(En)countering Exclusion in Policy and Lived Experience

(En)countering Exclusion in Policy and Lived Experience: Exploring the Intersections of Differential Exclusions of the Badjao People in the Philippines

An Epistemological Analysis

I. On the Research

The Problem

This study examines the differential exclusions of the Badjao people, the sea nomads of the Philippines in terms of policy and lived experience across gender, socioeconomic status and generation and how the Badjao from across sections of their community navigate through this marginalization and social exclusion.

Contextual Background

Numbering to about a total of 107,000 in the whole country, the Badjao thrive on the sea, “traveling by boat from one island to the next in search of a fishing harvest” (Joshua Project, 2009a). Historically, they held no land or other property ashore, except for small burial islands and are a highly fragmented people with no overall political unity (Joshua Project, 2009b). Among the indigenous groups in the Philippines, the Badjao is regarded as the most marginalized, even “known to other tribes living in the same area as 'palau' or 'lumaan,' both meaning "godforsaken" (Joshua Project, 2009c). In a recent study, Professor Aurora Roxas-Lim of the University of the Philippines' Asian Center says that the prejudices against the Badjao often stem from the preconception that all nomadic people are by nature shiftless, rootless, irresponsible and unreliable (UN Philippines, 2002:86). The exclusion from welfare and access to public services is rooted on this “territorial unboundedness” and oftentimes has caused the inferior status accorded to the Badjao and their nomadic way of life. This exclusion coupled with an increasing disregard for the Badjao’s concern over the security of their fishing grounds has pushed many of their women and men, including children, to earn their livelihood through begging, may this be in city streets or in maritime waters where ports are present.

In 1997, the Philippines formulated a key national policy framework in the effort to uphold national unity, prospectively embodied in the Republic Act No. 8371 otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA). Based on ILO Convention 169, the policy was enacted to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples in the Philippines (NCIP, 2008:1-25). It is an embodiment of the rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples which are as follows: right to ancestral domains, right to self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights, and cultural integrity (NCIP, 2008:1-25). Yet, even with this strong enunciation of protection for indigenous peoples, problems of realization of its provisions still exist.

Also, the inclusiveness of the IPRA is challenged on the basis of the applicability of its espoused land-based territorial concepts vis-à-vis the Badjao[1], Chou (2006:2) contends that the phenomenon of sea nomadism is less known and has thus challenged the classical idea of citizenship that is defined within bounded territories and guaranteed by a sovereign state. The question posed here is whether “the inalienable human rights of the Badjao as a distinct sea-based indigenous ethnic group who look at their sea-world as without borders and respect for their inalienable right to freedom of movement as inherent in their privilege” (Neofilipino, 2008), are deemed included, therefore recognized and acknowledged under the IPRA.

It is in this light that I have posed this central question: How do Badjao people from across gender, socioeconomic status and generation experience differential exclusions in terms of policy and lived reality? From these differential experiences of exclusion (taking into consideration gender, socioeconomic status and age groups), I would like to draw out how this socially differentiated group may have experienced exclusion from the state or from other practices of social exclusion obtaining in their community. Also, I would like to look into the inclusiveness or otherwise of the IPRA, which purport to uphold the rights of all indigenous peoples of the Philippines by exploring within the interstices of the policy discourses informed by material conditions that have shaped the language of the policy and in turn produce and reproduce social reality in Philippine society.

II. Behind the Research

Feminist Postmodern Approach

The broader framework of my study relies on a feminist postmodern approach. First of all, a key point in a postmodern approach that this research takes on, draws from the works of theorists like Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, among others, which stresses on locality, partiality, contingency, instability, uncertainty, ambiguity and essential contestability of any particular account of the world, the self, and the good (Anderson, 2000a). Butler (1990) notes that the oft-cited claim that gender is socially or discursively constructed — that it is an effect of social practices and systems of meaning that can be disrupted — finds one of its homes in postmodernism (ibid). The postmodernist emphasizes the situatedness and contestability of any particular claim or system of thought and delegitimizes ideas that dominate and exclude by undermining their claims to transcendent justification; thus it opens up space for imagining alternative possibilities that were obscured by those claims (ibid). Postmodernist theory drives the point that there can be no complete, unified theory of the world that captures the whole truth about it, therefore, the selection of any particular theory or narrative is an exercise of “power” — to exclude certain possibilities from thought and to authorize others (ibid).

