Indigenous Peoples, Heritage and Landscape in the Asia Pacific: Knowledge Co-production, Policy Change and Empowerment

Panel 6: Indigeneity, Identity, and Empowerment

Date: October 28/29, 2020, 7PM LA/10 AM Taiwan/Manila

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STEPHEN ACABADO: Wait for another minute. Thank you for the reminder Maddie. Okay, let's get started. Hello everyone. Good evening, from Los Angeles. Welcome to panel seven of our webinar series. And this is a 10 part webinar series that talks about community engaged research in Asia Pacific.

Before we start, we acknowledge that as a land grant institution, the Department of Anthropology, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and Asia Pacific Center at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands). We are grateful for the support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, through the Webinars on the Future of Anthropology Grant; The Henry Luce Foundation; The New England University First Peoples Rights Center, The National Chengchi University Center for Taiwan-Philippines Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Sustainable Studies; The UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology; and the UCLA Asia-Pacific Center. The UCLA Department of Anthropology, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Ifugao State University, the Partido State University, and the Save the Ifugao terraces Movement, are co-hosts of the webinar series.

By the way, I am Stephen Acabado, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. I am the co convener of this webinar series. Panel seven focuses on indigeneity, identity and empowerment, and this is something that's very special especially with my work, focusing on indigenous history in the Philippines. The long colonial history of the region seem to have developed a process that unifies indigenous peoples of the region, but we know that it's a diverse group and then their identities are now based on these shared experiences. So the panel today will be introduced by Professor Da-wei Kuan of NCCU. He is the co-convener of this webinar series, and he will provide an introduction to the panel. Thank you.

Daya Kuan: Hi, good morning, Stephen. It's my honor to introduce you to this panel. Indigenous Peoples have struggled to define their identity amid the increasing pressures exerted by the larger society that aims to assimilate local cultures to develop a national identity. This is exemplified by the experiences of Indigenous groups in the Philippines and Taiwan where centuries of colonization have influenced the way they feel about themselves. In this panel, we discuss how Indigenous groups in the Philippines and Taiwan have instituted programs to define their ethnic identity in relation to the larger society. Examples that will be highlighted in the panel includes �reinvention� of culture among the Higaunon (Mindanao, Philippines), working with elders to revive traditional knowledge systems (Ifugao, Philippines), and filmmaking to document Indigenous identity (Tayal, Taiwan). So I would like to invite Maddie to introduce our panelists and moderator today. Maddie?

Maddie Yakal (UCLA): Thank you, Professor Daya. So good morning and good evening to all of our attendees. Thank you for joining us for our seventh panel of the 10 panel webinar series. It's my pleasure today to introduce all of our panelists, as well as our moderator.

Our first panelist is Oona Paredes. She is a Southeast Asianist specializing in the ethnographic study of Indigenous peoples, with a field research focus on the Higaunon Lumad of northern Mindanao. A native of Misamis Oriental province in Mindanao, she completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Arizona State University, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. Her first book, entitled A Mountain of Difference: The Lumad in Early Colonial Mindanao, is based on research that was made possible by a Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant awarded in 2004.

Our next panelist, Ms. Eulalie Dulnuan is an alumna of the University of the Philippines Diliman where she earned her degree in Tourism. She obtained her Master of Science in Leisure, Tourism and Environment from Wageningen University and Research Center, Netherlands through the Ford Foundation � International Fellowships Program. She is an Assistant Professor at the Ifugao State University. She is currently the On-site Project Manager for the Phase II of the Ifugao Satoyama Meister Training Program and the Director of the Ifugao Rice Terraces Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Research and Development Center. She is also the Project Manager of the International Indigenous Knowledge Innovation Center under the Center for Taiwan-Philippines Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge and Sustainable Development. She teaches courses under the Tourism Department of the College of Arts and Science at IFSU.

Our next panelist is Sayun Simung. She comes from Huanshan Sqoyaw Tayal Tribe. She used to be a reporter of TITV and Era News, responsible for gathering and writing news as well as producing TV programs. Sayun also worked as a marketing planner for documentary films at the International Department of PTS. She is a graduate from the Department of Radio and Television, National Taiwan University of Arts. Sayun returned to her hometown to make documentaries in 2011.

Our fourth panelist is Andrea Ragragio. She is an anthropologist and archaeologist working with the Pantaron Manobo of southern Mindanao in the Philippines. At the moment, she is on study leave from teaching duties at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of the Philippines (Mindanao) to pursue PhD studies in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University, The Netherlands. She finished her BA in Anthropology (cum laude) and MA in Archaeology at the University of the Philippines (Diliman). Currently, her research focus is on the tattooing and other body modifications of the Pantaron Manobo of the Pantaron Mountain Range in Southern Mindanao. She received an Early Explorer Grant from the National Geographic Society in 2018 to look at how these practices are related to Manobo notions of gender, personhood, and temporality. She has also been working as a scholar-advocate for the Pantaron Manobo�s right to self-determination and right to return to their ancestral homeland after cycles of militarization and displacement in recent years. Her other research interests include archaeological heritage and ethnohistory. In 2012 the University of the Philippines Press published her book �Archaeology and Emerging Kabikolan� about identity and archaeology in the Bikol region in the Philippines. In her spare time she writes a column about cultural, political, and educational issues for the online news outfit Davao Today.

Our last panelist is Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz. She is a first-year Juris Doctor candidate at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law with interests in multiple fields, including international human rights, heritage law, and immigration law. She is Tuwali Ifugao from Kiangan, Ifugao and half-white from Modesto, California. Prior to law school, Margaret was a public school special education teacher for two years in Wahiawa, Hawai�i as part of Teach for America. She graduated from UCLA in 2018 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Global Studies. She was a human rights intern in Quezon City at IBON International in 2017 and a student researcher for the Ifugao Archaeological Project in 2016 . Currently, she is one of the core voices of Indigenous Knowledge, Art, & Truth, a collective of Indigenous people from the Philippines living in diaspora that provides free, online educational resources about Indigenous identities, struggles, and empowerment.

Our moderator for today is Dr. Justin Dunnavant. He is an Academic Pathways Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University�s Spatial Analysis Research Laboratory and he will be joining UCLA�s Anthropology Department as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2021. His current research in the US Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies. In addition to his archaeological research, Justin is co-founder and President of the Society of Black Archaeologists, an AAUS Scientific SCUBA Diver, and consults for the Smithsonian�s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

And so with that I'm going to turn the floor over to Justin to lead us in our discussion today on indigeneity, identity and empowerment.

Justin Dunnavant: Thank you, Maddie for the introductions and thank you all for attending. Greetings, wherever you are in the world. I know that's different times in different time zones, we're glad that you could join us today. We have a number of different interesting topics to explore throughout the course of this talk and I noticed we come from different backgrounds. Some of us archaeologists, ethnographers, interests in law, tourism and film. But there is one sort of common thread that seems to go through everyone's work. And that's the idea of engaged scholarship And I'm wondering, you know, this idea of engagement in the scholarship is really becoming more popular now. But that wasn't always the case. And I'm wondering how you all have sort of entered or gotten engaged in this type of work and what you all see engaged scholarship as. Is it something that you had training and formally or something, you kind of learned along the way I'm going to open it up to whoever wants to take that question first. I can call on you.

Oona Paredes: Why don't I, why don't I start. Well, when I went to grad school, I did my degree in anthropology. We had a program within the department called applied anthropology and there's always this debate internally among the grad students and the faculty about the place of what we called applied anthropology within anthropology is an academic discipline. And one of my favorite professors there was on my committee John Martin, who worked with Havasupai in Arizona basically argued that there was no such thing as applied anthropology. Basically you have anthropology and you apply it. It's not a separate thing. And so what I got from that was a very clear message from him, even though he was very, very much, you know, a very academically focused scholar and and never thought of himself as an applied anthropologist. All of his work had a really strong, you know, what would be identifiable from the outside is an applied perspective and he was dealing in particular, towards the end of his. Before his retirement focusing on the problem of gestational diabetes among the Havasupai and you know that's a very kind of applied problem solving kind of anthropology that he was doing but he didn't think of it as separate from anthropology. So that's the kind of thing that was a big part of my formation as a graduate student in anthropology is that anthropology is about, you know, the real world and real life, and about applying and if you're not doing stuff that matters to the people that you're you're you're working with, or, you know, studying or focusing on, you're not really doing anthropology.

