MINING IN OTHER PEOPLE’S LAND. THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MINERAL LIBERALIZATION IN SUBANON LAND IN MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
Date
2019-09-20
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ORCID
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Doctoral
Abstract
The contrast between the Philippines as an idyllic holiday destination for foreign visitors and the daily lived realities of Indigenous people in Mindanao who have experienced first-hand how others were mining in their ancestral domain is stark. This research study is the story of an Indigenous people, the Subanos, in Sitio (village) Canatuan in Siocon Municipality, Zamboanga del Norte Province in Mindanao, Southern Philippines. In this research I recount and analyze the harmful effects on their communities and way of life following the 1995 national liberalization of mining laws and TVI mining operations on their land. This story, based on my first-hand research over 8 years, is based on participant observation, oral history, interaction, interviews, and analysis of data and records is told through an autoethnography. My constructed story and voice tell the people’s story. I give attention to the unintended consequences of purposive actions taken by actors variously located in the contexts in response to such mining policy and operations. These actions include the Subanos’ participation in the genesis, completion and outcomes of a community-based human rights impact assessment, which I have critically examined with Robin Hansen. The larger context is one of past and continuing violence in Mindanao with the Philippines’ dismissive characterization as “the Mindanao problem.”
In response to field conditions, contingent on ongoing Canadian-owned mining project and operations in Sitio (village) Canatuan in Siocon Municipality, as an autoethnographer I improvised as well as elaborated ways of doing research in continuing and deepening engagement. I have conceptualized the resulting responsive research participation as ‘consequential autoethnography.’ The practices and overall methodology involved following the consequences of purposive actions of contextual actors as they responded to mineral liberalization as policy and as stages of the mining operations as these played out ‘in their land.’ Intrinsic and integral to such a methodology is the notion of “fielding.” “Fielding” describes my ethnographic adaptive and reflexive processes of knowing, learning, and engagements involved in doing participatory action research. The autoethnography – Chapter 4 with 10 vignettes recounting fielding from 2002 to 2010 – not only tells my story from a researcher’s vantage points and relationships, but also the stories of the many actors and relationships involved, with special attention to the Subanos’ leaders and people in Canatuan responding to others mining ‘in their land.’
This study addressed three questions that emerged in “fielding” about the consequences of neoliberal mining policy underlying the Philippine State Mining Act of 1995 generally, and specifically the mining operations of TVI in Canatuan. (1) What are the social, cultural, economic and political impacts of mineral liberalization policies in the actual large-scale mining by a foreign company? (2) What intracommunity conflicts are generated with the entry of large-scale mineral development in mining operations? (3) What are the outcomes of community actors and subgroups’ interactions with the mining project company and with each other?
In answer to the three questions, I conclude that the Philippine State mining policy in its legislation (1995) and TVI’s 18-year mining operations in Canatuan (1994 to 2014) have had adverse, even devastating, social, cultural, economic and political impact on communities in Mindanao, particularly among the Subanos. Due to the Philippine State’s strategic simplifications and previous development agenda implemented in Mindanao, communities, particularly Indigenous communities in their ancestral lands, were pre-disposed to benefit the least and bear the most in the costs of development. The mining project has also given rise to complex patterns of inclusion and exclusion in communities through the homogenization of group and ethnic identity that resulted in the unequal distribution of the costs and the benefits of mining. I highlight significant contributions emergent in this research. I suggest recommendations to counter the adverse effects documented in this research.
Finally, this dissertation is a response to Timouy (Chieftain) Ben Alog’s request that the story of the Subanos of Canatuan be told – that what happened to them when “Mining in Other People’s Land” devastated their ancestral way of life and home at Mount Canatuan – would be known.
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Keywords
Subanos, Mindanao, consequences, autoethnography, mining, neoliberalism, mineral liberalization, Canatuan, Zamboanga Peninsula, Siocon, Canadian mining, Philippines, Fielding, consequential autoethnography, social justice
Citation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
Interdisciplinary Studies
Program
Interdisciplinary Studies