Postmodernism has figured more prominently in internal critiques of feminist theories such as exposing and responding to exclusionary tendencies within feminism itself particularly the concept “woman” — the central analytical category of feminist theory (ibid). Feminist postmodernists are more inclined to take the view that gender is not the site but one site of social identity. Thus, beginning from the standpoint of the woman becomes partial, therefore incomplete when it takes on a feminist perspective that focuses only on gender inequality in isolation from other forms of inequality (Van der Hoogte & Kingma, 2004). The idea of intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, is that different subjectivities and ‘social structures do not combine in purely additive ways’ (Weldon, 2005:13) but are mutually reinforcing one another. Nash notes that ‘progressive scholarship requires a nuanced conception of identity that recognizes the ways in which positions of dominance and subordination work in complex and intersecting ways to constitute subjects’ experiences of personhood’ (2008:10). Van der Hoogte & Kingma (2004) also add “that the failure to recognise the importance of people’s multiple identities leads to a failure to address the discrimination against individuals and groups which arises out of this.

Despite the charge that “postmodern emphasis on ‘fractured identities’ and multitude of subjectivities seems to end in total relativism precluding political action” (Naples & Sachs, 2000:203), advocates of postmodernism still argue that it represents a vehicle for and response to these critiques as it proposes perspective-shifting as a strategy for negotiating the proliferation of theories produced by differently situated women (ibid). Challenging the epistemic privilege claimed by feminist standpoint theorists, “feminist postmodernism thus envisions our epistemic situation as characterized by a permanent plurality of perspectives, none of which can claim objectivity — that is, transcendence of situatedness to a “view from nowhere” (ibid). Anderson points out to two types of epistemic practice in negotiating the range of situated knowledges which include: (a) acceptance of responsibility, which involves acknowledging the choices of situation that entered into the construction of one's representations (Haraway 1991), and considering how one's situation affects the content of one's representations (Harding 1993); (b) “world traveling” (Lugones 1987) or “mobile positioning” — trying to see things from many other perspectives. This also further suggests that these perspectives are constantly shifting rather than static.

Methodology

Postmodern theorizing demonstrates sensitivity toward a greater multiplicity of power relations (Naples & Sachs, 2000:203). Some feminist ethnographers have used self-reflexive techniques to reveal how power and difference construct encounters in the field (ibid:204). Diane Wolf has emphasized three interrelated dimensions by which power is discernible: (1) power difference stemming from different positionalities of the researcher and the researched (race, class, nationality, life chances, urban-rural background); (2) power exerted during the research process, such as defining the research relationship, unequal exchange, and exploitation; and (3) power exerted during the postfieldwork – writing and representing (Wolf 1996b:2 in Naples & Sachs, 2000:203). For example, using a feminist modern approach, Shelley Feldman and Rick Welsh deconstruct the farm household to show how social relations on farms are constituted by divergent interests (ibid:198).

As this research aspires to analyze the production of knowledge about different Badjao people as well as its impact on them, there is a need to do fieldwork and generate primary data otherwise; one would get skewed impression and incomplete picture of the exclusions against them. Combining narrative inquiry and discourse analysis play a considerable role both in telling the story of the Badjao as they navigate around their differentiated, marginalized, if not subjectified identities along the margins while understanding how the resulting discourses are produced and reproduced to cast a metaphorical and material root of marginalization.

Narrative Inquiry

Narrative inquiry through interviews and storytelling shall be used to draw the experiences of women and men in the Badjao community in relation to being and belonging to a differentiated group paying attention to their specific locations (gender, socioeconomic status, age, and other positions and the intersections of such) in order to understand the context of their stories. These shall include participant observation, casual conversations, and life histories through semi-structured life interviews. Life history research method shall be used to understand more about individual lives from their own perspectives in terms of their identity, constraints, turning points, aspirations and opportunities. As the life history chronicles the living testimonies of everyday experiences of ordinary people, this shall be used to explore the varying experiences among members of the Badjao community from different gender identities, socioeconomic status, and generation --- in how they view themselves as members of a larger community and how they navigate through their everyday lives including dealing with exclusions. These may be supported by other methods like key informant interviews and other interactionist methods that may be called for in the field in order to saturate data, fill in data gaps or for community validation but these can only be considered upon knowing whether these are culturally appropriate techniques and upon the community’s permission.

