Methods & Areas of Research
Methods & Areas of Research
Embedded Files
My years-long work in Cebu involves visits to mining areas and coastal and highland areas in a collaborative process. My scholarly work is a reflection of this and results in the kind of material I work with, including interviews, audio-video documentation, and legal documents.
My research revolves around two main projects and thematic areas:
1. An Epistemology of Extraction
(2019-Present)
Since 2018, my research has focused on mining, with mining-related incidents like landslides as starting points for my work theorizing an epistemology of extraction beyond materiality. While my geographic focus spans Brazil, the Kingdom of Tonga, and the Philippines, my current research aims to develop an epistemology of extraction relevant to the island province of Cebu in the Philippines. I am developing three dimensions of an epistemology of extraction at the center of my M.A. thesis. Moving away from quarries as sites of violence, an epistemological lens helps situate the rule of law as a socio-political and historical site of mining violence.
* “Not Deadly Enough? The Erasure of Lived Experiences as the Epistemological Violence of Mining in Cebu, Philippines.” Comparative Law Journal of the Pacific Hors Série XXVII:53-92. Retrieved from https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/law/research/publications/about-nzacl/publications/special-issues/hors-serie-volume-xxvii-2024/6-atienza.pdf
* “It Runs in the Blood: Towards an Epistemology of Extraction”, M.A. Thesis in Sociology, at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (2023) - Scholarspace link
* “The Extractive Industry as a Perpetuation of Colonialism’s Transformational Power”, a culminating presentation as a visiting scholar at the East-West Center in Honolulu (2020)
2. Archipelagic Gentrification (2020-Present).
A 2013 super typhoon reinvigorated attempts at privatizing land on Bantayan Island in the Philippines. Now, over 9,000 fisherfolk families are at risk of dispossession. This scenario has shaped my focus on the ways that extractivism is pushing indigent fisherfolk and farming communities toward the social and political periphery. In the context of environmental and cultural loss, I examine how the privatization of land, in the guise as a vision of modernity, is indicative of a deeply rooted civilizing mission that subsumes Bantayanons in the "modern" economy making them workers for the landed elites. The overarching lens of this work is a type of island-gentrification.
* 'An Island for Sale' in' Climate. Habitats. Environment., published by MIT Press and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (2022)
* “Claiming/Making”, independent research, exhibited at Vinyl on Vinyl in Manila and Qube Gallery in Cebu (2020-2022)
* An interview with Dr. Arnisson Andre Ortega on gentrification (2020)
* Re-Imagining and Re-Imaging Island Life (2015-2016)
My ethnographic work is a participatory process shaped by my brief, but formative experience in social work, particularly the counseling process and the practice of taking case notes. This has shaped my approach to interviewing and taking field notes in my practice. My initial training and experience in social work was in Sydney, Australia where I obtained a Certificate IV in Community Services (2014-2015) and in 2024 when I worked as a Case Manager in Supportive Housing in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. The counseling process as interviewing method conceives of interviewing as a participatory process which ties presenting issues to underlying issues. It's an exploratory process that takes into consideration nonlinear and intersecting life experiences, and systemic issues. Case notes are a written record of a client. It provides a chronological and "factual" account of services provided, conversations, interactions, assessments, referrals, observations, and outcomes. Case notes include the social worker in the documented interaction and holds them accountable. The DAIP structure (detail, assessment, intervention, and plan) is one such method of writing case notes. Recorded (daily) by the social worker, case notes are meant to provide a record required to provide care, (legal) protection, and decision-making based on the clients situation. Having said this, I acknowledge the problems of institutional care, I have personally experienced some of prevalent toxic industry practices. I would also add that my role is not to provide intervention, but rather to meet the interviewee where they are. Coinciding with my work in journalism and creative projects, this has shaped my approach to interviewing as something conversational, in collaboration with and guided by the interviewee (rather than a top-down approach) contextualized by field notes.
Source: TAFE NSW, Certificate IV in Community Services (CHC42021)
Coinciding with my initial training in social work in Australia (2014-2015), I worked in community and public radio, which also involved interviewing in a different context. Both interview contexts shape my approach to interviewing in my scholarly work. Working as a freelance journalist while also initiating multimedia art projects in the Philippines and Australia has allowed me to combine research and narrative/visual storytelling. Initially starting as a volunteer roving reporter and producer for Filipino programs on community radio in Sydney in 2015, I have since contributed articles and radio features to media outlets in Australia and Indonesia.
* Journalism & Multimedia Projects
While living in Australia, I interviewed environmentalists, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, White Nationalists, mining activists, artists and farmers. I have written articles and produced radio features on art, environment, and social justice for media outlets such SBS Radio, Art Monthly Australasia, Runway Journal, and KBR Radio’s Asia Calling. Some of this material, including interviews and video documentation, has also led to exhibitions at Firstdraft and 55 Sydenham Rd in Australia.
View complete list of works here and selected pieces below.
* “Coal mines and climate change: Australia's Adani controversy” for Asia Calling on KBR Radio (Id/Au)
* Text, video, and interviews (audio) in “In the Shadows of History” for Runway Journal (Au)
* Interview with Dr. Jackie Huggins featured in “Indigenous Australians demand recognition and participation” for Asia Calling on KBR Radio (Id/Au)
* Interview with farmer Chris Orr featured in SBS Radio podcast and part of my project “Harvest”
Various projects:
* Claiming / Making, 2020-2022
* Fauna / Flora, 2019-2020
* Harvest, 2016-2017
* Work 37.5 150 1800 hrs, 2017
* Our Islands, 2015-2016
* Collaborations
In the past decade, I have maintained a collaborative practice in the Province of Cebu in the Philippines. Organizing actions, including workshops, film screenings, discussions, and audio-video documentation has allowed me to work on exhibitions and write articles about dispossession and cultural loss. This work ranges from research, to grant writing, and planning activities.
* Fellow, Sectoral Transparency Alliance on Natural Resource Governance Cebu (STANCe), 2025-2026
* Community Archiving at GOODland (Ph), 2023
* "Tidal" (under the collaborative name DAKOgamay) at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Art Gallery (Ph), 2020
* Grant proposal, project activities & project report for "Para sa Aton (For Us)" funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (Ph) & Dienst Kunst en Cultuur (Nl), 2014
* Project report & activities for "Gilubong ang Akon Pusod sa Dagat (My Navel is Buried in the Sea)", 2012
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse