Farming tenants' survival strategies in Maguindanao [Philippines]: an ethnographic study
2013
Gonzales-Esmero, D.B. | Guiness, P.
Life on the run is one that the farmers of Maguindanao have to deal with. The intermittent skirmishes between the state's security forces and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front often displace people. The protracted war between these two contending forces is a stark manifestation of the local community dynamics of the area. Moreover, the issue on datuism, landlordism, and tenancy are long enduring feature of the farmers' lives in Maguindanao. The economic cycle has been characterized by periods of want and having enough, but never of plenty. In the vulnerability content of such complex issues, farming households have to adapt to deteriorating economic trends and cope with cultural and political shocks. As it is, rice farming in a village in Maguindanao is not a worthwhile economic enterprise. Like the reality of war, rice farming, up to a certain degree, is an on-off struggle. This ethnographic study seeks to understand the strategies that Maguindanao farmers make use of to secure their lives and livelihood under extreme conditions. Results of the study show that farmers' survival strategy in Maguindanao is intertwined primarily with the social relations and structure, social action, and ideology. The concept of survival strategy becomes important because it is about the identity of the people involved; and the meanings they give both to social structures and their own actions. Farmers value more their social relationship and structure than any other capital (i.e. land, labour, and physical capital), and the study argues that social capital fuels the growth of economic capital.
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