Discourse Analysis

By examining policy as discourse, I would like to develop a framework of understanding the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion of the Badjao people within the discursive space of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act taking into consideration the historical, spatial and social context. Taking policy as text may “yield some interesting insights, notably in the language used to describe the people who are the objects of the policy” (Cameron, 2009).

One usage of discourse analysis defines discourse as “an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to phenomena” (Hajer 1993 in Gasper & Apthorpe, 1996:2). Hajer (1993:45 in Gasper & Apthorpe, 1996:2) explains that discourses frame certain problems; that is to say, they distinguish some aspects of a situation rather than others. This means that frames help us identify what we address and what we neglect. In applying this to the IPRA, the critical question is that despite being considered as a relatively inclusive legal instrument for the realization of rights of the indigenous peoples, “why does the issue of marginalization of the indigenous peoples persist?” Yanow (2009) speaks of the intractability of certain issues which may require going back to how the issue or problem is perceived rather than making a calculation as to the best solution. Hence, the intractable character of the issue of marginalization of indigenous peoples shall be explored by arguing against how this issue/problem is viewed from the point of public policy –how public policy has resorted to tackling such issue by resorting to the quest for the best course of action towards the indigenous group of peoples, that is, recognizing their rights through policy/law; instead of taking a step back and looking at the meaning-making process – how policy has viewed the indigenous peoples by examining how indigenous peoples are defined in the IPRA, which I further argue has framed them within a box influenced by modernistic definitions and ideologies.

Citing the other usage of discourse which claims that “‘discourse’ is not just a set of words, it is a set of rules about what you can and cannot say’ (Barrett 1995 in Gasper & Apthorpe 1996:4) which leads to the claim that “‘discourse’ is “practice and theory” – material activity which transforms nature and society and the modes of thought that inform action…” (Moore 1995:30 in Gasper & Apthorpe, 1996:4), I will use critical discourse analysis to support the understanding of how and why the policy is articulated in such a manner and how it reflects the pervading power relations and material conditions in the society where the policy is basically couched in. CDA is concerned with studying and analyzing written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific social, economic, political, and historical contexts (Van Dijk 1988 in McGregor, 2004).

Using frame analysis and critical discourse analysis, I shall look into how state policy views the indigenous peoples by examining the IPRA, and draw out discourses that represent the existing power relations in Philippine society. Within this process, I will also identify the included as well as excluded discourses that could shed light on the inclusiveness of the IPRA as regards the case of the Badjao, the sea nomads of the Philippines.

III. An Epistemological Analysis

As is earlier mentioned, my research takes on a feminist postmodern approach. As such, it takes the perspective that gender is one among the other categories by which we may understand power relations as inequality and social exclusion. It views power not as monolithic, rather may come from nowhere or everywhere. It considers intersections of gender, class, and generation in understanding the root and dynamics of power relations obtaining in a given context. While putting on the “intersectional lens” moves us away from looking at a specific group of people as one homogenous entity, it also allows a space for the marginalized subjects to have an epistemic advantage as their voices have been commonly ignored.

However, one important note that I have more recently encountered in the course of my readings is as regards the epistemic privilege of marginalized subjects. Grosfoguel (2008:3) discusses about subaltern epistemic perspectives -- knowledge coming from below that produces a critical perspective of hegemonic knowledge in the power relations involved. He notes the importance of distinguishing “epistemic location” from the “social location”. He stresses that “the fact that one is socially located in the oppressed side of power relations does not automatically mean that he/she is epistemically thinking from a subaltern epistemic location” (ibid). He further explains that “the success of the modern/colonial world-system consists precisely in making subjects that are socially located on the oppressed side of the colonial difference think epistemically like the ones in dominant positions” (ibid). A challenge which I have to be more cautious of here is being keen about what knowledge, voice, or stories I get from my research informants, conscious whether their views reflect a certain kind of thinking and which side, if any, these are epistemically located and the fact that my own understanding of that view may also influence how such view may be taken, understood or negotiated.

