Paper short abstract:

During my fieldwork in 2016 in the Philippines, I experienced a distressing event. This experience contributed to my in-depth exploration of the complex social and power relations in my field site - between the local Filipino community and the relatively wealthy lifestyle migrant community.

Paper long abstract:

In 2016 I undertook 12 months of field work on a Philippine island. My field work explored relationships and power dynamics between the Filipino community and the relatively affluent Western expatriate, or lifestyle migrant community on Siargao Island, a popular surf tourism destination in central Philippines. In May, just over four months in, a frightening incident occurred which not only shaped my field work experience but became fundamental to my research during the analysis and writing up stage. While asleep in the wooden house I rented in the village, a local Filipino man who I knew through the local surf scene came banging and yelling at my door. He threw rocks and threatened me with a knife. Many factors were at play here – local/global inequality, the vulnerability of women, illicit drug use (he openly talked of his ‘high’ state) – but forefront in my mind in that moment was my own fear, and later, the trauma surrounding the incident. Reflecting on this moment, however, encouraged me to explore in detail the complex social relations in this context of local/global inequality. The wealthier lifestyle migrant community could be rendered vulnerable at times, and the local Filipino population could express power and agency in different forms (not necessarily violently) despite their relative poverty and limited access to economic capital. This experience shaped my thesis, where I challenge binaries that position one group as subordinate to another, such as colonised/coloniser or poor/wealthy, instead opting for more dynamic understandings of social relations.