Thematic Session 1
Decolonizing the Research Pipeline: Positionality, Power Dynamics, and Promoting Equity in Knowledge Production
Moderator
Dr. Kristine Michelle L. Santos
Executive Director, Ateneo Library of Women's Writing
Program Director, Japanese Studies Program
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
April 22, 2026 (Wednesday)
10:15 AM – 12:15 PM
This subtheme critically examines the epistemological and structural issues within social science itself. This thematic session addresses how researchers can challenge colonial legacies and unequal power relations embedded in research processes.
Topics of Interest: Indigenous and local knowledge systems as methodologies, community-based participatory action research (CBPR), critical reflections on researcher positionality and bias, shifting from deficit-based to strength-based research models, and promoting accessibility and inclusion in research outputs.
Key Question: How can we fundamentally restructure the research process—from question formation to dissemination—to achieve authentic equity and reciprocal knowledge creation?
Weaving Women’s Words on the Wounds of War: Women’s Agentic Performativity, Truth-Listening, and Memorialization
Ma. Lourdes
Veneracion, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
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In 2020, memorialization was declared as the fifth pillar of transitional justice in the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations, and guarantee of non-recurrence. The report focuses on the role of memorialization processes in the pursuit of transitional justice. This study serves as example on how victims/survivors makes sense of their experience of atrocity crimes. It draws from the data of the project on “Surfacing Narratives Towards Transitional Justice in the North and South: Weaving Women’s Voices – A Memory Project in Aid of Developing Transitional Justice Interventions” that culminated in an exhibit entitled “Weaving Women’s Words on the Wounds of War.” It asks about the dynamics of agentic performativity where victims/survivors create their narrative of agency that constructed a memory artefact. Specific to the Malisbong/Palimbang Massacre in 1974, the study documents the co-created narratives of women who struggled for recognition of their experience and memory of their loved ones.
Examining American exceptionalism and Philippine economic underdevelopment in colonial Southeast Asia from the lens of the 1931 Goodwill Tour
Dr. Patricia Irene N.
Dacudao
Department of History
In the early twentieth century, empires all over the world, including those which had colonies in Southeast Asia justified imperialism as a way to uplift colonized peoples by bringing “progress and development” to them. But what if a colonial government admitted that it failed in this mission?
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In 1931, during the world-wide Great Depression, Philippine Governor-General Dwight Davis, and select Filipino cabinet officials, went around a Goodwill Tour of Southeast Asia. It was the first and only goodwill tour of its kind undertaken by an American Governor General of the Philippines. Davis and Alunan highlighted the scientific agricultural advancements of neighboring countries and acknowledged that Philippine agriculture was very much behind. For an economy heavily reliant on agriculture, their admission was quite significant. The trip essentially brings to the fore that Americans failed in their mission of “progress and development.”
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However, both American and Philippine officials stated that Filipinos were the happiest in the region, and this happiness should not be sacrificed for the rapid economic development experienced by its Southeast Asian neighbors. Why and on what basis American colonial Philippine officials claimed this as fact? This paper seeks an answer by examining the power of American exceptionalism to explain away Philippine economic underdevelopment.
Teaching Documentary Filmmaking as Social Advocacy: The Yangon Film School
Dr. Violet Valdez
Department of Communication​​
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This is a descriptive case study of Yangon Film School (YFS, Yangon, Myanmar), founded in 2007 by a British filmmaker of Burmese descent and enduring in a setting of a civil conflict that has persisted since 1968. The study examined YFS’s approach in the teaching of documentary filmmaking and analyzed key aspects of the school’s operations. Findings show that the documentary filmmaking taught at YFS was informed by social advocacy and this was reflected in the focus of the students’ film projects on community concerns such as water scarcity, lack of opportunities for the youth, drug addiction, environmental degradation, gender-based violence, and vanishing cultural traditions. The ideal of social advocacy was fostered through the practice of community-based participatory filmmaking and involvement in films commissioned by civil society organizations. YFS stood out in the country for its dual character as a training center and a production company, and for its goal of offering film education at par with international standards. Students were held to an international standard of documentary filmmaking by a faculty of reputable filmmakers, mostly Europeans. A constant challenge the school faced was inadequate funding. With an eye on sustainability, it was envisioned that students would eventually take over instructional and management functions at YFS to reduce its dependence on foreign resources. The YFS typified non-state initiatives in Myanmar during the period. As a project conceived and sustained by donors from the West and global North and run in the non-West and global South by foreign donors, the case of YFS highlights problematic relationships among actors involved.
