Finding Your Island: To Return or Not to Return
Based upon multiple field visits to the same site in northwest Mindanao in the southern Philippines, the issue addressed here is how ethnographic data may differ, pro and con, as the researcher ages and changes over time. Issues of validity, reliability and even potential creativity of insights are touched upon as variables in long-term research to the same locale.
Takers Keepers, Losers Weepers: Theft as Customary Play in the Southern Philippines
This article presents ethnographic findings from the northwest coastal region of Mindanao, the largest island in the Southern Philippines. I argue that street-level theft (pickpocketing, land squatting, and kidnapping) can be seen as emerging, at least in part, from customary norms based in what Alan Dundes might term folk ideas. Time-honored behavior patterns conveyed by word of mouth include getting something for nothing (pa-bukongay), being street smart (pa-abtikay), and being first (pa-unahay). These locally resonant ideas influence the kinds of behaviors that are tolerated in children and adults, and they should be considered as important independent variables when attempting to understand definitions of and motivations for theft in this region.
Do Arab public opinion support policies of regional powers in MENA? View from Tunisia
ABSTRACT The Arab Uprisings and subsequent events continue to transform policies of regional and major powers toward the Middle East and North Africa. These powers have shown different approaches toward the Uprisings, ranging from support for the status quo to endorsing regime changes. Their policies have also exerted a significant impact on the course of events. Despite this growing importance and implications of policies of regional powers on the Uprisings and the Syrian conflict, we still do not know much about how the public assesses these policies and to what extent domestic cleavages shape these assessments. Using a nationally representative original survey conducted in 2014 in Tunisia, this study examines the perceptions of the policies of France, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia towards the Uprisings and the Syrian conflict. It finds that French and Turkish policies about the Uprisings have garnered substantial support among citizens, whereas most citizens negatively assess the Saudi policies. On the other hand, the majority of Tunisians negatively assess all these countries’ policies toward the Syrian conflict. Another major finding suggests that political identity reflecting secular/religious cleavages shapes how citizens view the policies of these three countries toward both issues, but its effect is higher in assessing the Uprisings.