A film shoot

One of the research methods I was most excited to try during my field season here in the Philippines was something called participatory videography.

Participatory videography is a variation of the photo voice method. (If you've seen the film Born into Brothels it's the same kind of method.) Photo voice is a process in which participants are asked to capture their personal perspective on a particular topic using photography, with the goal of identifying, representing and improving their community. The photographs are later used as the basis for a critical discussion, either as part of a group workshop or a dialogue with decision-makers. In my study, a small group of participants create videos instead of taking pictures. The videos will be used to explore the various places environmental migrants go following a calamity, and the livelihood changes they have experienced.

For many reasons (which I will not elaborate upon here), the process of doing participatory videography has turned out to be very different from what I'd anticipated. The revised version, I think (and hope), will yield good results.

On Friday, my research team set out with a small group of research participants to trace key elements of their journey as environmental migrants. I hope this entry will give you a glimpse into the types of research activities we are doing here. Instead of going into the minutiae, I've opted to write in note form and let the photos fill in the details.

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5:43 am
My internal alarm clock goes off. Must be nerves about the day's activities. There's no way I'm falling back asleep.

6:20 am
A forrest yoga podcast to start the day (and an extra half hour sleep for Ada and Frank).

7:00 am
Plain instant oatmeal, hard boiled eggs, banana and mango for breakfast. No time to make (brewed) coffee. Frank double checks to make sure he has the GPS (aka Samsung Galaxy smart phone with a GPS app). He's been assigned to be the official coordinate-taker at each site.

8:00 am
Meet up with Dudong, our jeepney driver neighbour. I'd arranged a pakyaw deal in which I hire him and his jeepney to take us around for the day's activities at a set price. He's wiping down the long benches running lengthwise along each side of vehicle. He runs back into his house to change from his pyjama-shorts into old jeans and a t-shirt. We are en route in the emptiest jeepney we've ever been in within 15 minutes.

Our jeepney for the day

8:45 am
After snaking our way through morning traffic, and a short stop to top up the oil, we arrive at the Park Cafe in Divisoria. We're picking up Kuki, my translator and research assistant extraordinaire. I send her a short text message telling her to look for us in a white and very empty jeep. Frank makes a quick trip into Dunkin' Donuts for some coffee.

9:15 am
Arrival at Ecoville. Only two diversions on the drive in (aka wrong turns). 

There are no staff on-site, and no group of participants waiting (as per our arrangements). Uh oh. 

We head to the carenderia of one of the participants who has agreed to come out on today's activity.  Communication about the plans broke down somewhere along the line ... A frantic "are any staff around?" text message to my contact.

The carenderia owner helps gather the other participants, while I go collect and pay for the snacks I'd ordered from the Ecoville cooperative. The coop manager informs me that they'd been instructed to make "hearty" and "filling" snacks. Great! 

10:00 am
Departure. There are thirteen of us: four adult women participants and two of their young children, two adult men participants, Kuki, Dudong, Frank, Ada and me. 

There's an air of excitement. Transport from Ecoville into the city is relatively expensive so it's a rare splurge for many of the Ecoville residents, particularly for those with no or sporadic employment. When Kuki explained the activity at a workshop last week, there was an enthusiastic response. It would be like a school trip - back to the sites of their old homes and the other places that had a significant impact on them in the months after Typhoon Sendong. It would also be an opportunity for them to learn more about their new neighbours and their pre-Sendong lives. Ecoville residents lived in many different barangays in the city before coming together and building a new community in Ecoville.

10:30 am
First stop is the Xavier Heights covered court. It's a few side streets off the national highway in barangay Balulang. A goat grazes at the edge of the property. A half-dozen boys play basketball in the covered court.

We all dismount and tour the site. Kuki interviews one woman who lived her from December 2011 until February 2012. The army brought her here. We film on the spot where she and her family slept. It's right at the edge of the basketball court, on the grass side.

Xavier Heights covered court

On the walk out, a group of men stop Frank, and inquire about our activities. Upon hearing the interest in Typhoon Sendong, they offer an explanation on the root causes of the devastation: (illegal) logging, mining, unchecked development. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on the calamity.

