know so that's it's It's a very um, sort of a very personal type of relationship. Um. A very personal reason why I went into this but at the same time The the sort of the I Guess the core reason in terms of um, you know in in terms of academic research was that I was just so shocked that I had never heard of of this. 09:32.87 archpodnet Are. 09:37.15 Oona People at all in the whole time I was growing up in my home province and once I learned about them. Yeah, yeah, no, it was It was like a real eye-opener for me and I just you know, um you know one of those things where you just sort of wake up and realize how blind you've been and how. 09:39.40 archpodnet That that was going to be my next question for you. 09:54.10 Oona How colonized your mentality has been that you're you're so focused in terms of you know who you are and and and the history of of where you're from that you you just look at it from a very sort of western outside perspective. Um, you don't really know what's what's um, what's been going On. Where you grew up and and but the minute that I Um, ah you know, sort of learned about them I started asking other people like you you know about this right? They're like yeah so I Just maybe it was just me. But even my grandmother knew knew about these she remembered when she was small that they would come down to um to. 10:24.60 archpodnet Um. 10:32.70 Oona Trade with her with her father who owned. Ah um, like ah um, like a sort of a ah um, a dry goodods sort of shop they would come in and and trade rice. For example for you know,? whatever they needed hemp. And and those sorts of products and yeah, so it was a really it was ah it was a really profound learning experience for me just getting to the point where I found the community to work with. So yeah, it was it was it was It was a journey. Let me tell you. 11:13.20 archpodnet Well that Okay, so that ties in to basically that what we were talking about before we got on on on air which was about how ah indigeneity is is a little different. Um. 11:22.40 Oona It is. 11:29.20 archpodnet In in the Philippines and Southeast Asia than what a lot of our our listeners are going to be used to hearing about um you know, especially the show tends to to heavily focus on on the Americas and you know we've had some guests from other places but um, predominantly the Americas so so can you. 11:38.31 Oona Um, yep. 11:47.14 archpodnet Get into explain a little bit about some of the differences there. 11:54.90 Oona Oh sure and and you know, um I guess I should say that the um, the the differences in context and the differences in terms of how indigeneity is is is um, ah you used. And and constructed and and and and understood and and um, all of that ah is is itself a subject of um academic sort of theorizing I guess among those of us who work um with indigenous groups at southeast indigenous minority groups in Southeast asia um, because we do use the the terminology from the americas from the north but you know ah this is this ah we use the the scholarship and the terminology um used by um, indigenous scholars in the north ah, and. That particular understanding of indigeneity is really hegemonic around the world. Um, and so so the the sort of the the we keep trying to still I mean maybe harmonizing these definitions is is this the wrong way to look at it but we we still. We're using that language to talk about a completely different context. but but yeah so that's also very interesting and in you know in terms of um theorizing about it. Okay, well the key difference here is that even though southeast asia was colonized it was colonized in a very different way. Um. 13:23.31 Oona We didn't have the kind of settler colonialism that you have in the north in sorry in in North and and and in the Americas or in Australia and ah, New Zealand um certainly not white settler colonization. Um, ah, but. There is a lot of internal resettlement and internal colonization. Um, that has gone on um, over the centuries and and and even more um, significantly in the post-colonial period in Southeast asia so you have in southeast asia then a paradox where it's true that practically everybody there is indigenous in in in the literal sense where you know we're really from there like me I am you know. A native of mindinanao. Okay, and that's a true statement. My mom's family is from there from as early as we can trace back? Um I have ancestry from other parts of the philippines but that's the place that I consider home and my my yeah basically my my home home town. My home province. Um, but at the same time there are so many different types of of people different types of communities in the philippines different types of ethnic groups. Um, and some of these groups. Um basically were more. 14:56.50 Oona I Think more? Um, ah, closely incorporated into the colonial system whereas others were not or they were incorporated in a very different kind of way. Um I don't like to use the word assimilation versus assimilated versus unassimilated because I think that's very Misleading. We're talking about political incorporation economic incorporation and and and all of that. So Some groups were more incorporated than others and transformed in particular ways and these are the the ethnic groups that are now the majority that form the mainstream of of Filipino society that we. And they they they do the sorts of things that we we think of as being Filipino culture by default and then you have these much smaller communities usually in the uplands or less. Um, accessible. 15:52.76 Oona Areas in terms of sort of um you know highways and and main waterways and that that kind of stuff. Um and a lot of these communities. Um, ah either. Um, resisted in incorporation. Um, into the colonial system or were just sort of or the colonial government never bothered that much because they were so hard to get to and um and these communities are indigenous minorities. 16:28.21 Oona And um, in terms of the dynamic between the mainstream community mainstream um groups and minority groups this kind of dynamic between them has been quite problematic. Um, most of the time has been exploitative and. And it's that sort of relationship that has given rise to the use of indigenous peoples when we refer to the indigenous minorities. So the Philippines is the only country in southeast asia that uses the english words in indigenous peoples and so it's shortened to ip. Um, in the Philippines or we use some native words like luma or catatubbo which mean basically means native or indigenous and so yeah, so the paradox is you have a country of natives. But some people are designated indigenous. Using capital I indigenous as basically a political designation and because their experience even though it's um, ah I guess ah you know their experience of of of oppression and marginalization and um. And and really sort of colonization. Um in the present day has been at the hands of other natives and so that's like the key difference between I think the Americas and and you know the sort of white settler um situations and what's what's going on in in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia 18:00.80 Oona So it's it's like ah we use indigenous and indigeneity as a ah political designation rather than a um I don't know what but what sort of designation you could call it in the Americas because you have that that. That paradox if you have indigenous people in a country of natives. 18:21.68 archpodnet Um, right? Ok sorry this is really my brain's going ah a million miles an hour this is super interesting. Um, and you know I think it's interesting too because like um. 18:26.88 Oona Oh sorry yeah. 18:35.36 archpodnet 1 of the things that you're saying is is making me think of um, you know in the Americas there was all of all of these same um situations I guess if you will um where you know, um. 18:51.12 Oona Ah. 18:53.81 archpodnet Some indigenous groups. Um, you know, conquered others or enslaved others or you know like it's not like there's not there wasn't that complexity here. Um, it's yeah, but you're right like it gets portrayed. Um. 19:01.11 Oona Oh yeah, yeah, um. 19:12.71 archpodnet As if um I don't know it all begins and ends with colonization right? Um that um. 19:21.28 Oona Yeah, and I mean you know and we when we talk about colonization now we're talking about european colonization. You know so that that was a very ah that that was a distinct type of colonization that that did happen in Southeast Asia and in the Philippines who'd been colonized since. 19:26.20 archpodnet Right? right. 19:33.69 archpodnet Right? right. 19:37.42 Oona Ah, the fifteen hundreds um yeah and then and then under Spain and then the um and then the united under the and the United States in um, in in the first half of the twentieth century and um, um. And and those are 2 very different types of experiences but the you know the colonial experience was was profound and and and really shaped what the the Philippines is now and same thing for other parts of Southeast Asia um but they did not have that while there were. 19:56.13 archpodnet Right. A. 20:12.28 Oona There were white people who did move over there. Um, it just wasn't the type of you know the type of settler colonization that we we know and understand and then what's what's and what is the default our default understanding of of um how ah you know. Indigenous peoples became minoritized in their own land. So um, yeah, know yeah I know the lot. Yeah, okay. 20:35.60 archpodnet Right? right? Oh man. Okay, so much more to discuss. Um, we are already at our first breakpoint but I'm very excited to to keep talking to you once we get back.