Justin Dunnavant: Andrea, did you wanna chime in on that?

Andrea Ragragio: Yeah, I think I agree with that, what Oona said about taking a stand. If you choose to be an anthropologist I think that's a, that's a, that's a decision that you need to make right? So if you're going to engage with people as an anthropologist then you really have to kind of like make a stand for that. This is a life choice, so to speak. In my case I've always wanted. I've always been fascinated by human cultures, that's why my, my first choice University application really was anthropology and I also wanted to be an archaeologist. And I did that as well with my masters. And during, during my college days I've already been an activist. And it's hard to say that in the Philippines nowadays, but here I am saying it because it's part of my experiences and it's something to be proud of. So I've always tended towards that kind of advocacy. In my experience as an archaeologist, it wasn't it, there were moments that it was kind of difficult to be an engaged scholar, because sometimes by necessity or by limitation, some archaeological work kind of tends to be a one shot deal. Right. You go to a location and then you excavate and then you can�t really sustain the kind of relationship that you want with a community for a long term because of various reasons, financial, institutional etc etc. But anthropology is different because you can't really claim to have an anthropological knowledge that we're proud of through a one shot deal kind of research engagement or research visit with a community. So yeah, like, like what Oona said it really is just a matter of if you choose to be an anthropologist and use that, that's something that you shouldn't deny when you're with a community. I mean, you can be a friend. You can be, you can play a lot of other roles in a community, but if you choose to be an anthropologist and then go for it.

Oona Paredes: Yeah, I wanted to kind of add a clarification. Just a second Margaret, um, that, you know, with the scholar that I mentioned John Martin, he didn't see him himself as an activist at all. And he just saw himself as just a regular anthropologist and I guess I was using the term applied, but we're using the term engaged now and so for him, anthropology is about engagement, there's no separation and he didn't think of it as a form of activism of any kind, he just felt that was good, anthropology, but you know when you're dealing active, you're engaging with the reality of the people that you're working with. So that's, that's a maybe like a maybe a slight difference from what Aya talking about. Because it's not he didn't see that. And I agree with him. It's not necessarily political stance is just about being ethical and about being fully engaged as a scholar, like being a really well rounded scholar, so.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: Yeah, I just wanted to hop in, I think, because I'm one of the few that will come from like a non academic background, even though my understanding of engaged scholarship is rooted in anthropology and archaeology. And so I think it's really interesting when we talk about engaged scholarship and really the whole theme of this webinar series is really about how do we interact with you know either indigenous peoples or whatever marginalized community that you're working with. And I think that's something I personally got to learn when I was part of the Ifugao archaeology project that was modeled for me in a very rare instance I think where Dr. Acabado and everyone IAP did a really excellent job of how do you engage with the community that you're working with. Even if they didn't invite you in to begin with. How do you make sure that the partnership is equitable and so when I think of engaged scholarship, I think about equitable partnerships or equitable collaborations and what does it mean for everyone involved to get something out of it. Because our definitions of progress or definitions of success for a project might be different things. But how do we come together on that. And that's something that I think can really apply outside of academia, right. When it comes to advocacy for any marginalized community, whether that's in law or teaching, which are the two backgrounds I come from. But to see that modeled in anthropology, it can go beyond that. So even beyond the idea of engaged scholarship, there's a way to be engaged with other communities when you're doing that work together and how you show up in solidarity is about the equity involved in those partnerships. And if you're coming into any type of engagement or interaction with indigenous peoples and you're not thinking about how are they also going to benefit from this, then it's really just for yourself. Right. And so I'm excited to see that scholarship itself is also changing this idea of like how academia can kind of correct those historical wrongs. But I also think the lessons that we're learning here with a series like this goes far beyond the reaches of academia. So I just wanted to throw that to sense and it's like the non professor of the group.

Justin Dunnavant: No we appreciate that. I think that one of the interesting things about engaged work is that it often requires us to physically be in these places and to understand what the needs of communities are. And then the ways that we can bring something to bear to assist and vice versa to see how this, this can be reciprocated. And I'm wondering, sort of, oftentimes that's sort of background work of being in communities. Is it fully recognized in the institutions that we work in? And it's not really recognized when you see the final product. And I'm thinking a bit about some of Sayun�s work. I know, creating film and doing documentary work. It takes a very long time and it changes from the beginning, ideas, until the final product. And I'm wondering, sort of, how it is that your project has sort of developed and and what you see a successful engaged scholarship in your work.

Eulalie Dulnuan: Yeah. So may I go? I'm speaking from our community from the indigenous community of Ifugao. Yeah. How do you, how do we say if it's successful? We have, we have projects like, Which one Nurturing NIKE. It's the production of knowledge through the project called NIKE -it's nurturing indigenous knowledge experts. So we can say it is successful when there's a sense of ownership. It was started by a few, the project was started by a few advocates, but now the community is taking it or they are continuing it by themselves. So, for example, for the Nike project. The Ifugao State University got assistance in the production of our workbook, but now they are going into the second edition by themselves. So, that by itself, having a sense of ownership for the certain project. It's shall we say an indicator of success. Yeah. And then there are other projects that we have this time. Also, the community itself generating the knowledge and they are doing it by themselves already, even if the project is already done or finished. For example, we have the Satoyama Meister training program. We guide them into doing, we guide people, we guide community members into making simple research projects and they're already graduates, but they continue to do the research on their own in transforming the community that with the help of the studies ot the research that they have done themselves. So I think that's an indicator also of the success of a certain research.

Justin Dunnavant: Yeah, that's a good point. The idea of sustainability being built into these projects that we're doing and I'm wondering how you all have been able to do that in some of your other projects, if that is a sort of outcome that you've worked towards. To sort of make it continue beyond you with the intention of knowing that you might shift locations or shift research questions and projects. Um, if there's other successful models you all can speak about.

Oona Paredes: I think that's kind of a tough question to answer for maybe for most of us, because I mean, I think I've been doing this, maybe a little bit longer than some of the other panelists. Just because I'm older. But even then, I still feel like I'm just at the beginning of what I'm doing. And so, but especially with the younger scholars, you know, they're just at the very, very beginning of what they're doing. So the question of sustainability, you know, maybe that's just a question we're beginning to grapple with, but it of course depends on what you mean. And whether you're going to remain a part of, of that project, you know, as it you know attains a certain degree of sustainability, but in my particular case. I can see now that one of the keys to an idea of sustainability when you're talking about research sustainability, but also just idea. The sustainability of continuing a kind of cultural inquiry or ethnography, or this kind of work that even something like documenting indigenous knowledge. Well, one of the big things is to model to to kind of realize that you serve whether consciously or unconsciously, you will be a model to the people that you work with, the model of a scholar. And so how you undertake your research and how you engage through the community, how you deal with individuals, you know, the question of equity that Margaret brought up, you know, that becomes a very big thing when you put it in this context. And so you're modeling what it means to be a good scholar. Right. And then, of course, the other thing as far as my own project is concerned. I�ve been making an effort to involve members of the community in data collection and analysis and discussing also how to formulate research questions. How to like when we've done surveys, for example. We focus grouped it so that the questions would be appropriate, and the kinds of like, I would talk about the kinds of data that I think we need to collect and and we would brainstorm and it would we do like a kind of a group discussion about how best to ask certain questions or what questions can or cannot be asked. And so, so that's all part of the research project process and they and it kind of demystified the whole process for the community. And so that achieves two things. One is that it becomes sustainable in that the community itself sees the value of the research and the validity of the research, you know, as a process. And they're more likely to kind of be interested in doing something like that on their own, you know, for their own whatever questions that they want to ask in terms of community research. But the other thing is that it also, I mean it's not necessarily about sustainability, but basically it also serves as a kind of a check in, in terms of your research, check, a balance, you know, checks and balances in terms of your own, of my own research inquiry as a scholar from the outside that I'm doing things properly. So, so there's kind of this sort of there are multiple things that are achieved when you try to do things sustainably and you, you start to consider equity, you start to consider the impact on the community, you know, the political impact and all of that, as well as how you're modeling yourself as a researcher.