11:20 am
It's a harrowing ride through the backroads of Balulang down to Isla Puntod, the former home of two of the women. The road is used mostly by big trucks carrying crushed gravel from the river quarries. Much of the soil was carried away with the floodwaters, leaving only large boulders and giant potholes. Dudong's grimace tells me he was not anticipating this kind of off-road driving when he quoted me his pakyaw price.

There used to be two bridges connecting Isla Puntod to the mainland, a hanging bridge for pedestrians and a cemented bridge for motors (motorbikes), quarry trucks and the multicabs that served as the main mode of public transportation here. The former bridge was completely washed out and has not been rebuilt. The latter is cracked and doesn't look like it could stand another flood, but is still used. Looking at the river and the main Taguanao bridge upstream, it's easy to see that Isla Puntod would inevitably be flooded if the river level ever rose. There is no other place for the water to go. During Sendong, the water rose to within one meter of the bridge.

Taguanao bridge over the Cagayan River

Yet, the lots on Isla Puntod were titled. And there used to be plenty of houses.One woman moved here in 2003, paying a monthly mortgage of 116P to eventually own the land. Her place was connected (legally) with electricity in 2008. She will not receive any reimbursement for the money she has paid for the lot.

We film in front of her old house. She points to the site where a coconut tree once stood. When the water began rising (up to 25 feet), she and her husband climbed the tree to escape . The tree was knocked over by a barrage of uprooted trees. It was very dark so they kept shouting "where are you?". They crossed from one treetop to another, eventually making it to the safety of a neighbour's place several hundred meters away. 

Her family has rebuilt a nipa house. They return occasionally to harvest mangoes, papaya, kamote and other vegetables and root crops. It's very peaceful; the river air and breeze is welcome respite from the summer heat.

The only new structure on the Isla is on a quarry site. The building serves as an office. Quarrying activities continue unabated.

Quarry next to the river

Isla Puntod is now a no-build zone. On the drive out, the women wave to old neighbours relaxing in hammocks hanging from a mango tree outside their concrete house. 

12:00 pm
Drive into the city, into traffic. Turn left off Borja Street onto Isla de Oro. A young mother used to live here with her family. She tells Kuki about her old home.

Meanwhile, Frank strikes up a conversation with a group of lechonero, the men who prepare lechon. Roasted pig, or lechon, is a specialty of Cagayan de Oro City and a favourite dish of Cagayanos during holidays, graduations and fiestas. The men are resting in the shade of a light, open structure. Two lechon are skewered onto long bamboo poles, ready for hours of roasting. It turns out that the men are (English-speaking) environmental migrants, so I go to interview them.  

Lechonero with their lechon

The men used to live in Isla de Oro, but have since been relocated to the Chinese houses in Cala-anan. Even though they have been relocated, they return to Isla de Oro on a daily basis ... for work. Lechon-making is the main livelihood of these men's families. Holidays is a particularly busy time for them. Sometimes they receive orders from Manila; to get the cooked lechon to the Lumbia airport in time for the afternoon flight, the lechonero must start preparations at 3am. There are no jeepneys running from Cala-anan to the city at a quarter past two in the morning, so the men have no choice but to spend the night in Isla de Oro. 

The men compare levels of theft in Isla de Oro and in Cala-anan. Theft, they say, is much higher in Cala-anan. They attribute this to poverty and unmet basic needs at the relocation site.

The entire Isla de Oro is now a no-build zone.

12:40 pm

The next stop is Isla Delta in barangay Consolacion. 

The young mother who used to live here talks rapidly. She calls cheerfully to former neighbours who seem happy to see her. 

She points out the spot where her amakan house once stood. It's just past a junk shop and adjacent a small creek whose waters are more stagnant than flowing. The water is barely visible under a thick mass of bright green aquatic plants. The house was given to her from the Celebration Church. She lived at the house for 15 years. 