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From Diskarte to Dignity: Fostering Conscientization and Collective Agency Among Street Dwellers in Metro Manila
Dr. Melissa
Quetulio-Navarra
Department of Sociology and Anthropology​
Street dwellers in the Philippines constitute a significant fraction of the 4.5 million homeless population, representing a "wicked problem" of urban exclusion exacerbated by contradictory top-down governance. This paper presents a case study from the Global South, exploring how "urban outcasts" can co-produce alternative urban futures. Diverging from traditional state mechanisms such as the conflict between social welfare (MCCT) and aggressive "clearing operations", this study challenges the invisibility of this sector.
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Functioning as a tool for democratic engagement, this study was conducted in partnership with the "Kariton Coalition," a network of faith-based organizations managing feeding centers in Metro Manila. The research is situated within a broader initiative advocating for the institutionalization of a durable shelter program. By employing Paulo Freire’s dialogical approach, the study experimented with breaking the "culture of silence" to foster "conscientization" and agency among vulnerable populations through "street conversations" and inter-hub events.
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The findings reveal a critical disconnect between state-imposed interventions and the bottom-up reality of street life. While participants demonstrate resilience through "street family" dynamics, their aspirations for dignity and sustainable livelihood clash with the state’s focus on short-term relief and displacement. The paper argues that true innovation in urban governance requires shifting from top-down policy to a collaborative framework grounded in lived realities. Consequently, these findings are driving a multi-scalar advocacy strategy, including the social organization of street dwellers as a recognized sector and the co-formulation of a legislative "shelter program" bill in partnership with policymakers. This research demonstrates how centering the voices of the marginalized is essential for co-creating inclusive, resilient, and durable urban solutions.
What Gets Lost in Translation? Decolonizing Inclusive Leadership Through Filipino Middle Managers' Lived Experience, A Grounded Theory Study
Marvlitz Eugene
T. Echipare
Department of Psychology
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Ma. Regina Hechanova, PhD
Department of Psychology
What happens when Western Inclusive Leadership (IL) practices are implemented in Filipino workplaces? What gets lost— or gained— in translation? Despite decades of inclusion efforts, many organizations still struggle to create truly inclusive workplaces. Most IL research is developed in Western contexts and this leaves a gap in understanding how inclusion operates in collectivist cultures. We used Straussian grounded theory to decolonize IL research by centering the voices of Filipino middle managers as knowledge creators and not just as research subjects. Through analyzing interviews with 10 Filipino middle managers about their experiences in practicing IL in the IT-BPM industry, we developed two integrated frameworks. The Ecological Framework that maps the multi-level contexts-– industrial, cultural, organizational, interpersonal, individual— where inclusion happens, and a Process Framework identifying three core processes—translation, relational inclusion, adaptive care— showing how inclusion is created. This research chose to retain untranslated Filipino terms (malasakit, pakikisama, kapwa) rather than forcing them into English equivalents. This allowed us to understand Filipino IL on its own terms and not just simply compare it to Western norms. This approach revealed a paradox where Filipino values simultaneously enable and constrain inclusion, depending on how they are enacted. This kind of contradiction is often missed by Western perspectives that view them simply as strengths or weaknesses. For researchers working across cultural contexts, this study shows how grounded theory can highlight local knowledge while challenging Western biases in organizational research.
Co-Knowledge Generation with Communities: Restructuring the Research Process
Mary Racelis
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
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Jehu Laniog​
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
What happens when Western Inclusive Leadership (IL) practices are implemented in Filipino workplaces? What gets lost— or gained— in translation? Despite decades of inclusion efforts, many organizations still struggle to create truly inclusive workplaces. Most IL research is developed in Western contexts and this leaves a gap in understanding how inclusion operates in collectivist cultures. We used Straussian grounded theory to decolonize IL research by centering the voices of Filipino middle managers as knowledge creators and not just as research subjects. Through analyzing interviews with 10 Filipino middle managers about their experiences in practicing IL in the IT-BPM industry, we developed two integrated frameworks. The Ecological Framework that maps the multi-level contexts-– industrial, cultural, organizational, interpersonal, individual— where inclusion happens, and a Process Framework identifying three core processes—translation, relational inclusion, adaptive care— showing how inclusion is created. This research chose to retain untranslated Filipino terms (malasakit, pakikisama, kapwa) rather than forcing them into English equivalents. This allowed us to understand Filipino IL on its own terms and not just simply compare it to Western norms. This approach revealed a paradox where Filipino values simultaneously enable and constrain inclusion, depending on how they are enacted. This kind of contradiction is often missed by Western perspectives that view them simply as strengths or weaknesses. For researchers working across cultural contexts, this study shows how grounded theory can highlight local knowledge while challenging Western biases in organizational research.