Andrea Ragragio: Just like to add this something very quickly because Oona is right Justin's question is was really, you know, thought, thought provoking. So when I was, prior to the session when I was reflecting about what exactly do we mean by engaged scholarship. I wrote down some characteristics that I thought I could pull out when the time arose and we're talking about sustainability of projects, but I think that we also have to kind of speculate about instances wherein projects are not sustainable. So because I was thinking, for example, with my experience with the Manobo in southern Mindanao. The political conditions, the economic conditions are also very fickle. So I, you know, and there are contacts, wherein you do that kind of That kind of that kind of scholarship. So what does that, what does an engaged scholarship mean in that kind of fickle and in very difficult conditions in a fickle environment. So I was thinking that just in case some projects do not remain as sustainable as, say, the standards that we set and institutions are in academia or in the university. Maybe there may be other parameters by which you can see that you, you still have a, you still keep a relationship with the community which you can quickly pick up whenever conditions improve. So I think it's also an important thing to register that maintaining that relations, maintaining that kind of friendship is also part of, part of if when we talk about the sustainability of our engaged scholarship. And I think that also goes back to what Justin said about a lot of these things are behind the scenes and cannot really be quantified by the way that we normally quantify when it comes to Institutions. So I was just reflecting about contexts where sustainability that is with set criteria may not be directly applicable, but that doesn't mean that you can�t do that. You can continue a meaningful engagement with those communities.

Justin Dunnavant: Yeah, I think that's a beautiful point you know some of these projects aren't meant to last forever. And if we're successful in some of the things we do, we should have solutions that don't necessarily require us to continue this work for long periods of time. I'm wondering, Sayun, how you deal with community engaged scholarship and so forth to work.

Sayun Simung: My English is poor. So I try my best. Can you hear my voice? Thank you, Actually for the engaged scholarship. I think I'm an unsuccessful example. When I start to make the 3D mapping mapping of my tribe. I'm just the only myself. I don't have any partner to do these things together at the beginning. But I met teacher Daya in the other village. He has a lecture both sharing the experience of how to do the research in the traditional territory. And his students show how to make a tribal mapping. Then I invited a Daya to visit our villages Sqoyaw, my village. I hope he could help me to finish Sqoyaw�s tribal mapping and we had a mapping workshop in Sqoyaw in 2018 in the winter and after that I work with the elementary school. But I have I have other projects to finish and also there is a lack of money. So the trouble is that the mapping project is stopped for a year. After that I feel I have to go back to finish the maps. So I try to find some money and then looking for helps to join the project. Finally, my cousin joined me. And then the other young villager, her name's Lavi, joined us as well. And we spend three to four months, months finishing our maps by our own. There are still many young people in the village, but they have their own work and own tasks to do. They don't understand why this is important for the village and for them. So that's why I decided to make a film. I hope through film could bring some ideas for the viewers. So I want to share the main is trailer for my first movie poster documentary. The topic is about the land rights. Yeah. So I�m sharing screen. Okay.

Justin Dunnavant: That was wonderful. Thank you. I'm wondering, before we move on to another topic I think interesting in the documentary in the film and from some of the discussions is also this idea of different generations of community that we're engaging with. And I'm wondering how you all sort of grapple with that, especially when we talk about dissemination of engagement and inclusion. Because you have young people that need to be included as well as you know elders and they require sort of different levels of care, as well as attention, depending on how you develop questions. So I don't know if you all have dealt with issues around sort of including everyone when we do engaged work.

Sayun Simung: Actually for our young people in the village right now, we're still learning but the elders people right now in Sqoyaw, they will passed away very soon. So we are afraid of in the same time. So all I can do is to do my best to listen to their own memory of the lands. They know maybe the lands, we, we couldn't take it back. But maybe we can get in, get into more involved to work with the government because this land, it is already under ownership by the government in the National Park. So we are right now in the center, we are trying to work with the government. And maybe we can go back to our old tribe. Actually last month, we are going to, we went to our own tribe. Later, I will share photos to you. And many things were still going on. And many things were still working with our elders, because the elders, people in the village. They are the key of a culture to pass down. It's tough, because you know in our villages, our young people, they are more like focused on their own life. Their culture, their history, they don�t really understand. So what is important for them. So that's why I want to share. I want to make a film, maybe through film, through the images that there is an institution that is very easy to link with people, link with my audience. They will, they will through film can connect to the feelings and the memories. Thank you.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: Can I also jump in?

Justin Dunnavant: Yes, please.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: I find this question really interesting. Just because like you know, as part of, like, the younger generation, and I have, there's another Ifugao on the panel

who I consider as someone that I can go to when I have questions about my culture and my identity. But I also really love this question because I've had the privilege of being on kind of both sides of that, in terms of I've been interviewed. I've been asked like, how do you as an indigenous person growing up outside of the Philippines, how do you construct your identity and I also have the opportunity to do research in Ifugao and get to interview my own elders and people who are leaders in the community that could answer those questions for me. And I think something that I learned from both parts of that experience is that when it comes to indigenous knowledge. It's that there is no book or source or you know, there's nothing I'm going to read that's going to teach me about my culture and my identity. It's through those conversations with my elders and with those other older generations. It doesn't have to be that much older. I can ask older siblings and older cousins. Anytime I need to understand something I can ask my mom. I think that's why Sayun�s video just resonated with me so much because I could see those interactions, like how you have that respect because you understand. I'm saying you but in terms of like, you know, being a young Indigenous person is understanding that they have all this knowledge and that part of our identity as indigenous people is that duty to pass it on. And so there's a duty to as

k and I've talked about this with plenty of people, but it's my duty as a young person to ask those questions and I think for an elder, for other generations who hold a lot of that knowledge. It's also their duty to pass it on. And I think that's where you know outsiders or researchers who aren't part of the community, they can also help facilitate those conversations, if they know how to do it ethically and correctly. So I think you know, it's a very interesting question. We talked about intergenerational knowledge and how it gets shared or passed on. At the end of the day, it's really about those conversations that you have in the relationships that you can build because young and old people, even though they have different backgrounds or different priorities at the end of the day, if you're dealing with an indigenous community, the goal is to pass on the culture and to make sure that knowledge isn't lost or that at least it modernizes in some way. That it adapts, that it's fluid. I think you can find that knowledge from any generation that you're speaking with but I just need to throw that in. Because it was really nice to see how Sayun was able to talk to her elders and talk to all these different members of the community and all the different knowledge that they share and how it comes together. It just reminded me a lot of my own experiences. So thank you for sharing that. That was really sweet.

Oona Paredes: I�d like to address the question of generations, just from the perspective of an outsider and, you know, I'm a researcher, not, not a member of the community, but just, you know. So I have a kind of a unique perspective on this in that I've been basically dealing with the same community and and sort of extended networks of that from that same community since the early 90s. And so that's quite a long time. And so I've gotten to know about three generations. And there's a lot of people who've already passed on and a lot of new babies being born. And so there's some kids who, like for example my research assistant for my most recent field project, you know, between I think 2012 and actually up to now we just have a break, because I haven't been able to go back, but I first met him when he was a toddler. And I have pictures of him from the first time I went to the community where he is, you know, he's basically naked and just learning to walk. And then he later on becomes, you know, my research assistant and he went through college and everything and now he's working. And so I've seen that this kind of sort of different generations grow up and what it's been a really big learning experience for me. And led me to appreciate you know that each generation has its own sets of concerns and of course its own set of experiences and each generation has their own very different understanding of what it means to be, for example, my the group,I work with is called Higaunon. So every one of them has a very different understanding of what it means to be a Higaunon and what it means to sustain, to perform, and to preserve Higaunon traditional culture or even the idea of what is important in their tradition. What's so important to what's, what's the most, what are the most important things to preserve, to retain, to perpetuate and what things you can kind of play around with. And so each generation has its own very unique take. And one thing that surprised me with regard to the Higaunon that I know at least, is that it's really the the sort of younger generation just just sort of like maybe now in their 30s and 40s are more conservative than the people who are a lot older and and part of that has to do with the political experiences they've had as indigenous minorities in the Philippines.