A two minute walk away is her brother's house. She returns here on a regular basis to visit family; she sleeps here whenever she comes into the city. The house has a concrete foundation and amakan walls on the upper floor. He continues to stay here with his family, even though they have a bunkhouse (temporary shelter) in Ecoville. They will move permanently to Ecoville once the construction of the permanent houses is complete.

Under the Marcos bridge

We continue walking and stop under the Marcos bridge. She returned here on a daily basis to collect relief goods given by the Catholic Church and some non-governmental organizations. 

Across the dirt road is a giant billboard. On the night of December 16-17, 2011, her mother and cousin were carried by the flood waters and stranded in the struts of the billboard. Luckily, they survived. 

Billboard where several survivors were trapped

We leave on a somber note. She points to a stretch of road where the bodies were laid out, brought there by members of the police and armed forces. In the days after the calamity, families gathered on the bridge and looked down, trying to identify loved ones.

Most of Isla Delta is now a no-build zone.

1:15 pm

We drive past the pier and into barangay Macabalan. Most of the houses are constructed with light materials. It is densely populated, and lacking in trees and greenspace. It's an estuary barangay, located at the meeting of the Cagayan River and Macajalar Bay. Salty air wafts into the jeepney. It's a refreshing change from the diesel, charcoal and refuse stench in the downtown core.

The roads are very narrow with deep gutters on either side. It is barely wide enough for the jeepney to pass. Dudong demonstrates his expert driving skills when he is forced to creep around a wake extending onto the street. Kuki explains that when someone dies, there is usually a wake in which family, friends and neighbours come to pay their respects (and maybe share a shot of Tanduay rum). In poorer neighbours, where most people have tiny houses with very limited space for accommodating visitors, these wakes extend onto the street. It is socially acceptable to appropriate this public space for the duration of the wake.

We shoot a video looking out onto the river. The former resident explains that his house was built on a seawall and extended over the river. It was entirely washed out. All along the river side of the road are empty concrete house ruins and newly planted vegetable gardens. Children play in the abandoned houses. On the other side of the road is a thriving community - sari-sari shops, carenderias, residential homes, etc. No building is vacant.

Frank takes the GPS coordinates where the house once stood

Many of his former neighbours are waiting to be relocated to the Cala-anan and Indahag relocation sites. Initially, no Macabalan residents were supposed to be given relocation housing, even though many of houses were washed out. The city's rationale was that nobody in the barangay died in Sendong. It took a very tragic incident for this position to change. One woman died by suicide in an evacuation center; she had been denied relocation housing because she was a renter and not a home owners, was too traumatized to return to her old place, and felt she had no alternative. The Catholic parish priest in Macabalan was afraid that his parishioners may follow a similar fate, so he lobbied the city on their behalf, advocating for relocation. He is credited with helping a lot of (former and soon-to-be former) Macabalan residents.

1:45 pm
A quick stop at the Macabalan Elementary School where he stayed for two months, along with 74 other families. The guard recognizes him, and waves us in for the filming.

Macabalan Elementary School

2:00 pm
Everyone is getting hungry. The snacks were hearty and substantial, but a full meal is definitely warranted. On the drive to a favourite carenderia the Isla Delta woman points out a PhilPost building; it is where she comes each month to pick up the money she gets from the DSWD's 4P's program geared at helping low income families support the educational and nutritional needs of their children.

We make a quick stop at the Provincial Capitol to film where the same woman came each afternoon to collect relief goods. Government workers would distribute cooked food, a welcome respite from canned sardines and noodles.

2:45 pm
After a lunch of rice, chicken, porkchop, jackfruit salad, and squash and monggo bean soup, washed down with Pepsi, we are all in much better spirits. The weather, however, has taken a turn for the worse. It's clouding over. By the time we stop at City Central School - one of the main evacuation camps - it is pouring cats and dogs. It's the first all-out thunder and lightning storm we've seen in our time in CDO.

Filming in the rain

The rain abates ever so slightly for the video shoot. It is the only clip we do under umbrellas.

