Since I started this column a month or four Sundays ago, some readers may still be wondering why I call this piece Public Anthropology.
I think what makes anthropology public, and not a subfield of the discipline like physical anthropology or cultural anthropology, has to be made clear, and in simple terms: This is about how anthropological knowledge is used.
Being an anthropologist writing in a community newspaper voluntarily, but anchoring on research results, is a way of making the public more informed (much more if I’m going to write in the dialect) about social and cultural issues that are oftentimes taken for granted.
But analyzing and sharing social and cultural information to have meanings to local context, aside from what I do in the university, is just one of the means of making anthropology publicly- engaged.
For my initial articles, I dealt with a variety of issues to gauge which may interest both the lay readers and professionals; and they included not only those in Dumaguete City, but also those abroad who read the on-line version of the MetroPost.
So far, it’s been inspiring to read some positive remarks from various publics, and to know what topics they expect on my subsequent articles. This somehow shows to me how I might be making some connection somewhere, even if others just clicked “like” on my Facebook.
Let me share some of the feedbacks I have received: my former professor appreciated that I had decided to write a regular column, and she encouraged me to cover more topics linked to the local dialect.
Several of my former students, some now working abroad, wrote that reading my service-learning article brought back memories and lessons they had in college while engaging with a community.
Some colleagues and former classmates encouraged me to go on writing about the marginalized people like the fishers and farmers.
Actually, my first experience with Public Anthropology was in Hong Kong in 2010 where I spent four months as a United Board fellow at the Department of Anthropology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
While academically occupied in the University, I was also closely engaged during Sundays and holidays with some organized overseas Filipino workers who were mostly in domestic employment.
I participated in the social and cultural activities of the OFWs, and published articles, both in a professional journal and popular media, about their cultural activities and performances.
I believe it helped in amplifying their identity as a talented and skillful people, away from the stereotype as ordinary domestic helpers.
The events I wrote included the Sinulog festival organized by the Visayan OFWs, the Kalilang festival celebrated by the Mindanao OFWs, the Philippine Independence Day celebration, and their other cultural activities in Hong Kong.
I was reinforcing what they intended to achieve in these performances in a country not their own, where they are treated as second class–respect and recognition as a people, and not just helpers.
However, my status in Hong Kong at that time prevented me to get involved in protest movements against the discrimination and abuse of domestic helpers.
By law, the DH in Hong Kong are deprived the right of residency which is afforded to foreigners working as professionals there for the past seven years.
Many OFWs have also been victims of illegal recruiters, and the collection of excessive placement fees.
Currently, several Filipino groups led by churches or NGOs continue to fight for the rights and welfare of OFWs in Hong Kong.
In an article I submitted to the journal of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines titled Engaging with the Overseas Filipino Workers in Hongkong: What Makes it Public Anthropology? (2011), I described a hierarchy or escalation in the forms of public engagement of anthropologists.
These forms can be rated in terms of the degree of involvement and the intensity of commitment of anthropologists to pursue goals that will give maximum benefits to certain public.
Providing information generated by ethnographic encounters, but with less intense engagement is at the base, while on the top is resorting to activism with very intense engagement.
The latter is more political since it will involve power struggle to pursue an agenda.
Found in between these points are designing programs and projects, implementing them, contributing to policy making, and advocating certain modalities which may be offshoots or end points of information generation depending on the context for engaging the public.
And certainly, writing here for the MetroPost mainly to inform people puts me yet at the base of public anthropology, and this engagement may eventually escalate depending on the agenda for my writing certain topics or issues in the future which can either be leading toward advocacy or activism, for example, against environmental abuse, criminality, or the violation of human rights.
I believe that writing is not only a tool for informing but also for advocating or fighting for something for the good of the public.