There are also other tensions within the research that remain problematic. I have considered power as the umbrella concept with focus on its specific articulations within the nexus of inclusion and exclusion in policy and in lived experience. But I believe I tread on tricky ground in dealing with the notion of power within a national policy and linking it with the experiences of a relatively powerless group of people. It is very easy to get swayed with the idea that the state with its attendant governmentality such as policy (within which it holds the power of labeling its people as indigenous or invisibilizing them as well) is the root cause of their exclusion.

While I acknowledge being critical of the policy and seeing it as repressive, giving prominence to such may move me away from the postmodern epistemology that I would like to position myself towards a more central social constructivist, or even perhaps towards a critical realist position. Locating power and agency in the state policy leans more towards a ‘realist’ stance and viewing the state policy as having failed to recognize key differences between groups despite the best of intentions to accommodate them in the name of national unity may lie within the vicinity of a critical realist position. Not being careful of this nuanced understanding of power could also bar me from recognizing other practices of exclusion obtaining in the community that which may not stem from the state. Thus, the challenge of the research is to be more critical of the view of power, how power is patterned and unequal power relations reproduced, and it may require therefore more sensitivity in the field during which articulations of power may be seen – how power works, exclusions that are less familiar, community opposition or listening to what things mean to people.

This too entails that I have to start from people’s experiences rather than policy, that is, discovering policy in people’s experiences rather than in policy statements, though the deconstruction of the policy statements might play a role in the research. Cameron (2009b) explains that a conventional ‘post-modern epistemological approach would be to start from people’s voices and then deconstruct some key policy statements that affect/engage with their experiences to show how their low status is reproduced (and contested) ideologically and the pressures to ‘voluntarily’ mainstream themselves. This however has a methodological implication or even on the direction and structure of the research. Should I continue with looking at the relevant ‘top-down’ document that is the IPRA and do a discourse analysis of such document or put the policy discourse as background and concentrate on the dynamics of the experiences within the community?

But again, writing about people’s lived experience, I am reminded of Joan Scott’s poststructuralist critique of experience which demonstrates the dangers of empiricist narratives of experience and how stories of marginalized persons’ experiences (both personal narratives and the histories that draw on these) reinscribe the assumptions about identities, differences, and autonomous subjects that underlie available discourses (Stone-Mediatore in Narayan & Harding, 2000:110). Aware of this tension, I would like to be guided with some notes suggested by feminists such as Chandra Mohanty, as cited by Stone-Mediatore, in avoiding the naturalizing of experience and yet still productively read, teach, and defend stories of “marginalized experience” (ibid:111).

At the moment, what is clear to me is to look at the dynamics of the community at its cross-sections from inside out. It is also helpful to note that what should be avoided is giving state policy a high profile in the interviews with the Badjao informants and any significance of the policies should emerge, not be ontologically assumed. More importantly, I should not look at the state and community as two fixed, static concepts but allow these to be revealed in the course of the research; nor should I make truth claims about the Badjao people based on the outcomes of my research.

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References

Anderson, E. (2000) ‘Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science’, retrieved November 26, 2008 from http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/archives/sum2002/entries/feminism-epistemology/.

Cameron, J. (2009) 4223 Part B Sessions 5-11: Comparative Epistemology: Lectures Notes: Chapter 6 The Epistemology of Postmodernism and Poststructuralism, ISS: Development Research.

Chou, C. (2006) “Research Trends on Southeast Asian Sea Nomads”, Articles: Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, retrieved March 30, 2009 from http://kyotoreviewsea.org/images/images/pdffiles/Chou_final.pdf.

Gasper, D. & Apthorpe, R. (1996), “Discourse, Discourse Analysis, and Policy Discourse” in Apthorpe, R. & Gasper, G. (eds), Arguing Development Policy: Frames and Discourses. London: Frank Cass.

Grosfoquel, R. (2008) ‘Transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality: Decolonizing political economy and postcolonial studies’, Eurozine, retrieved June 21, 2009 from http://www.eurozine.com/pdf/2008-07-04-grosfoguel-en.pdf.