And so, for example, I'm in my 50s. And so people were about the same age as me and then a little bit older including the ones who've already died off. They went through this really brutal experience of martial law in the Philippines and some of them ended up joining an insurgency or rebel group for a time period. Others were kind of recruited by militias and so you they had this like really really brutal experience during martial law, which really colored their sort of outlook on life and at the same time back then in the 70s, it wasn't really trendy or fashionable or okay to be indigenous you know. It was something that people tried to that the majority culture tried to kind of assimilate people out of. And it's also something that indigenous peoples themselves tried to assimilate themselves and their children out of, you know, so I one of my you know, closest sort of research associates, there is this Datu who's I think he's about maybe mid 50s, at the most, maybe, maybe 60 we're not entirely sure, but he said that you know, in his generation, they had a choice. They were forced to make a choice. Either you go to school, assimilate and be successful by the majority culture standards or you don't go to school and you retain your Higaunon culture. That was a stark choice they had to make. So his parents, he decided for himself and his parents decided as well, to take him out of school. So he only has a third grade education

can barely read, but his kids, he made sure that they went to school, went all the way to college. And so there's that that kind of kind of choice that they felt they had to make between their own culture and assimilation slash success. The younger you get in terms of generations. They don't see that choice as a kind of a stark choice like they, like the younger people like my research assistant, Jerry. For example, you know, they for them, i's not a choice, they have to make. It's something that you can kind of do both. That being educated did not mean you're losing your culture, it just meant that you would, you know, just have a different maybe different relationship with it. So, so there's kind of a very, a lot of like interesting I can talk about this for five hours because it's just so fascinating. I'm still trying to figure out how to write it down. And for those of you don't know, my current research project has to do with oral history and oral traditions of the Higaunon and how they're using that to have this sort of internal debate about what it means to be a Higaunon. And that's all tied into traditional political leadership and what makes a proper political leader and, you know, and that kind of thing. So all of that is all very kind of mixed up and jumbled up. But a big part of that has to do with generational differences, differences in experiences and expectations and differences in their own relationship to their

material culture and to their oral traditions and stuff like that. So there's, it's, it's all very kind of very complicated. I still haven't figured out how to write about it, but it's ongoing. So it's a generation, it's the generational differences is something that I think really needs to be appreciated. I'm really glad you asked that question.

Andrea Ragragio: Yeah, I think, I think it's really nice. I really, really appreciate Oona just said. Because sometimes there are these yeah these generational vistas that are, I guess kind of appreciated in a unique way if you're an outsider. I don't know if you know i mean if you're an outsider and you see that vista of the temporal Vista. It really does give you, it does give you unique insights. I think that isn't necessarily something that you would see if you weren't being that if you were in that successive generation. Oh. Oh, yeah. So good luck. When I would love But It's good. That's going to be an exciting project for you. But let me add to that little bit and just say that I think a lot of the thoughts that have been coming out in terms of this, in terms of this matter with intergenerational schools and how it can be, schools can be very empowering. But at the same time, it can also be you know disempowering so that's something that's I think it's important for anybody who's engaging with any community, especially indigenous communities. So yeah, just throwing that out there.

Oona Paredes: Um, well, I wanted to, you know, the, the point about the schools, I think is a very important point. And it ties into my project right now, actually, because one of the, one of the nice things that's happened in the Philippines right now and I only know about what's going on in Mindanao, I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but with Higaunons at least we have this thing called indigenous peoples education. And so they're having this sort of indigenous curriculum that's being developed, at least in the Higaonon area. It's very, very active and it goes beyond simply using indigenous languages, but also trying to develop materials for school for kids to use. And what's interesting with the Higaunon case is that you have this generation now. Well, actually, two generations now who've been basically forced by their parents to go to college, no matter what, at whatever cost. And majority of them have chosen education as their field so they can become certified teachers, and this has been very, very important for the Higaunons in terms of developing the IP educational curriculum. And so, so that's one thing I want to study in the future because it's really exciting what's going on right now. Now one of the things I'm doing in my project is this oral traditions, as I said, but part of that is getting community members involved in writing down their oral traditions and so there's there's something that we're it's really very slow going but it's been exciting so far. And every time we collect more stuff and then type it out and we print it out. And then it gets passed around, and guess who reads it. You know who goes through all of these, these materials. Very quickly just consuming it like it's the most fantastic wonderful thing in the world. It's the kids who are in school who can read and they're reading something in their own language for the first time, instead of in the majority language or in English. And they're just like, give us more and more and more of this. And so that's been kind of an interesting kind of tie in. I'm doing a very kind of traditional ethnographic research project, but we're doing this. And I'm not thinking of it as an applied anthropology project. It's just engaged to the community, because that's what they're interested in.

And so what it's done instead is kind of really connected with this IP educational curriculum. So the commitment is once we're done with this whole thing. One of the things that we're well, several things that we're trying to get printed once we get it printed, then it will become part of it will be like a textbook that kids can use in that particular area. And the other thing is that it's actually brought the different generations together like what Sayun was talking about, you know, just being able to communicate across generation and generations and Margaret also that it kind of opened up this conversation between different generations because suddenly the older generations who kept lamenting that you know, if we don't write this down the kids, no one's interested in learning, you know, the traditional culture anymore learning the oral traditions, because you have to memorize so much stuff. And so if they're not interested in it, it's not going to get passed on, it's going to die off when our generation dies off. Well they suddenly realize no the kids are interested. You know, but then they have to also go to school. They don't have time to just sort of sit there for, you know, five years and memorize all the oral traditions, but if you do it in a different form it will get passed on. So, it's kind of like people realize that they all want the same thing. Maybe they just you know, have different understandings of how to do it. You know, so it's kind of everything is just sort of happening like this and so if I sound like I'm like this, it is because everything is happening like this. But yeah, it's, it's all, all of that everything that that that we've all talked about so far at all kind of ties in together into one sort of really interesting dynamic that's, I think, in my case in what we're doing at least hopefully self perpetuating and sustainable in that sense.

Justin Dunnavant: Yeah, you know, that brings up a good point. I know we have some questions in the chat, but I think I want to invite Eulalie into this conversation. I think, you know, school is just one type of educational institution and tourism is another one, and I read some of your work on tourism in Ifugao. And I'm wondering to what extent do you see the tourist experience as a form of educational institution and a way to maintain sort of traditional and indigenous knowledges. Can you hear me? I don't know if you caught that question. Maybe not. Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering about tourism in Ifugao. I don't know if you can unmute. No. Okay. Can you hear us?

Eulalie Dulnuan: Yeah. So what's the question? Sorry.

Justin Dunnavant: About tourism, sorry. Sorry, tourism and how it's used to revitalize or to maintain indigenous knowledge.

Eulalie Dulnuan: Yeah yeah. That's quite a difficult question. But still we have to address that in Ifuago because of course our resource is our culture, our heritage. So people come over to know more about heritage of the Ifugaos. So how do we maintain a balance of not having tourism eat up its resource which is heritage. So we try to set a balance. For example, in Kiangan alone, we have this group who formed themselves trying to learn what are the songs. What are the, what are the dances and so try to see that it is authentic as possible and then share this with the visitors, but primarily it is really to know more about their heritage than sharing it with the visitors. There's, there's, we're into the revival of textile of weaving and it's really more to know about traditional weaving. It's much more going back to your, to your heritage and then of course there's the nice side line of earning money from visitors, from tourists when they get to see how nice and how beautiful your contemporary designs are. So we set up an open air museum trying to come, trying to invite people to go into the village, but at the same time trying to protect the village from the visitors. So it's kind of difficult having a balance. Having an open air museum, telling people come over and look into our village. At the same time, you have to protect the village from, you know, from getting commercialized. And yeah, so then there is a conscious effort, of course, to educate the people, the community, in how to get that certain balance of tourism and conservation. Difficult but yeah I think if the people all advocate, for conservation, all advocate for getting a little money from tourism at the same time being conscious that you have to do it to conserve or protect your heritage.

