Lumad Husay (indigenous conciliation). Decolonizing justice & re-storying culture in Mindanao, Philippines

Abstract

In 2016 a consortium of Lumad indigenous activists articulated husay (conciliation/mediation) as a cultural platform for non-violent political assertion, as well as an umbrella symbol of Lumad legal cultural resurgence on the island of Mindanao (Philippines). In this research I describe key historic, contextual, and cultural (both internal and external) factors in the emergence of this social movement by Lumad peace and justice experts and their allies over the past two decades. This study unearths some of the historic and contemporary symbols, motifs, and meanings undergirding Lumad forms of justice, how they came to be contested in current circumstances, and the dynamics, nuances, and implications of their transformation.

With a focus on Lumad engagements in formal government-rebel peace processes, the evolution of collective action by this cohort of Lumad peace practitioners, activists, and peoples’ organizations in the early 2000s is articulated as a Lumad Peace Movement. Factors that facilitated this cultural revival included demographic changes in the religious affiliation of Lumad communities, the growth of Mindanao-wide conflict transformation initiatives, formal government-rebel peace processes, and the emergence of a rival, Military-Lumad counter-insurgency alliance epitomized by Task Force Gantangan. The responses and interactions of Lumad leaders negotiating external social factors and the internal cultural dynamics of husay, as Lumad legal culture, I suggest, evidences a local form of complexity called kalibugan. Lumad legal agency in the context of kalibugan involved mobilizing and asserting epics and narratives connecting customary traditions with current peace practices across various identities, ecologies, and geographies of justice.

This research involved storying (saysay) and historicizing (kasaysayan) local iterations of justice and peace with Lumad and non-Lumad partners through auto-ethnographic accompaniment, qualitative methodology, and textual meta-analysis. As a form of collaborative and appreciative action research within the Lumad Peace Movement, I related two case studies of Aromanon and Teduray Lumad practitioners’ engagement with state and non-state actors through their use and modification of indigenous cultural concepts, motifs, and narratives. The case studies show how tribal leaders have adapted unique tribal forms of husay to address conflict, violence, trauma, and injustice across a spectrum of social conflict – interpersonal, ideological, communal, and intergenerational.

This inquiry is a response to the lack of focused study on Lumad peace traditions and their current use and deployment in post-modern contexts, especially in formal peace processes and insurgency-counter insurgency contexts. Framing the recent history of a Lumad Peace Movement as a contemporary cultural resurgence of indigenous legal culture is a novel contribution to Lumad studies and indigenous scholarship more broadly. The relevance and value of this research is that it extends the articulation of peace movement histories by Lumad leaders and allies engaged in justice and peacebuilding efforts in Mindanao. In particular, it highlights the strategies that Lumad activists and their supporters have used to engage formal government institutions, rebel actors, and peace processes. The study helps reclaim, document, and historicize Lumad models of peace and justice activism, social movement action, right to self-determination assertions, and indigenous political agency. Field research was conducted between 2018-2019, following over 20 years in the Philippines, including residence in Mindanao from 2008-2017.