Joshua Project. (2009). ‘Sama, Badjao of Philippines’ Peoples of the World Foundation, retrieved March 1, 2009 from http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rop3=114778&rog3=RP.

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A Primer’, retrieved June 21, 2009 from http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html.

Naples, N.A. & C. Sachs (2000) ‘Standpoint epistemology and the uses of self-reflection in feminist ethnography: lessons for rural sociology’, Rural Sociology 65(2), 194-210, ca 7038.

Nash, J. (2008) Re-thinking Intersectionality, Feminist Review.

NCIP. (2008) ‘Ethno-group: Badjao’, retrieved December 18, 2008 from http://www.ncip.gov.ph/.

Stone-Mediatore, S. (2000) ‘Chandra Mohanty and the Revaluing of “Experience”’, in Uma Narayan and Sandra Harding (eds.), Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.

United Nations Philippines. (2002) ‘Case Study 3: Twilight of the Sea People’, Rights-

Based Approach to Development Programming: Training Manual, July, pp. 85-88,

Exeter: Author.

Van der Hoogte, L. & Kingma, K. (2004) ‘Promoting Cultural Diversity and the Rights of

Women: The Dilemmas of ‘Intersectionality’ for Development Organizations’, Gender

and Development, 12(1), pp. 47-55.

Weldon, S.L. (2005) Rethinking Intersectionality: Some conceptual problems and solutions for the comparative study of welfare states, Purdue University.

Yanow, D. (2009) 3206-0809 Session 7: Frame Analysis Part I: Powerpoint Presentation, ISS: Research Techniques

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[1] Other sources use “bajau”.

En(gendering) Social Inclusion: Examining Modes of Inclusion for Badjao Communities

Introduction

This essay attempts to understand some facets of the social exclusionary process experienced by the Badjao, the community of sea gypsies inhabiting the waters of the Philippine Islands, using a gendered social exclusion framework. Employing Patrick Commins (2004) conception, the process of social exclusion has been generally linked to the concept of poverty but goes well beyond it (Kurian, 2008). Whereas poverty as a related notion refers only to material deprivation, social exclusion urges a multidimensional view of well-being which acknowledges the intersecting “poverties” or disadvantages experienced by the socially excluded (Kurian, 2008).

Despite the novelty and contentious character of the term drawn from available literature, this paper still endeavors to illustrate the theoretical appeal of the concept of social exclusion in the analysis of the Badjao and the process by which these people have navigated for inclusion spatially and socially along the margins of the mainstream society. The social exclusion particular to the Badjao is also revealed in the various limits to public benefits that reached them, pushing community members to seek the “harbor of protection” in the urban centers of the country. The essay is premised on social exclusion being intersectional in that it can only be understood by reflecting on the wider context particularly the Badjao’s social, cultural, economic, geographical, and political position.

But while social exclusion may have affected the whole Badjao community, it is also recognized that men and women experience exclusion differently (Kurian, 2008). Hence, other than the various positions an individual Badjao is located, Badjao women are still more at a disadvantaged position in terms of capabilities and rights. The essay attempts to locate the dynamics of the different process of social exclusion from a gender perspective by giving a critical reading of some policies currently implemented to promote an integrated and sustainable strategy for the empowerment of both men and women in this differentiated community.

Social Exclusion: Unpacking Intersecting “Poverties”

Certain groups in society are deprived of advantages and entitlements because of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, class, or other social position. They are referred to as socially excluded. Social Exclusion, according to Commins, ‘refers to the dynamic processes of being shut out, partially or fully, from any or all of several systems

which influence the economic and social integration of people into their society’ (Kurian, 2008). DFID (2005:iii) recognizes that social exclusion deprives people of choices and opportunities to escape from poverty and denies them a voice to claim their rights.

Social exclusion acknowledges the different forms of “poverties” which include persistent disadvantages and denials of entitlements in the social, cultural, economic, geographical, and political aspect (Kurian, 2008). Kurian and Bedi recognizes that it encompasses not only lack of access to goods and services which underlie poverty and basic needs satisfaction but also, among others, lack of security, lack of justice, lack of participation and representation (Kurian, 2008). Institutions may perpetuate exclusion such as when state institutions deliberately discriminate in their laws, policies or programs (DFID, 2005:3). People may also become excluded not only on the basis of “who they are but also on where they live, and as a result are locked out of the benefits of development” (DFID, 2005:iii). The latter form of exclusion is termed as ‘spatial’ exclusion.