Justin Dunnavant: Now that raises a good point too that was in the chat. There was this question around data sovereignty and how do we control once sort of these knowledges are brought out into the larger world, how do we control how it's used. So that is that use the negative ways or if it's monetized. It's not over exploited and I'm wondering if maybe Margaret, if you want to talk a little bit about law and sort of its relationship to this, or if anybody else wants to talk about.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: I would love to talk about this. I think your question is really hard. I think that's part of you know what it means to like recognize indigenous peoples in the modern era to recognize us as like being here and present while preserving our traditional knowledge. It brings up like really complicated questions and I think I'm going to further what Tita or which is aunt in Filipino because she's like an Aunite to me. But Tita Eulalie brought up like a really important point about how you know, it's great to educate and to use tourism as like a way to conserve our culture's and I do think that in Ifugao especially, it's very useful. There is that question of how do we protect and I think I can even connect it to like there are people so I'm centered in the US. Like, I grew up in the US, but I am with other Ifugaos here. But I sadly have witnessed people who do visit the Philippines visit Ifugao, in particular, will you know learn all of our cultural history and then they'll take it as their own. And then run with it and it becomes this very exploitive process. That's something that people in Ifugao can't control and myself, I can't control either. And so it's a tough question. Where, how do we protect our cultures in the systems that weren't designed to recognize our cultures in the first place. Right. And so even if you're talking about law. This is something that I think about on a daily basis because, as someone who's in diaspora. I am an indigenous scholar, like I think I do have that kind of privilege to call it out as I see it, especially when it's happening in places like the US where you know, people in Ifugao aren't going to recognize the type of appropriation and exploitation that happens here, even though it's affecting back home in Ifugao. And so that's where scholars like myself, other indigenous or other scholars in the States. We get to call that out. But it's a very difficult process. It doesn't always get resolved. In fact, it never gets resolved. And so that's also why I was looking into law. And that's why I'm a first year law student is figuring out how do, How do indigenous peoples protect their cultures through things like intellectual property? And that's something that's a very popular topic right now and I'm sure the next panels will get to it even better than I will. But I think that's, that's gonna have to take a while to answer anything because we just haven't figured out how. How do we allow indigenous peoples to protect their cultures, when the system wasn't designed for us to begin with. But I just wanted to throw that point in there that you know that Tita Eulalie already brought up that when it comes to protecting our culture is that happens across borders and happens across generations. That's a very difficult process. But I do think it starts by having the conversation and it starts by centering indigenous voices to allow them to one speak for themselves, and two and I'm going to quote again Tita Eulalie, but to allow us to have ownership over the process. I think that's a big part of it as well. I wish I had a better answer. I don't think law has the answers yet. I think they�re struggling to figure out how can indigenous peoples protect their cultures through things like heritage law and intellectual property, land rights. Those are very complicated topics that I have yet to discover. But come back to me in a few years, and maybe I'll have a better answer

Justin Dunnavant: We're looking forward to it. It also brings up a good point about as well about a World Heritage designations, and how, for example, the rice terraces became a World Heritage Site. And of course that has ramifications throughout the entire community. I'm wondering if you all have seen any changes in the community or or and even in the idea of indigenous and how it continues as a result of a World Heritage Site designation in the region.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: Can I go again? Um, I find that one really interesting just because again, I grew up abroad. So my understanding of my indigenous identity was through things like understanding the world heritage site. And I do think, I think Tita Eulalie can probably better explain how it affects Ifugao in particular, but at least as a young person like understanding what even the term indigenous means. The UN is like this very imperfect system that can define what indigeneity is. It has like its own classifications of indigenous peoples and then other countries, including the Philippines, have their own indigenous peoples laws or rights acts. There's, there's, like, that tension right because I think when it comes to defining indigeneity or defining an indigenous person. They're inherently against the nation state or the overriding states when it comes to the Philippines to be Ifugao, to be indigenous means that you're part of this identity that's separate from these bigger global or governing institutions and so when something like the UN gets to define what indigeneity is, I guess, a define a World Heritage Site. It's a double edged sword because it's yes you're recognizing us and yes this brings resources to the community. At the same time, we have to play it on your terms, we have to play it on your systems of knowledge when at the same time, like the whole point of being indigenous is we don't subscribe to those same systems of knowledge or same definitions and I think that can be really complicated. But that's also the exciting thing about working with indigenous peoples, is that they'll complicate those ideas of nations and that's literally what the UN does, but so I think having the World Heritage Site, you know, it brings a lot of, I guess it makes Ifugao a little more famous. It makes it easier for me to learn as someone who grew up abroad. But I do think it's compicated. I don't think it's like an overall good thing I want to call on Tita Eulalie because I'm curious what she thinks in terms of the World Heritage Site and the rice terraces and all that.

Eulalie Dulnuan: Yeah, for Ifugao, having a designation as a World Heritage Site. It has brought in changes. At the same time it has, not only changes only in the landscape, but also in the people themselves. Um, when, when we had that designation. It was people outside of Ifugao who got to know the designation, like farmers. Farmers till the land knowing that they are a World Heritage Site. But people got to know about the designation and started or other continued or more tourists came over. Yeah. So this book about changes. So there were changes such as people with the landscape changed a bit because now we have almost everyone lining up the road. They now all stay along the highway, because they need to, they can now sell souvenirs. So the highway is now lined up all the way to the viewpoint and is lined up with the souvenir shops. So now we cannot really have a pure view of the landscape, because of the change. People saw the opportunity for economic benefits and and yet there's also the, in the later years, in the more recent years, there's the more conscious effort of advocates to let people know about heritage, about letting people know about their heritage. And so I think this brought in more consciousness about how Ifugaos contribute to the world at large. So there's a change in worldview. And yeah, the designation for Ifugao is not only for UNESCO. There's also the one from the Food and Agriculture, food the Agriculture Organization. There's the GIAS, that's global important agricultural heritage systems. So it's recognizing the biodiversity side of the Ifugao rice terraces and that's also another thing because then we're looking into the nature part of the heritage. So it's not just the culture for this for UNESCO, but also now the nature part of it. So we're working for ifugaos to realize this designations. Their practices as a World Heritage made it a World Heritage Site and at the same time they're in agricultural and natural resources management. That the indigenous knowledge that they are practicing has brought them this recognition as a GIAS. Yes, globally important you know so yeah. There's, there are changes in the consciousness of the people in how important they are in the world.

Justin Dunnavant: Thank you for that.

Oona Paredes: Um, well, I wanted to actually if we could go back for a second to the question of data sovereignty that Ray Soto asked, um, Hi, Ray. You know, so my answer doesn't have to do specifically with data sovereignty, but it has to do, you know, sort of, more generally, with, with the the sort of umbrella problem that that that falls under and sovereignty for indigenous peoples and having some kind of control over how you know, knowledge about them and you know how they're written about, that they have some kind of control or authority over that process. And last week I attended this webinar held by the National Commission on indigenous peoples and it had to do specifically with intellectual property rights. To do with indigenous peoples in the Philippines and from all the, you know, there are all these fantastic examples of sort of legal legal protections and frameworks that were already in place and that just just needed to be kind of activated or developed more. I came away from that webinar basically with the same view that Margaret just voiced here that the law really is kind of, there's no kind of legal solution to this and the law is not the answer to that. And you can have all these laws but enforcement of the law really depends on additional bureaucratic ization and requires all these other resources, legal, financial and otherwise that a lot of indigenous minority groups do not have and also maybe ideas that are kind of maybe not beyond their comprehension, but sort of beyond sort of the relevance of their daily life. Like, why are you, how are you going to, How meaningful, is it really to kind of work towards preserving your intellectual property rights, cultural property rights by filing paperwork with some bureaucratic office in Manila? That's not something that really resonates with or would resonate with the community that I'm working with. So, that kind of legal I guess strategy is for me really quite inadequate in the particular setting that I work with.

