Projects

The Indigenising Education in a Kalinga Public School Project

In response to a request from an indigenous tribal elder concerned about the transmission of cultural heritage to the coming generations, PASC Honorary Research Fellows Maria Cameron and Edwin Wise conducted a short project Indigenising Education in a Kalinga Public School from February to July, 2009. The project sought to document the cultural heritage and ways of life of the Ichananaw tribe located in the Cordillera mountains of Northern Luzon, Philippines, by developing culturally appropriate educational materials for use in the remote indigenous community’s public school.

The project cut across the spheres of development, education and the academy, with the overall goal of responding to the elder’s initial request. The project created and produced a suite of educational materials (including 21 children’s storybooks retelling tribal legends, fables and history; a book about Ichananaw cultural beliefs, practices and customary law; a book compiling over 60 traditional songs and stories; a coffee table-style photograph book visually depicting current tribal life; and a four-way dictionary). The project also established networks between the Ichananaw and various Filipino NGOs and the Australian Government.

Support was received from several quarters. The Dananao Elementary School, PASC, the Ateneo Center for Educational Development of the Ateneo de Manila University, AusAID’s Direct Aid Program, the AusAID-funded volunteer program Volunteering for International Development from Australia, and Philippine professional artists’ association Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan partnered to deliver the various components of the project. Informal support was also received from the Cordillera Studies Center of University of the Philippines Baguio.

Maria coordinated most aspects of the project, including obtaining AusAID funding and initiating and building strong rapport with the five core project partners and almost 70 volunteers across four language barriers and four countries, including individuals from national education offices, NGOs, academic institutions and members of the indigenous community. Maria also arranged and facilitated training sessions and seminars for teachers and community members, worked closely with the community to identify and document key aspects of their cultural heritage via ethnographic techniques, and illustrated one of the children’s storybooks.

Based in Manila for much of the project, Edwin established links between the community and NGOs, educational specialists and funding agencies; coordinated the input of 17 professional Filipino artists from across the Philippines, Japan and Singapore for the children’s storybooks; supported Maria in her ethnographic fieldwork; and liaised with the printer for the graphic layout and reproduction of the full set of educational materials. He also sourced a range of secondary materials relating to the Ichananaw, the Kalingas more broadly and the entire Cordillera region, and compiled these into a nine-volume knowledge bank to complement the educational materials created through the project. Edwin also illustrated one of the children’s storybooks.

The short project has opened the door to future projects with the Ichananaw. Maria plans to co-author an ethnography with a member of the tribe and there are plans to continue an ethnobotanical documentation project initiated by La Trobe University alumnus David Cameron (Senior Botanist, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment) to record the Ichananaw’s indigenous knowledge of their local flora alongside scientific information.

Read the full project report [PDF 4.9MB].

In 2006 we were able to announce that Dr Beryl Langer and Dr Trevor Hogan, School of Social Sciences won an ARC grant for $75,000 over three years, being for one Ph.D. scholarship.

The ICEAPS workshop held at La Trobe University in May reported above was a first step in the building of a research network on this theme. We appointed a student to take up the Ph.D. scholarship in May.

It is it with great regret, however, that we have had to relinquish this ARC grant in June. At the eleventh hour, our industry partner, Australia-Philippines Business Council informed us that they were unable to meet its obligation to provide $5,000 per annum to this project. Fortunately, the Ph.D. nominee was able to hold onto her existing employment. While we are disappointed that the APBC – who initiated the project – have withdrawn, we remain hopeful that the goodwill of the research participants and the 18 months preparation by La Trobe staff, as well as the establishment of a research network, will ensure the survival of this project, albeit in more modest terms.