But going beyond the narrow view of social exclusion involves understanding context and intersections. A gender approach to social exclusion takes off from the viewpoint that gender-power relations, reflecting the social norms in society, are integrated in its institutions, relations and activities (Kurian, 2008). These social norms are a reflection of the prevailing ideology particularly those of powerful groups in society which from a gender point of view assigns different roles for men and women in society (Kurian, 2008). Here, I add that given the ascribed roles to women in society, they also have the least access to resources and power. As a consequence, they become the most vulnerable in certain situations.

There is a need for the gender analysis of social exclusion to understand the processes by which people are excluded in society, particularly women. This involves understanding the specific social, cultural, economic and political circumstances under which certain types of social exclusion are promoted or alleviated, and to study these from a gender lens. Using a gendered social exclusion framework therefore means asking whether women and men experience exclusion differently, whether women have different concerns other than the concerns of men, and how these exclusions impact on their life-experience.

Community on Stilts: Damned and Doomed?

The Badjaos are popularly known as the "Sea Gypsies" of the Sulu and Celebes Sea (Toohey, 2005:293). While they refer to themselves as “people of the sea”, they belong to a wider group of Sama peoples that “includes not only boat-dwelling and former boat-dwelling groupings but also shore- and land-based peoples” (Toohey, 2005:293). While there are specific locations where the Badjaos have been living in "communities on stilts", settling for a sedentary lifestyle, in harmony with the land-based communities, many are still heavily reliant on the sea (NCIP, 2008). Torres & Gonzales noted that “Badjao communities have coalesced into larger pole house villages, where their ways are slowly being taken over by those of the surrounding shore population, and where they now live in abject poverty” (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Many of these coastal settlements are dotting the Sulu Archipelago while others are scattered in many urban centers of the Philippines in search of livelihood, which more currently includes begging from pedestrians in the streets.

The Badjao is said to be the most marginalized among all the other indigenous peoples in the Philippines. Understanding this marginalization of the Badjao community initially requires the recognition of the historical context and an examination of the social exclusionary processes that Badjao people experience which stem from their social and spatial location in Philippine society.

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported that even given the “high correlation between ethnicity and poverty among indigenous peoples, compounded by a long history of discrimination and prejudice,” (‘Still Strangers in Their Own Land’, 2007) “regrettably relations between these peoples and more powerful populations ashore (such as the Tausug and Maguindanao in the Southern Philippines) have seldom been founded on mutual respect, and everywhere the Badjao, as a sea people, have tended to be marginalized, excluded from positions of power, despised, and confined to the lowest rungs of the social ladder” (Sather in Bottignolo, 1995:vi).

One important dimension examined here is the identity of the Badjao as sea gypsies. Being differentiated as sea gypsies connotes a way of life that relates to movement and homelessness and in effect results to their spatial exclusion. In a recent study, Professor Aurora Roxas-Lim of the University of the Philippines' Asian Center says that the prejudices against the Badjao often stem from the preconception that all nomadic people are by nature shiftless, rootless, irresponsible and unreliable (UN Philippines, 2002:86). The inferior status accorded to the Badjao has led tribal members now living onshore to identify themselves to census takers as Tausug and Samal and to some extent adopted modern practices to make themselves less distinct from other people (UN Philippines, 2002:86). This prejudice has caused the Badjao to be excluded from welfare and access to public services.

Deprivation of the Badjao from their traditional fishing grounds because of the encroachment by both legal and illegal fishing vessels have forced them to abandon their traditional homes on boats for makeshift stilt houses. They are also vulnerable to looting by some pirates roaming freely in the sea waters. Desperate to feed their families and look for some other secure place to settle, many of the community members have gone to the cities to beg (UN Philippines, 2002:85). A common sight in many ports of Philippine cities are a pack of naked sun-bleached Badjao children who dive deep into waters after charming ship passengers to throw coins at them. Another picture is that of women and children daring to inhabit the streets and beg for their daily consumption. Considered tourism eyesores, horde of beggars, some capitalizing on infants and minors or peddling pears and fashion accessories in designated tourist stops, Badjaos and other ethnic groups have recently stretched taut the tourists and industry players’ tolerance limits (ABS-CBN News, 2008).

