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• Postcolonial Education and the Filipino Diaspora: A Critical Dialogue on a Global Course of Study 

  • James Fabionar, University of San Diego

  • ​Vince Sales, CEO of Fil Am Nexus LLC

    • ​Description: Many critical education scholars have found in postcolonial theory (PCT) a means to examine relationships among global capitalism, schooling, indigeneity, and inequity. However, PCT often builds from modernist notions of the nation state and ignore or under-examine the role of diaspora and transnationalism in efforts to promote self-determination in and through education. Furthermore, the tenets of postcolonial theory, while often adopted for critique, are rarely applied to build practice. The purpose of this working paper is to present initial reflections on when and how PCT provided (and did not provide) guidance for the conceptualization and implementation of a study abroad course in the Philippines. The topic of the course is how Filipinos conceptualize and enact self-determination via curriculum and instruction, school organization, educational policy, and learning technology. This working paper provides critical reflections on the process of developing this course. Four sections comprise the presentation of this paper. First, the key themes and concepts in postcolonial theory that frame the development of the course are discussed. Second, narrative inquiry, the methodology employed to surface critical reflections about conceptualizing and implementing the course, is outlined. Third, we present key preliminary data patterns within and across two processes: (1) conceptualizing the course and (2) making contacts and partnerships in the Philippines. (Two later phases include (3) delivering the course, and (4) evaluation). And finally, we explore how these data patterns relate to diaspora and transnationalism.

 

• Bringing the Revolution Home: Filipino Urban Poor Women, “Neoliberal Imperial Feminisms,” and a Social Movements Approach to Domestic Abuse

  • Huibin A. Chew, Mellon / ACLS Public Fellow

    • ​​Description: Urban poor women in Metro Manila, Philippines, have developed social movement strategies toward domestic abuse. I consider how these synergize with and diverge from U.S. women of color feminist calls for “community accountability.” “Survivor-organizers” in the women’s federation GABRIELA influence place-based social networks to shift power relations, while organizing whole communities into a broader Left movement. I argue their community organizing principles and survivor-centered ethics have served as vehicles to transcend carceral remedies. Entangling reformist, prefigurative, and revolutionary politics, they contradictorily invoke (and reify) carceral feminist logics and legal reforms—yet have fostered transformations that surpass possibilities offered by what I call “neoliberal imperial feminist” frameworks for punitive state action. I propose a protest politics grounded in how GABRIELA’s and U.S. feminist of color political traditions speak to and expand upon one another.