Although it would be nice if it actually worked. But in terms of sovereignty in terms of letting people or making sure people have some kind of control over, like what researchers do with them and write about them. I think that there's already something that is already really in place when you look at ethical practices in anthropology, as well as part of the indigenous people's rights act in the Philippines, the free prior informed consent process. And so if this is the process. If you really go through the process in earnest as a researcher you're required to actually communicate to the community, what you're going to be doing, what you're going to be doing with the data that you collect and all of that. And I think that if done properly, if done thoroughly, and done conscientiously, I think that that is a process that empowers the community that you want you'll be working with. And again, I'm speaking as an outsider and a researcher, not a member of the community, but it's through this process, for example, that the community that various communities that I've worked with among the Higaunon, not only have come to understand the research process as in, you know, as I've explained it to them, but also what happens to the data I collect afterwards.

So they're like, well, what are you going to do once you've written down all our answers and stuff. And I said, I'm going to put it in a book. And so part of our agreement then has become when I've put the book together, I have to go back to the community and present it to them. And they will tell me you know what parts are wrong and what parts need correction and what parts you know need maybe more nuance or what parts I should just simply remove. So I've given that control to the community as part of the FPIC process. And to me, that's just part of not just engagement, but just sort of being ethical as an anthropologist, because you are, myself as an outsider. I'm making my living you know through them, you know, and I owe it to them. And, and, you know, to, to kind of be ethical and to give them control over that data, at least. And so the other thing is that, in the course of the FPIC process with various communities among the Higaunon Is that I also explained that well, so this is what I'm going to do, I'm gonna, you know, we're going to talk to you. I'm going to record interviews. I'm going to write these things down and I will make it into a book. What happens to the book, other people are going to read it around the world. That's when they kind of realized that they would lose control over what happens to that data once it's in the book. So, so that's what became a kind of very important point of the conversation. So part of, my sort of research practice now with oral tradition stuff because there's a lot of sensitive information. I've always made sure that they know and I repeat it over and over again, this stuff will go into a book that other people will read. If you don't want other people to know about it, do not tell it to me. Okay. Do not tell me. And so it's been very clear. I've been very clear, at least with the people that I work with that you know that this is how I use the data. And so they have control over what kind of data they let me collect and and so you know it's kind of maybe just as a single researcher, it's a way of getting around the whole. It's a way of accomplishing some kind of data sovereignty without going through bureaucratic or legal frameworks and other stuff like that. So it's just sort of one path that's possible as a single researcher. You know who's just there with a notebook.

Justin Dunnavant: Andrea, did you want to add to that.

Andrea Ragragio: Yeah. Well, I just wanted to note that in the Philippines, and over here, at least it's the 23rd anniversary of the ratification of the IPRA law. So, it's 23 years of that law

being in existence. And I think that everybody, people here who have or Filipinos, and whoever worked in the Philippines can say that yes, there are a lot. There is a lot of room for improvement for the IPRA law, it would have been nice. As Oona said that if a lot of the things really were genuinely operationalized the way that they were intended to be. And so, I agree, I agree with the kind of the process that that Oona described just a while ago, but at the same time, I, I just want to also kind of like note that it isn't necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily frame it as kind of like the FPIC process of say that IPRA law because it's a process that all researchers I think need to go through, regardless of whether there is a lot of a law that tells you to do that or not. So yeah, so it's part, it's part of anthropological ethics. And I think that a lot of researchers can also attest that the FPIC process as it's codified in in the law can also be, It can can also be improved a lot and a lot of the actual enactment of getting informed consent can�t be captured by that, by, by how it's codified at the moment. You hear stories about how difficult it is to get written consent, because sometimes that just isn't a salient thing with the community or working with sometimes. Sometimes you can also hear about having all the proper paperwork, but still missing that kind of sustained and consistent permission from the community. I mean, they can sign a piece of paper at one time but the next time you'll be back, Who knows? I mean, they, they might not be as welcoming with you as they were the last time. So FPIC really is a continuous process. It isn�t just that one kind of like that one shot deal that some laws like the IPRA, make it out to be. So, yeah. So those are my thoughts about the law as a non lawyer. From kind of like the school of hard knocks and trial and error and engagement communities.

Justin Dunnavant: Yeah, and sometimes these physical contracts are less binding then sort of verbal agreement.

Oona Paredes: Oh, sorry. I was just gonna say there's also a lot of room for abuse. There are people who abuse the FPIC process by getting certain people to sign paperwork. And, you know, and as long as there's some kind of signature by an indigenous person then it gets presented to the NCIP. And they're like, okay, then you can do,do whatever you want, but that's, you know that, like what Aya and I guess Justin pointed out that is that the paperwork in itself is not any kind of guarantee. Not only that, you know, the agreement will be enforced, but also that it's authentic that is genuine, that people actually went through the process properly, just because there's paperwork. It doesn't mean, in many ways it doesn't mean anything and mean that's true for a lot of things in the Philippines, but yeah, it's exactly what Aya said. It's a continuous process.

And I was just going to add that you know, in my particular case I went to several different communities to ask them if I could interview people there and, you know, most of them agreed and so I've, you know, kind of done that, you know, I wanted to make it multi sided. But at the same time, you know, there's also a community that next time I came back, you know, there were people beginning to say, well, you know, what did we really agree to, what are, what are we gonna, you know, you know, the sort of like me, raising questions again about what we had already all agreed on, you know, the larger community and me. And what happened in my case was, you know, there were a couple of people asking questions. And I was beginning to kind of try to respond to them because it was their right. I mean, part of the whole thing with ethics in anthropology or any kind of research ethics, really, when you're doing human research with other human beings is that they have a right to withdraw from the research at any time for any reason. Okay, they have that right, we cannot force them to participate in a research if they change their minds. And so there's that. But what happened in my case when this particular elder started to kind of raise questions about, well, I don't know if I really want to agree to it. He actually said that well, several people in the community started jumping in and they had the argument within the community and then decided on my fate as a researcher. I was basically out of the discussion and they decided amongst themselves. So that was my own particular experience.

Justin Dunnavant: Yeah. That brings up a good question. I had a question for you, Sayun, about your, your film. I'm wondering, how did the indigenous community engage your film when they saw it? Did you, did they see the whole film at the end and then respond, or did you give them pieces to comment and to edit?

Sayun Simung: Well, I want to show some photos. Could I?

Justin Dunnavant: Yes.

Sayun Simung: Actually when I finished my second film called The Way of the Sqoyaw. I screened it in my village and in the village, they saw the movie. They say they like it but the elders told to me. He say this is, to learn your traditional culture and to go into a mountain, going to the forest, going into the nature and then live with them is very difficult. So, you have, you have to learn in the and practice more and harder and harder every time. So sometimes I really touched by the elders what he said.

So I want to share some photos. Okay. Can you see the photo? Yes. Okay. Thank you. This is a photo. The first time teacher Daya come to our villages, we have a workshop for the 3D mapping so. So you can see these elders on one of the left side, the left side is my grandpa. The other side is the other elders and we learn from, now he's an older hunter and then he is also very humorous, and this is where we are learning how to work with using the Google Map. They are students and assistants from teacher Daya�s student. After the first day workshop we went to the National Park, but actually. In the past, it was Sqoyaw territory. My grandpa used to tell the story of how they are forced to move out to the other place. So how the government to force them to move out and we are listening to him telling a story.

And this is a picture when we go back to our when we go after that. And then we go back to the village. The students teach us how to make mapping and this is my cousin. My cousin.. Fortunately, I found her. She joined me and this is at I think at the workshop in the 2018. The winter is very special because that night is southern in snow in the weather is very cold. And this is the other day where you can see the snow in the village. So I want to share some photos. This same year teacher Daya invited us to Philippines. We went to a field where we were doing some archaeology, something, something works. Only one photo, sorry. And the last year, I think it's 2019. The Philippines partners, they came to visit our village, and you can see our elders and our people in the community. We are listening, we exchange our experience and our young, the one wearing a black jacket is a young man from our village. They introduce our village to the audience, to our friends from the Philippines and the teachers and students. This is me working with my partners. We are doing a map. We have to do 20 maps by our own. These are all white and we are coloring the maps. And this is a whole territory of Sqoyaw. Yeah. So we spend four months. When I make a film, I want to practice. I don't want to just to talk. I don't want to just read. I don't want to just listen. I want to feel. I want to get myself into.