Kuki has to leave for another job, leaving us to finish the day sans-traductrice. Fortunately, everyone has a good sense of what to present at each site. Still, not being able to communicate fully does make the work more challenging.

3:10 pm
We drive through Macasandig, a relatively upscale barangay. Many of the barangay's middle-class residents were completely unprepared for Sendong because there had been no flooding there (in living memory).

It's still raining so we offer the older gentleman who lived here the option of filming from the jeepney. He walks with a cane and might have trouble navigating puddles. He insists on doing his part and filming on-site in the covered court where he and his wife stayed for several months.

3:45 pm
We finally arrive back at Ecoville, exhausted. We do a final video in one of the bunkhouses, where the Macabalan man and his family now stay. It's small but cheery. A motorcycle helmet hangs on one wall. Bags of donated clothes and linens line one wall. He narrates his video in a mixture of English and Visayan.

Alley behind the bunkhouses at Ecoville

After much thanks, hand-shaking and good wishes, we head back home.

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The day is long, emotionally taxing and physically exhausting. And rich, revealing and rewarding.

I will go back to Ecoville again next week to deliver copies of the video to each participant. Before the videos can be shared with others outside the research team, they need to be translated, edited, and, in some cases, altered to conceal the identity of the participant (as per their request).


N.B. I have permission to use and share the pictures and stories of the people in this post. Sensitive  details have been omitted in order to protect the respondents.

Academic publications, or Ada's first lecture

Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is a critical component of academic life. The old adage of publish or perish rings true for many university lifers. Your credibility, reputation and ability to garner scholarships, research grant money, tenure and promotions all depend, in part, having your research evaluated by your peers. There is a seemingly endless list of journals publishing research on an equally impressive array of topics. These journals are ranked in terms of their impact factor. For example, getting published in a journal like Nature or Science is akin to winning an Olympic medal. Scholars typically aim to publish in both very specialized journals read only by their peers and high impact journals with an extensive readership. In addition to publishing in peer reviewed journals, academics must also share their work orally - at conferences and workshops, guest lectures, in undergraduate and graduate courses. 

During my doctoral studies I need to buoy up the academic publication and presentation section of my curriculum vitae. This post is a brief account of one such foray.

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Part I: The article

Last year, I co-authored a paper with Dr. James Ford, one of my profs at McGill University. It investigates one part of the climate migration puzzle, specifically how to provide protection for the people displaced by climate change. The following abstract summarizes the main arguments of the paper.

Climate change is expected to increase migration flows, especially from socially and environmentally vulnerable populations. These 'climate migrants' do not have any official protection under international law, which has implications for the human security of migrants. This work argues that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) can and should recognize climate migrants, and is the most relevant international framework for doing so. While not legally binding, the acknowledgment of climate displacement, migration and planned relocation issues in the UNFCCC's Cancun Adaptation Framework indicates a willingness to address the issue through an adaptation lens. Herein, the paper proposes a framework for setting the institutional groundwork for recognizing climate migrants, focusing on the most vulnerable, promoting targeted research and policy agendas, and situating policies within a comprehensive strategy.

If you want to read the full article, it's available on the Environmental Research Letters (ERL) website. ERL is an open access journal, which means that you can read and download articles for free. An added perk of open access journals (to academics) is that your research is more likely to be disseminated outside the academic community. 

For a short synopsis, try reading Liz Kalaugher's article on the environmentalresearchweb.org website. This online magazine targets a non-academic audience so the writing style is much less academic and reader-friendly. 

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Part II: The presentation

One of my key informants at Ateneo de Manila University kindly invited me to present this paper as part of their social sciences guest lecture series. I jumped at the opportunity. But it didn't unfold exactly as planned.

The lecture was set for Friday January 25 at 4:30 pm. As luck would have it, Frank received a text message from the MSI service center earlier that week, informing him that the long-awaited hard drive for our beleaguered laptop was finally ready for pick-up. We were in Manila for only a few days; Friday was the only available day for pick-up. Because the trek to the MSI office entails a short stint on the body-crushing MRT (Metro Rail Transit), bringing Ada was not an option. So Ada spent the day with me.

