Macario Lacbawan, PhD
Photo: Katja Klein
Research Associate
Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies "Futures of Sustainability"
Address
Office
Contact
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Macario-Lacbawan
About me
I am an anthropologist belonging to the Igorot indigenous community in the Cordillera Mountains of Northern Philippines. As a postdoctoral researcher, my aim is to explore the entanglement of legal recognition, life, disposability, and the environment. By looking at the experiences of indigenous communities in the Philippines and Indonesia, I ask what kind of life is envisioned and brought to fruition as societies and governments embrace sustainability as an intervention in the face of climate change.
Research
Which forms of life are acknowledged or made disposable when the pursuit of sustainability is channeled through the mediums of technology and science? Moreover, what types of tensions emerge from these differing approaches to recognition and elision of life (or non-life)? To answer these questions, I engage in an ethnography of emergent indigenous life and mobilization as the Philippine and Indonesian governments construct future smart and sustainable capitals to replace their current administrative centers (Manila and Jakarta), both of which are projected to be underwater due to climate change.
These questions serve as the cornerstone of my ongoing postdoctoral work and have consistently been central themes throughout my academic journey. I have received formal training inn social anthropology, cultural sociology, and indigenous people’s studies. My research interests span from indigeneity as a form of recognition and social movement to biopolitics, postcolonialism, environmental humanities, and the Anthropocene.
Publications
Book Monographs
- Lacbawan, Macario (2022). The Burden of Responsibility: Predicaments of Environmental Life in the Caraballo Mountains, Northern Philippines. DICA series volume 25. Uppsala: Uppsala University. ISBN: 9789150629774
- Lacbawan, Macario (2021). Regimes of Contention: Resistance and the Governmentality of Resources in Indigenous Philippines. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag. ISBN: 9783593447216
Journal Articles
- Lacbawan, Macario (2016). Assembling Barbarity, Dirt, and Violence: A Provisional Note on Food and Social Analysis. In Asia Pacific Social Science Review 16(2): 16-36.
- Uzelac, K., Nasar, S., & Lacbawan M. B. (2015). That was a joke, you should laugh!”– Tour Guides and the Performance of History in Budapest, Hungary. Studia ethnologica Croatica, (27), 307-326.
- Lacbawan, Macario. B. (2014). Eating my Best Friend: Empty Icon and Competing Discourses on Dog Meat Consumption in the Philippines. In Ferit Uslu, Erol Topuz, Tamer Oguz Cankorur and Busra Akalin (eds.) International Conference On Education and Social Sciences (Intcess14), Vol. I and II. Istanbul: International Organization Center of Academic Research. (pp. 622-628).
Book Reviews
- Lacbawan, Macario (2021). Book Review “Mountains of Blame: Climate and Culpability in the Philippine Uplands” W. Smith. In Asian Ethnology 80(2): 452-454.
- Lacbawan, Macario. B. Jr. (2014). Book Review “Marketing Death: Culture and the Making of a Life Insurance Market in China” C. Shun-Ching Chan. In Kasarinlan: Journal of Third World Studies 29(1): 167-171.