Justin Dunnavant: Into the community. Yeah, I see that.

Sayun Simung: Yeah, I feel so. Sorry.

Justin Dunnavant: Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing.

Sayun Simung: We went through the mountain with our young people with is. This is very difficult and hard. So anyway, we're going to the top and we take a photo and also we make a film at the same time. They are all my team. My team. My, my film team in my village. I'm very happy and very honored to go with them and I learned a lot. And this is when we, when we finished the maps, we interviewed elders, you know. They are above 80 years old. They go to the mountains and they saw the 3D mapping. They are very happy to tell the story of our immigration, so it's about the history of our immigration. So this is the whole photo of our lands. So you're talking about, what the my film, what the feel of our village was. After finish these things, we go into the mountain, we finished the maps and we produced a film. So we also share the film in the villages. So you can see there's many people and they come to community and they saw the movie, and they liked it. They also laughed and they were touched. The elders keep encouraging me to tell a story of them, of our own and and yes teacher Daya also come to our ability to to share the experience with our village. And this is the photo of us going back to our old village. This is many, many, many farm. So we were trying to, if it is possible, we were trying to, every year we go back to our to our own tribe and to see our ancestors there and do some ceremony there and to thank them and to claim the lands and the tribe and the home. After 3D mapping. we're using this mapping to the outsider, to the tourist, to the friends. They come to visit Sqoyaw tribe. So you can see this is an elder. They are explaining our territories and Dayan traditional men and the history. So I think we did not waste the time to doing this because it is very meaningful. And sorry, I just want to share the trailer. This is The Way of the Sqoyaw. Can you here the voice?

Justin Dunnavant: Yes, we can.

Sayun Simung: In my film, I would like to show the real reality and authentic story. When I make a film. I feel like my film is like a bridge. But this bridge is not only the way out the road. The passage is more like a translation between the mainstream world and our world. Two different cultures, but we also said, we all have to live and to learn in school and raise money, something like that. But I think this is important to take back our rights of an interpretation. So today, and we have a lot of many things from the outside told us that what is the history, we have, but it's not the truth. So that's why I want to make films to convey the ideas of our village in a modern life but they still have mainly labels for indigenous communities. So with the authentic, a way to tell our story that really matters to me. And so you have, we have a culture and the content. So that's why we have to tell our story. So this is my story.

Justin Dunnavant: Thank you so much, Sayun, if you can see the messages, people are sending you praise from all over the world. They love the images and they love the film and we want to thank you for your work. Yeah, definitely. Before we leave, we have to get more information on how we can support future films as well. Related to that, there was one question for you Sayun about small children. Are there a lot of children involved in the work? They said most of the film was elders. But how do children contribute?

Sayun Simung: Yes, in the beginning, we work with an elementary school but it didn�t really go very well. Because at that time I have i some projects to do so I stopped for a while but a lot of children, they love to do the mapping. In a school right now they are some cultural class and they learn from the teacher because the teacher is one of our local people. So, so she has the awareness of identity of an indigenous so she is working very hard to bring the culture and the history of the Sqoyaw into her class and also to affect our older school. So I think in my village and not just me. We still have young people, they have an awareness. They use their way to care about our village and our community. So in my film, I can focus on my filmmaking, but for the education, we still have local people. They care about these things and they will try their best to teach the young children in the class. They also went to the mountain. They also went to, their ancestors, they used to walk. So in the process teacher will tell the story, they will point out this mountain. Our ancestors came from there in the past. We have a some war or something like that. So in my film you can see, because it is a trailer, but in the feature film, you can see you can see a lot. So I hope it there's a chance in the future we can share the whole film.

Justin Dunnavant: Definitely. Thank you. Thank You, we need to make that happen for everybody who has the means to do that. This brings up another point, I wanted to kind of come back to this discussion of impact in the work and diaspora and I asked for communities. I know oftentimes, we talk about indigenous. We talked about who indigenous people are or what defines indigenous But I think Oona you might have said this in a previous talk about when indigenous is and where indigenous is. And I'm wondering about how this concept of Diaspora plays out in indigeneity and Margaret, this might be a question for you. I'm interested in how what it means, or how your identity as indigenous changes being in diaspora and then also what your relationship is or has been to other indigenous groups from other indigenous communities. If you could talk about that.

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: Love this question because I feel like I'm asking it of myself all the time, but yeah, when it comes to being indigenous like my understanding of it is as a political identity. It's a political marker and understanding that what it means to be indigenous in the Philippines and what the experiences for people from my tribe back home are different from my experiences here because I did grow up in diaspora. And so when I what my understanding of indigeneity is about, you know, connection to land, and that's where diaspora complicates it because I'm no longer connected to the land physically. And so something I've kind of learned or hope to study more in the future, I think, is about how do indigenous people in diaspora reconstruct the land. How do they reconstruct their sense of homeland when they're abroad, and that's something I was really privileged to grow up in. In diaspora there are other Ifugaos here. There are other Igorots, like other indigenous groups from the Philippines, that are also here and how we celebrate our culture and pass it on together and how it translates to the diaspora like there are changes. So when it comes to one example is like our dance that we do in Ifugao. It's a dance that it might not look exactly the same when I'm doing it in Ifugao versus like. Back home, like here in California, it'll be a little bit different, like will be doing it just it camping. Whereas in Ifugao you might only do it for a special occasion like a specific ritual or specific, like a funeral. But here, we might just do at a party for fun. You might see that in both places, but it will have different, I guess it will be expressed differently, right, it translates differently, but I still think that being indigenous means you're connected to the land, even if you're not on the land, all of the time.

Like it's either up here and your heart. And it's also how you're in community with other people who are from your community, whether they are all together in diaspora or abroad. I think social media helps bridge those connections as well. When it comes to being indigenous in diaspora and meeting other indigenous folks. I got to live in Hawaii for two years where obviously there's like a strong Hawaiian culture that's still alive and well. I met Micronesia folks as well. And I think that's also one of the really interesting things is that when it comes to youth, especially or like children of immigrants especially, indigenous people migrate. And so what it means for them to retain their culture. It's twofold. I think part of it is like how do you survive in the other country moving to like the US, how do you assimilate into these dominant cultures at the same time. For my mother when she immigrated here, the same discrimination, she might have faced from Filipinos back in the Philippines, who weren't from our community who weren't indigenous, she can still face that same discrimination here. So even though our cultures, our identities, travel across borders, so it is the same political discrimination that when Oona was talking about in the previous answer. Those same negative attitudes that come with being indigenous, they still travel and they still have the same impact on indigenous peoples, even when they're not connected directly to their land, but I think that's also where indigenous knowledge can complicate those things like the when and where of being indigenous truly doesn't matter where you are, specifically, if it's in your blood. And if it's in the values that you live out. That was a very complicated answer, but I love if anyone else would like to chime in, because I do think I have to tread carefully with that answer because it also comes with like I have to be very respectful of the fact that I didn't grow up there. So I can't speak for all of Ifugao, but people who aren't in Ifugao are always empowering me to speak because I'm abroad and because I have a unique voice that also needs to be shared. So it's a balancing act for sure.

