Positioning Women\u27s Inclusion in Peace Negotiations: The Landmark Case of the Philippines

Women have historically been excluded in formal peace processes. While structural changes have pushed for women’s participation in peace negotiations, we locate the shift from women’s exclusion to women’s inclusion as enacted in the discursive patterns of talk. Using positioning theory as a discursive lens, we looked at how women’s inclusion was facilitated in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that reached the landmark Philippine peace accord of 2014. Positioning theory argues that every utterance is a speech act that ascribes rights and duties, in this case, the right of women to be included in peace negotiations. Each act of positioning is comprised of storylines, identities, rights and duties, and social forces. From interviews with members of the GPH-MILF peace panels, we identified three patterns of positioning: (1) storylines of cultural and religious restrictions resisting women’s inclusion; (2) storylines of gender equality; compliance with important statutes; and political will facilitating women’s inclusion; and (3) storylines of women’s inclusion transforming women’s identities in peace negotiations from normative to agentic. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and practical contributions of a discursive approach to women’s inclusion in peace processes

Positioning Women\u27s Inclusion in Peace Negotiations: The Landmark Case of the Philippines

Women have historically been excluded in formal peace processes. While structural changes have pushed for women’s participation in peace negotiations, we locate the shift from women’s exclusion to women’s inclusion as enacted in the discursive patterns of talk. Using positioning theory as a discursive lens, we looked at how women’s inclusion was facilitated in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that reached the landmark Philippine peace accord of 2014. Positioning theory argues that every utterance is a speech act that ascribes rights and duties, in this case, the right of women to be included in peace negotiations. Each act of positioning is comprised of storylines, identities, rights and duties, and social forces. From interviews with members of the GPH-MILF peace panels, we identified three patterns of positioning: (1) storylines of cultural and religious restrictions resisting women’s inclusion, (2) storylines of gender equality, compliance with important statutes, and political will facilitating women’s inclusion, and (3) storylines of women’s inclusion transforming women’s identities in peace negotiations from normative to agentic. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and practical contributions of a discursive approach to women’s inclusion in peace processes

Falling into poverty: the intersectionality of meanings of HIV among overseas Filipino workers and their families

Many years of labour migration have opened opportunities as well as exposed overseas Filipino workers to health vulnerabilities. In the light of the increasing number of HIV cases in the country, these workers may be conceived as an at-risk group in need of careful attention. This study, which focuses on the experiences of HIV-positive overseas Filipino workers, describes the meanings HIV carries, together with implications for workers’ identities as they return home to their families. Recognising that HIV may affect different groups in different ways, we analysed 13 accounts from heterosexual men and women and gay men from the lens of intersectionality. We found three major storylines, namely: the ‘fallen hero’ and the struggle of losing the body for heterosexual men; ‘children in poverty’ and the struggle of losing the mind for heterosexual women; and the ‘crushed dream’ and the struggle of losing dignity for gay men. Surviving with HIV and poverty in the context of continuing heteronormative familial duties suggests the need for family-centered interventions for HIV-positive overseas Filipino workers

Struggling to care: A discursive-material analysis of negotiating agency among HIV-positive MSM

A discursive-materialist framework of agency asserts the mutual constitution of agency within cultural discursive, economic, and embodied material structures. Understanding how HIV-positive men who have sex with men in the Philippines negotiate agency vis-a-vis wider social structures, we utilized Foucault’s care of the self to locate agency in relationships with the self, others, and the broader world. Using data from narratives of 20 Filipino HIV-positive men who have sex with men, we analyzed the negotiation of agency as HIV-positive as embedded in the unique discursive terrain of Roman Catholicism and the economic materiality of a developing country. Three main processes of negotiating agency are elaborated: (1) questioning the spiritual self and the sexual body in the relationship with the self, (2) navigating interpersonal limits to care giving in the relationship with others, and (3) reclaiming human dignity in health care in the relationship with the broader world. Theoretical insights on the discursive and material constitution of healing in light of discursive and material challenges are discussed

Finding the Introspective Voice: Listening to Public School Teachers’ Narratives of Their Mindfulness Journey

In this paper, we utilized Gilligan’s listening guide as anchored on Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory to explore the process of embodying mindfulness. The results of the analysis highlight not only the different narrative paths to mindfulness, but also the dialogical nature and struggles in each path. We present the journeys of seven public school guidance counselors and values education teachers, whose narratives clustered under three types of paths with each arriving at a unique personal meaning of mindfulness: (1) struggling path, (2) mechanical path, and (3) receptive path. Results highlight the relationships between personal voices, professional voices, and the mindfulness voice present in each path. This paper presents the value of understanding the multi-voiced self of the facilitator. Lastly, the paper also poses reflections toward a dialogical approach to assessment and training

Pambubugbog at Bugbugan sa Gitna ng Kahirapan: A Discursive and Structural Analysis of Domestic Violence

Theorizing that gender roles need to be enacted in social interaction for gendered power relations to produce domestic violence, this study utilized Henriksen\u27s integration of positioning theory and role theory to understand violence in the lives of Filipino heterosexual married couples living in poverty. Applying positioning theory as a discursive lens, we looked at how gender roles are being enacted or discursively produced in the case of one-way male-to-female violence, or pambubugbog, wherein the husband inflicts violence upon the wife. We then sought to determine if gender roles are still at play in the case of two-way violence, or bugbugan, wherein both husband and wife engage in violence. In this case, can gender roles shift? Can gender roles be fluid? Are gender roles still being enacted? With positioning theory as a discursive lens, women and men now have the power to position in episodes in their everyday lives in order to counter the enactment of traditional gender roles that produce domestic violence. A discursive approach offers the possibility of altering gendered power relations through positioning in ways that can end domestic violence

Model of resilience for transnational families of Filipina domestic workers.

<p>Model of resilience for transnational families of Filipina domestic workers.</p

Social Psychology in the Philippine Context

Students deserve far better than to be only taught traditional social psychology. Those living in non-Western societies have rich histories and distinct normative systems, with their own indigenous social issues and patterns of social life. They have their own distinct needs from social psychology. This volume presents a serious effort to develop social psychology that is “appropriate” for Philippine society, something called for but neglected over many decades

Demographic information about resilient families.

<p>Demographic information about resilient families.</p