This three year project commences officially with the arrival of Mr Neil Fettling, Head of Visual Arts and Design program at the Mildura Campus, LTU, in Manila on November 13 to take up a three month teaching post at Ateneo de Manila University in the Fine Arts program there. He will teach a full semester course to Masters students in their Fine Arts program on ‘Art in Context: Profession and Practice. Mr Fettling is a leading contemporary artist in his own right, and some of his own works will be featured in an exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery – Southeast Asia’s leading private modern fine arts gallery. Mr Richie Lerma, the Curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery will be visiting La Trobe at its Bundoora and Bendigo Campuses with the artist, Mr Ronald (Poklong) Anading, the winner of this year’s Ateneo National Art Award in the Philippines. Mr Lerma will discuss plans with Mr Vince Alessi, Curator, La Trobe University Art Museum, and staff at Bendigo School of Visual Arts and Design, and Ms Carolyn Dew, Curator, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, plans for future visits and artists-in-residence schemes at La Trobe by Ateneo artists and Visual Arts academics. In addition next June, we plan to send an exhibition of La Trobe’s contemporary abstract landscape collection to Ateneo Art Gallery. To mark this venture a team of over 10 La Trobe academics and postgraduate researchers will meet with Ateneo colleagues for a research colloquium on this theme, and deliver three public lectures.

We are very honoured to announce that the renowned development social scientist, Dr Brian Fegan, has donated over 500 books in his fine and extensive collection on the Philippines including books on the anthropology, history, sociology, economics, and contemporary literature of the Philippines, to the Borchardt library, LTU. Some of the items in the donation include:

• Harold Conklin's "Ifugao Atlas" of which a limited set of only about 1,000 was printed. They went to university and museum libraries and to collectors at a price of about $200 apiece (in 1970s dollars). Harold Conklin was Brian Fegan's supervisor at Yale and gave this one to him.
• Several old and rare journals dating from the early 20th century, browned from using acid paper, with articles on minority tribes of the area.
• Two rare economic botany books which may be valuable references to anyone working in forestry or farming. One was made at the orders of General Douglas Macarthur's Southwest Pacific Command. Printed in Australia during World War II, it was to provide information on plants useful to troops, during the re-invasion of the Philippines.

We are grateful to Dr Paul Mathews, secretary of the Philippines Studies Association of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, for first approaching the PASC and then working with us in liaison with Ms Eva Fisch, Acquisitions librarian, LTU. Together we have ensured this important collection is put into public circulation, and therefore in a small way show our respects for a lifetime of academic and applied social research achievements by Dr Fegan in advancing Australia-Philippines connections. Since its inception in 1967, La Trobe University as developed one of the best collections in Australia on and about the Philippines, and Dr Fegan’s donation ensures that this tradition is built upon for a new generation of researchers.

PASC supported the negotiation of a student exchange agreement between La Trobe and Ateneo universities, which provides for two semesters of fee-waiver exchange each way each year. It urges La Trobe's students to take advantage of this facility to study for a semester at this prestigious Filipino university, and will be happy to provide advice on request. Financial support is available for students going on exchange. PASC is working with Ric Manapat, a Filipino doctoral student in our School of Social Sciences, to encourage Filipino students at the university to join together for self-help and social purposes. It is also working with the International Programs Office (IPO) and the Philippines consul-general in Melbourne, Raul Hernandez, to develop linkages between the Philippine community and the university. Finally PASC arranged, with financial backing from IPO, for Barangay Australia, to hold its annual ‘Study in Australia’ series at La Trobe's city campus. Next year we hope this meeting can be held at Bundoora campus. PASC greatly appreciates the IPO's involvement in these useful projects.

Australian Perspectives on the United States, Southeast Asia, and the World: the PASN Inaugural Week Lectures (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005) comprising of the following lectures delivered at Ateneo de Manila University in February, 2004:

• The Premise of Difference: Race, Culture, Nation, and Cosmopolitan Practice in (Pen)insular Southeast Asia, by Joel Kahn.
• From Berlin to Baghdad: Competing for Power and Discursive Legitimacy, by Joseph Camilleri.
• Designing Intelligence and Civic Power: Maritime Political Economy from Athens to Australia, by Peter Murphy.

More than 800 books on the social sciences and public health, solicited from various professors and the library at La Trobe University, were turned over to Ms. Lourdes T. David, director of the Ateneo Rizal Library. In particular we thank Professor Joel Kahn whose initial donation of his own anthropology library provided the impetus for this project.