Oona Paredes: Well since Justin mentioned me I should try to remember what that was I was talking about. Well, one of the things that I think that I've grappled with when teaching about and thinking about indigenous peoples is you know, for one of the things that kind of defines the indigenous experience across the globe is alienation from the land. That's like one of the big things that a lot of people experience of course not hundred percent but there's people who are either alienated from the land because it's been taken away or converted into a national park or something, or else they�re in, you know, in diaspora, for example. And so one of the things, at least in the Philippines, that that I understand of the of indigenous identity is there is always an attachment to land. A reference to land in some way, even if you're not on the actual land, even if you've never lived there. But there is this kind of idea of a home that has to do with ancestral land. And so, but with all this sort of migration and increase in population not everybody can live on the land, of course. So the question is, what does it mean to be indigenous you know when you have no land or is there a what, how do you define indigeneity, you know, separate from the land. And you know this is a very important question for people in diaspora, people who've been displaced. But then you also have indigenous peoples in other parts of the world in Southeast Asia, for example, who are not land based you have sea based peoples or people who are migratory. And so, the question the relationship between indigeneity and land is something that that's kind of fraught actually you know at its very foundation. And so, so that's that's something that we can, we can kind of that�s worth sort of thinking about and taking apart and. Yeah, I mean I should stop there because this is something that I can kind of think about for hours and hours, but it's just a huge question. Yes.

Justin Dunnavant: It reminds me a little bit of some of the work I've been doing in the Virgin Islands and trying to think about how you know, people of African descent are in some ways, trying to indigenous themselves in a place, knowing that the ties technically have been cut for centuries. And looking at how they're using culturally significant trees as ways to do that. And so certain trees get connected with burial sites or get associated with historical events or in some cases folklore in these new Western Hemisphere communities. So it's interesting. I'm also wondering too when I think of Diaspora. I'm also thinking of sort of internal diasporas so with this move of modernization and people going to these bigger cities for work and education. In what ways does that sort of map on new identities to what it means to be indigenous but now in this sort of urban context. I'm not sure if any of you have had experience with that and what it means to sort of be indigenous in these urban spaces.

Andrea Ragragio: Um, yeah, I think maybe I have some, a bit to say about that. I think that the kind of like the other side of the coin to kind of maintaining indigeneity is also that it's also like a balancing act for entering the mainstream. You know, what some people would call the mainstream. And so yeah, if, if you're talking about, for example, internal diaspora, or even in the case of the people I work with, internal displacement that places them in a situation wherein they have to confront questions of will they mainstream, how will they mainstream, how quickly will they mainstream. In the case of the people that I work with, they tried to do that primarily through education and that's I think a theme that we were talking about for the past two hours that everybody has talked about.

So they do it through education. They try to do it through schooling, they try to do it, so I have to, I have to emphasize that they try to do it through formal schooling. And not just learning how to how to read and write, because the people I work with, especially the parents and maybe this is kind of like, I don't know if it's similar to what to what Oona experienced because the parents are really. They really want their kids to finish school, really get a degree, go to college and eventually become and eventually become professionalized. And then I guess that's, and I guess that's, unlike I guess in places like Ifugao and among the Hiagunon, knowing that that's a question that hasn't yet been completely answered by the people that I work with because of historical circumstances and how they haven't really, their sort of entry into the mainstream is a bit more delayed, so to speak. But yeah again, just like Oona I could talk about this for hours, but that's something that is for the people I work with at the moment, it's a, it's still an open question. There's still a lot of possibilities and there's no guarantee as to whether that process will be a good one for them, a beneficial one for them, or if what the effects are. It's really, it's something that really can be predicted at the moment, I think.

Justin Dunnavant: Right. We have about four minutes left. And I wanted to just see if any panelists had any final thoughts. I know Margaret came off really quickly and then went back on. Did you have a final thought you wanted to add?

Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz: It wasn't a final thought. It was from the last question, but I guess it can also be my final thought but it's about like indigenous peoples existing in the present. I think even to your question of you know, what does it mean to exist in an urban space just based on the experiences of what my cousins in Ifugao have shared when they have left Ifugao and gone to the bigger cities. Part of it is we were already here in the present to begin with, like, when it comes to Ifugaos like we wear denim jeans, we listen to john Denver songs, like we go camping, like we exist in many other ways that aren't just our like pretty attire that we like to wear for these types of things. The other part of it, and that is what I've noticed, especially if they grow up in Ifugao and they leave. And maybe this is also part of like the coming of age for youth when it comes to reckoning with their indigenous identity, is you like when we enter the mainstream or when we have to bring our identities out to the forefront to people that don't know us or don't know our community. And that's where the discrimination usually comes in. And I think that's where indigenous peoples when they enter a lot of these urban spaces or enter international spaces. I think for a lot of folks, at least for people in my family, it's their first time realizing what people really think of indigenous people, or of our communities, in particular as outsiders, because when you're inside the community, you don't realize what other people have to say or what negative attitudes are going to be put on you until you either grow up or you leave, and I've seen that happen in my own cousins. And to some degree when it comes to like preserving the culture, I think there has to be acceptance that some youth are not going to have that same focus, but some youth will and some youth will use their formal education and use their scholarship to make sure the culture gets preserved and some won't. And that's also ok because indigenous peoples aren't a monolith, and they can make those decisions for themselves. Ideally, but I would make that my final thought because like Oona I probably could talk about this for hours.

Justin Dunnavant: That was well said. Oona you came off really quickly, did you have a comment you wanted to make?

Oona Paredes: Well, I mean just just kind of final thought I was. I was thinking back to Sayun�s emotional reaction to her own film and no no no that was really good because it kind of really drives home an important point is that you know someone like me or someone like Aya have other people who do research in Indigenous communities. No matter what kind of research we do, we're really just outsiders looking in, and you know, no matter how brilliant we might be a scholars, or how brilliant we think we are or whatever we do, it's not going to ever mean as much as when an indigenous researcher is doing it themselves.

I mean, I think that may be the ultimate goal of all of this, when we talk about indigeneity and power and empowerment and the goal of like moving towards you know being ethical and equitable in your research, for me at least. The ultimate goal is something that you know I think that what I would really like to see is in the future Higaunons from my community doing ethnography themselves. And so they they they own their own script, they own their own narrative and they're the ones deciding and writing it. It's not some outsider like me. You know, I can be as sympathetic as I want but I'm never going to be them and so it's kind of her, Sayun�s reaction, shows how important this really is. This isn't just the kind of an intellectual exercise and academic sort of research exercise. Because if you're an indigenous researcher, especially in your own community this is about your identity, about your sense of self, it's, it's an existential process, it's existential work. And so that's why her reaction to that is so emotional because she's about herself and her own idea thinking of who she is, as a person. And that's the most empowering thing that I think an individual can do. And so, I mean, I'll just, I hope to kind of help in that process as an outside researcher, but I think that ultimately the goal is to empower and empower everything and in being ethical all of that. The goal is for people to be able to really own their own narrative. Now, I'll stop there.

Justin Dunnavant: That was well said. And I want to just invite everybody to continue thinking about this afterwards. After we finish thinking about what it means to do research in an indigenous way. Not just with indigenous people, or for indigenous people, but in an indigenous way as we continue to develop this working forward. And with that said, I want to invite the organizers back to to close us out, if you will.

STEPHEN ACABADO: All right, thank you everyone was really great. You know, the last panel panels six on Pacific histories talked about and stressed that the land and the sea hold the history of indigenous peoples, of local people's and it�s sad that we�re in the 21st century and we see indigenous peoples being forced out of their ancestral lands, even killed for those lands. Sayun�s community and the numerous groups and Taiwan and the Philippines as we�ve discussed in this panel have faced abusive experiences that need to be addressed and redressed. It is not a question of an historical moment. And for us anthropologists to document this moment, it is a question of social justice. As researchers, we are not apolitical. We are political, everything that we do is political. And as privileged academics, we can do more. And as an archaeologist, it is important to know our deep history but equally important is our recent history because it humanizes our cultures. We are in the present, to quote, Margaret, it is essential that we acknowledge the fact that indigenous cultures that are diverse, that authenticity is within us, not to the long gone history. Identity is now and acknowledgement contributes to the diversity of humanity. So I guess that's my grasp for the last comment. That's me. So thank you everyone. We invite you for panel eight which talk about heritage laws. We will have lawyers and and people who work on the law of the land and providing protection for indigenous peoples, especially for their access to land. So with that said, Thank you, panelists and moderator. Hope to see you again next week and we have four more panels after this. Mabalos.

Justin Dunnavant: Thank you all.