Having cited some of the discrimination experienced by the Badjao in general, I move on to exploring the gender relations among Badjao men and women. Drawing on the Structuralist view of Talcott Parsons that looks at gender power relations as integrated in the social institution, the ideal of the male breadwinner exists in the Badjao context where it is “generally only husbands, married sons and sons-in law who work to support the family” (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.). The male Badjao goes out to the sea to fish while the woman stays at home as the caretaker of the family. This persistent ideological pressure of the men as “providers”, although seen as problematic, operates to support and legitimate structures of social inequality, such as the sexual division of labour between men (public/productive) and women (private/domestic) and the primary ideological function of these definitions is that of naturalising unequal power relations” (Leach, 1994).

The gendered social exclusion perspective also recognizes that men and women experience exclusion differently and takes on board the idea that women are at a more disadvantaged position in terms of capabilities and rights. The more disadvantaged position of Badjao women is revealed in 14-year old Hanang, who is forced into an abortion, believing that she would be unable to feed her fatherless baby as her husband had left to join the pirates and never returned (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Her already dismal circumstance is magnified by the shame for her to have a child without a father and having to worry later on a burial place for the baby. The Badjao sometimes had to travel far to “bring their dead beloved to some desolate island in the middle of the ocean for burial” (UN Philippines, 2002:86). A growing number of the women left behind by their husbands who have gone to the cities to look for alternative livelihood are also opting to abort their unborn children rather than see their offspring die later of hunger or disease (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Also, this being disadvantaged in itself, conforming to the stereotypical notion of the woman as poor and victimized, has been capitalized in the more common sight of a Badjao woman rather than a Badjao man begging while carrying a child in the streets.

Interventions: Exacerbating or Reducing Exclusion?

As this essay critically examines some individual and social interventions that can and have promoted an integrated and sustainable strategy for the empowerment of both men and women in the Badjao community, I argue that these interventions by different agents in various forms may work either way --- exacerbate or reduce social exclusion.

I look first and foremost at how government attempts to reduce social exclusion and its impact on poverty by “creating legal, regulatory and policy frameworks that promotes social inclusion” (DFID, 2005:1). In 1997, a key national policy framework was formulated in the effort to uphold national unity prospectively embodied in the Republic Act No. 8371 otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. The policy was enacted to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples in the Philippines (NCIP, 2008:1-25). It is an embodiment of the rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples which are as follows: right to ancestral domains, right to self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights, and cultural integrity (NCIP, 2008:1-25). The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) was established primarily to process up two million ancestral land claims but, by the end of 1998, operational guidelines for the implementation of IPRA had not been approved and the new government of Joseph Estrada, elected in May 1998, froze the NCIP’s budget in 1999 (Clarke, 2001:429). Many NGOs are wary of government delays in the implementation of IPRA but the legislation is radical and again puts the Philippines in the forefront, in legal terms at least, of the more inclusive approach to ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples (Clarke, 2001:429).

Considering the spatial marginalization of the Badjao, the inclusiveness of the IPRA is however challenged on the basis of land-based territorial concepts being applicable to the "sea gypsies who look at their sea-world as without borders and respect for their inalienable right to freedom of movement as inherent in their privilege” (Neofilipino, 2008). The question posed here is whether those "communities on stilts" qualify to be treated exactly like the "ancestral lands" of land-based indigenous ethnic groups (Neofilipino, 2008). However, there should be no problem as regards specific legislations and programs for governance appropriate for the Badjao if only the Philippine Government will recognize and acknowledge the inalienable human rights of the Badjaos as a distinct sea-based indigenous ethnic group (Neofilipino, 2008).