After a delicious lunch of bulalo (Filipino beef marrow soup) at Jek's Kubo (including a complimentary bowl of the broth and vegetables for "the cute baby with blue eyes"), Ada and I set off for Ateneo. We arrived early, with lots of time to peruse library resources and to photograph the outdoor art installation of quirky giant animals made of wire and coloured cans. I orated an abridged version of the presentation to a pair of giraffes.

Ada sandwiched between two giant giraffes at Ateneo de Manila University

Shortly before the scheduled start time I asked a fellow student if he'd hold the baby during the presentation. He replied that it would be his pleasure. As the lecture hall filled up, Ada started to fuss. She was getting into one of those moods, the one in which she refuses to be held by anyone except mom and papa. 

I sent a frantic text to Frank.

When I was introduced, the remarks included the usual info - name, degrees, country of origin, research interests, etc. The remarks also included some commentary about changing gender relations (in which the father takes time off work to care for the children), work-life balance, parental leave in Quebec, and conducting research with a baby. 

I walked up to the podium, notes in one hand, baby in the other. I don't remember much about the words alternately flowing and stumbling from my lips. I do remember bouncing my daughter up and down on my hip, listening to her babble into the microphone, watching her make eyes at the audience. I remember feeling mortified and guilty; the guilt comes from wondering whether or not I am exerting white privilege by bringing my baby to work and expecting others to ignore the inconvenience. I remember stealing frequent glances at the door, willing Frank to enter the room.

A half hour later he does. Waltzes down the stairs to the podium, picks up the baby and exits the room. 

My knight in shining armor is also my yaya (Filipino term for nanny).

Despite (or perhaps because of) the distraction of my co-presenter, the lecture was well-received. I am very grateful that everyone I have met here in the Philippines, without exception, has been extremely understanding and receptive to accommodating a baby. Even when it entails listening to a lecture delivered (in part) by a seven and a half month old.

Reference: Christine Gibb and James Ford (2012) Should the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognize climate migrants? Environ. Res. Lett. 7 doi: 045601

Diaspora, an intellectual tangent

One of the perks of being a graduate student is the flexibility of your schedule. The academic life is rarely a nine to five endeavour. While the end-of-semester paper writing and exam marking crunch exacts very long days (and nights), in other periods, students may find themselves with the time to pursue what I call "intellectual tangents". This post is a reflection on one such pursuit.

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Whenever I see the word diaspora, I'm inclined to speak the word aloud. Diaspora. It rolls off the tongue easily, yet it does not leave the mouth entirely. There's a part that remains, that clings on. Much like members of a diaspora - people who leave one place without severing all ties to that place.

On May 9, the University of Ottawa's African Studies and Research Laboratory hosted a free public workshop on "Migration and the New African Diaspora". It intrigued me for a number of reasons, notably its focus on migration and place-making and my long-standing  interest in the African continent. The workshop promised to foster discussion and debate on three issues:

1. Identity: should we talk of the African diasporas as a single entity or are there a variety of African diasporas?
2. The role of national and international institutions in making diasporas 'actors of development' in their countries of origin.
3. Existing local initiatives, made possible as a result of transnational dynamics rather than institutionalisation of diasporas.

What is a diaspora? The official workshop documentation defines it as "a collective dispersed throughout the world whose members maintain relations with one another and who are involved in one or a number of projects concerning their home country". Each of the panellists added their own understanding of the concept, reflecting its diverse theoretical and instrumental applications: "an imagined community that is neither here nor there",  "a fractious collective that recreates institutions, cultural emblems and tensions found in the homeland", "a means to support co-development, in which diaspora members integrate into (Canadian) society and  help to develop their home country" and "a group whose money and minds can help to solve underdevelopment". Members of the diasporas can be refugees or asylum-seekers, students studying at foreign universities or economically-motivated immigrants. As such, a diaspora is a heterogeneous group.

