CASE STUDY UPDATES
- Lynne Milgram completed fieldwork over the summer with Baguio Public Market enterprises in the Philippines in order to understand how gift economies are tied to commodity economies and vice versa.
- Jeff Ducanes has started working with Thea Basilio, a graduate student in Economics at UP Diliman, to analyze LINKAPIL data on philanthropic donations from Canada.
- Marla Asis has begun fieldwork with alumni association of UP-Diliman, UP-Visasya, Silliman University, the University of San Agustin and Miriam College.
- Andre Ortega and RA Nikki Ramos have conducted the first leg of their fieldwork looking at GK villages in Central Luzon. They recently visited Angeles City and Guagua towns in Pampanga. Interviews in Tarlac and Bulacan are also planned.
- Nora Angeles and nine UBC Masters’ students were in the Philippines for their community-based service learning course in July. They formed 3 groups, each focused on the work of Migrante International, Katribu and Citizens Disaster Response Center and Coffee for Peace.
- Philip Kelly and RA Melissa Gibson have begun interviews with youth of Filipino heritage who are volunteering or have recently traveled to the Philippines. Melissa also accompanied one transnational youth volunteer to a community affected by Typhoon Haiyan.
OTHER UPDATES
- To prepare for ATE video outputs, collaborators and research assistants in Manila participated in a 2-day workshop with John Torres, a documentary filmmaker.
- Kim Valentine completed her MA in Development Studies at York in September 2016. The study was titled Crafting Livelihoods: Handicraft Production and Fair Trade in the Philippines. It was based on four months of fieldwork in Manila and Kim’s internship with the fairtrade marketing organization Gifts and Graces, based in Makati. Through her interviews, Kim examined the ways in which fair trade exchange relations and cooperative production organizations in the handicraft sector assist women and disabled individuals to generate a livelihood.
- Chaya Go and Christopher Chanco, two new graduate students have arrived at York and will be conducting research in the Graduate Program in Geography that is broadly related to the ATE project. Chaya Go is originally from Manila and completed her BA and MA at the University of British Columbia. Her previous research related to gendered cultural understandings of Typhoon Haiyan and she has also worked in disaster relief operations in the Visayan region. Christopher Chanco joins York from the Geography Department at UP Diliman. His research at York will look at the international solidarity ties forged by the Canadian labour movement, particularly related to peace, development and human rights.