Irina Wenk, M.A.

"From prejudice and displacement towards a self-determined future: Anthropological perspectives on the study of indigenous rights in the Philippines"

Abstract

In 1997 the Philippine legislature passed a law that obliges the State to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples in the country – the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act better known as IPRA. What is this law all about? And who are the people this legal instrument is supposed to benefit? What makes so-called indigenous peoples different from the rest of the Filipinos and why have they become the subject of a law that is considered unique across Asia?

Based on personal and professional experience, these questions are addressed with a special focus on Mindanao. Drawing on a decisive moment in history, wherein local people, government agencies and NGOs experience with forms of self-determination, the presentation aims to provide an overview over the historical and present situation of indigenous peoples and shows how their fate raises more fundamental questions about a nation’s basis for sovereignty and identity.

Irina Wenk is writing a dissertation about indigenous land rights and the process of land titling in the Philippines. As a Social Anthropologist, she has conducted extensive field research in Mindanao between 2003 and 2007. She was a lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Zurich, from 2007 to 2010, and at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Lucerne, in 2009. Currently, she is a visiting graduate student at the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada. Her Master’s thesis dealt with colonial pacification processes and the implementation of a state monopoly of violence in the Philippine Cordillera. Her work is regionally focused on the Philippines, Southeast Asia more generally, and Canada.