Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

Asian Center Faculty Discusses “The Port City as a Seafarer’s Landscape” in UGAT/PGS Conference

Details

Rolando Talampas, Associate Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman, presented a paper at the UGAT/PGS 2015 Joint Regional Conference held from 22 to 24 October 2015 in Silliman University, Dumaguete City. Below is an abstract of this paper, "The Port City as a Seafarer’s Landscape."

“Recent research on Filipino overseas employment and construction of the “global city” under globalization now focuses on what happens to migrant labor as cities assume certain functions and establish “relations to processes in the global economy.”  These tackle “global circuits of labor,” Manila’s being a “global city” and the spatial distribution of recruitment agencies, among others. While such works indeed have broken the ground for a geographic understanding of fortunes or misfortunes of migrant labor, they still underspecify the active role of labor in creating impact on the capitalist-made landscape. 

The given landscape to ocean-going seafarers, in particular, is the port city. As such, this paper attempts to make a cursory survey of places visited/inhabited by seafarers during their short shore leaves. In identifying the places most visited by a small sample of seafarers, this paper seeks to open an area of better understanding and analysis of the cultural presents packed by seafarers for their families, communities and the country. 

Although Filipino seafarers number less  than other “land-based” workers, their higher educational attainment and greater worldwide mobility supply the environment that they themselves find, interact with, and/or compare with the one that they leave behind—thus occasioning their normative expectations that are frustrated by structural, cultural, etc, constraints.”

The UGAT/PGS Joint Regional Conference was organized by the Anthropological Association of the Philippines/Ugnayang Pag-Agham Tao (UGAT) and the Philippine Geographical Society. Carrying the theme “Dagat Ug Kinabuhi/Maritime Cultures, Spaces, and Networks,” the conference aimed to gather scholars from various disciplines to create discourses on maritime contexts as “fluid zones of spatial connection and separation. Learn more about UGAT and the conference.

Rolando Talampas is Associate Professor and current College Secretary of the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. He specializes in West Asian Studies, Philippine Studies, and Development Studies. Professor Talampas also handles several graduate courses at the UP Asian Center, including Research Methods in Asian Studies and Seminar on Southeast Asia. View his faculty profile here. 

The Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. The Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website. View recent and upcoming Lectures & Conferences and read other News & Announcements. Join our mailing list to receive invitations to lectures, conferences, etc.