Other policies for ethnic and indigenous minorities are designed to promote assimilation and integration (Clarke, 2001:433). The policy of sedentarisation where minorities are compelled to live in fixed and permanent settlements has been applied to the Badjao in the form of fixing resettlement areas (Clarke, 2001:433). Like fish out of the water, more Badjao men, women, and children find themselves ironically dislocated in relocation sites. Having been forced to give up fishing as their traditional livelihood, they resort to mendicancy as their source of living. City governments have responded by formulating ordinances that intend to remove the Badjao from the streets, discouraging almsgiving, and directing all necessary social services to the group such as literacy, sanitation, proper child care and maternal health care programs.

Secondly and in addition to government action, many international aid agencies and development organizations also have begun to “acknowledge the distinct identities of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples” (Clarke, 2001:433) and fund projects to address their needs. Specific to areas where the Badjao are located, community-based coastal resources management projects are implemented such as one in the Davao Gulf area as a way of promoting active and meaningful participation of coastal communities especially women leaders in addressing the core issues of open-access and control over their local resources (SGP-UNDP, 2008). The New Zealand Agency for International Development, for example, is assisting indigenous groups in Zamboanga City through literacy improvement and poverty reduction while seeking to strengthen the cultural identity of the Badjao community (Mendoza-Reyes, 2008).

Thirdly, there have also been individual efforts to reach out to the Badjao which has come to represent the individual agency to recognize and accept their difference. The adult literacy program of Arnel Alcober, a Claretian missionary working with the Badjao in Teheman, has changed since to an operational literacy approach after realizing that the Badjao just want to survive, like knowing if they are getting the right amount every time people buy their fish, and that the need to learn how to read and write sometimes escapes their understanding (UN Philippines, 2002:87).

Through the assistance of the Voices of Triumph Ministry, the Badjao community members in Dauis who were not able to avail of the municipal water system were able to avail of water services for a fee (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.). The Ministry also supported Badjao children in education like school supplies and lunch. Providing lunch for elementary children for example is necessary since the typical reason why they drop out of school is hunger or help their fathers fish, or go begging at the port (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.).

The assortment of individual and social interventions employed at various levels in reaching out to the dispersed Badjao communities are important links in establishing alliances to gain support for more inclusion of the Badjao women and men in public services and social protection. These interventions are not mutually exclusive of one another, rather, are interlocking as well as simultaneously acting at various levels with other agents.

Conclusion: En(gendering) Social Inclusion?

I have described the multi-faceted position of the Badjao as well as the multidimensional and intersecting disadvantages that their women and men have experienced as they go through the social exclusionary process in the Philippine setting. I have also enumerated some interventions afforded to the Badjao by different agents (government, organizations, individual) at various levels (policy, program, project) in order to draw them away from the fringes and be able to enjoy the advantages and entitlements due to a member of society. These interventions are meant to respond to the multiple poverties they have experienced as a result of their manifold and often intersecting locations in society. Nevertheless, I have as well recognized the interplay of power relations in the implementation of these strategies thus acknowledging in due course that interventions by different agents at various levels may either exacerbate or reduce social exclusion.

Situating the individual woman within a wider framework of social exclusion is the essence of a gendered social exclusion framework. At the onset, the individual and social interventions I have previously discussed appear to be wanting of the gender orientation critical and inherent in a gendered social exclusion framework of analysis. A cursory look at these interventions may reveal the lack, or to some extent, invisibility of women, hence, the critical question, “How did the various interventions respond to the different exclusions experienced by women and men?” may not have been addressed.

Though a wider framework of social exclusion entails the inclusion of the gender politics of this social exclusionary process, it also involves linking the aspect of gender to other forms of social exclusion. Without connecting gender to other contexts or intersections and the accompanying power relations within, there cannot be a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of social exclusion. On the other hand, mindful that women and men experience exclusion differently and that women are at a more disadvantaged position, I maintain that the interventions cited here fail to significantly situate the woman in the supposed response to her more disadvantaged position.

Interventions informed only of either an analysis of cultural difference or a narrow feminist perspective that focuses on gender inequality in isolation from other forms of inequality is equally inadequate (Van der Hoogte & Kingma, 2004). But, drawing on their more marginalized position I believe it is but right to prioritize action for and towards women. Engendering social inclusion means committing to find viable options and opportunities for development for Badjao women without de-linking her gender identity to other forms of social exclusion.

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