Why is interest in diasporas growing? From a development delivery perspective, the African diasporas can infuse cash, skills and knowledge. Since the 1990s, the monetary value of remittances that the Africa diasporas send to help their families and communities and to invest has quadrupled. Remittances eclipse the amount of money that developed countries spend on development in Africa. The World Bank's diaspora program facilitates (1) the creation of an enabling environment (e.g. market-friendly reforms to attract investment), (2) increased remittances through lower transaction costs and greater transparency, and (3) brain gain initiatives. In other words, the World Bank values diasporas for their financial assets. It is shifting the burden of financing development from developed countries like Canada and intergovernmental institutions like the World Bank to individuals with a vested interest (emotional, financial or otherwise) in the African continent.

The African diasporas are also being courted by development agencies, funding organisations and governments. The opinions of the former are sought to inform policy, funding and investment decisions made by the latter. The power wielded by the diasporas is not unnoticed by African governments, some of which actively encourage diaspora members to lobby for particular policies in their adopted countries. 

Investigating African diasporas is a way of understanding blackness. As one of the panellists pointed out, there are no "Blacks" in Africa, only "Algerians", "Kikuyus" (in Kenya), "Namibians", "Congolese", et cetera. Blackness is not the defining aspect of one's identity until one leaves the continent. The basis for identity is transformed from a nation (or other defining quality) to a colour. The panellist drew parallels between the trajectory of becoming Black with the process of becoming a woman. When renown feminist scholar Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman", she asserted that societal influences trump biology in articulating what constitutes a woman and femininity. Applied to the African diasporas, this observation means that it is society - people, institutions, organisations, culture, norms, media, ... - that dictates what is means to be Black. The process and concept of blackness is not merely an academic exercise. It has real implications for citizenship and belonging in both origin and receiving countries.

Panellists and audience members alike were highly critical of underlying assumption of homogeneity. The motivation for migration for intentional migrants is clearly different from that of their refugee and displacee counterparts. Will all these people perceive the homeland in the same way? Will their children and grandchildren? Do Liberians living in neighbouring Ivory Coast support a development pathway identical to their compatriots living in China? If they differ, whose views should guide policy? The World Bank and other organisations seeking to invoke an entrepreneurial and humanitarian spirit in diasporas presuppose a singular voice. They do not recognise the plurality of voices, or "polyvocality" in the African diasporas. These organisations similarly presume diaspora members espouse common values, and do not account for differences based on gender, age, class, education, et cetera. This glossing over of differences is not unlike the popular treatment of Africa as a country, instead of as an enormous continent housing an incredible amount of diversity (see map below). (Herein the irony of this blog post's undifferentiated referral to "Africa" and use of an "Africa" label is duly noted.)  

Flag-inspired political map of Africa.
Source: Northern by Nature

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As with any tangent, it is helpful to bridge a seemingly unrelated pursuit with the overarching one. For my own research on environmental displacement and migration in the Philippines, this "intellectual tangent" provides much food for thought. Migration, both internal and international, has long been a part of the Filipino way of life. Currently, the national government has policies encouraging its population to work abroad as "Overseas Filipino Workers" or OFWs. Not only do the remittances that OFWs send back to the Philippines help families and communities, but they are also an important source of foreign investment and foreign currency to grow the economy and to repay the national debt, respectively. These OFWs, as well as the Filipinos who have laid down permanent roots in other countries, also send back ideas. Thus, to understand national and sub-national disaster and migration policies and programmes requires, I must be aware of the networks operating at the transnational scale and their influence in shaping initiatives at the local to national level.

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Postscript 1:
The workshop was bilingual, with presenters and audience members switching (nearly) effortlessly between English and French. Some things were better expressed in French, others in English. The bilingualism added a layer of richness and inclusiveness to the workshop. It made an impression on me. When I am frustrated by the limitations of my French language skills and am second guessing my choice to do a doctorate in a second language (which inevitably happens from time to time), I will picture myself in that workshop room.

Postscript 2: 
There will be a follow-up workshop (date and specific theme TBD). I will post any links to summary reports or other workshop-inspired material as it is made available.