Paper short abstract:

I explore particular Maguindanaon emotions borne out of remembering and imagining violence as manifestations of fellow-feeling, which are emergent from and shaped by historical, political, and sociocultural contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on my ethnographic research among Maguindanaon supporters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Southern Philippines, I consider the relationship between emotions, memory, imagination, and the (un)making of an imagined community, particularly in contexts of violence and the struggle for the right to self-determination, by looking at the links between moral judgment and action, emotions, and imagined identification, or how much we relate with and imagine our resemblance with other groups and individuals. Bringing my ethnographic data into dialogue with the philosophy of fellow-feeling, the anthropology of emotions and empathy, and current kinship theory, I explore particular Maguindanaon emotions borne out of remembering and imagining violence as manifestations of fellow-feeling, which are emergent from and shaped by historical, political, and sociocultural contexts. I further examine how foregrounding the relationship between fellow-feeling and imagined identification provides one way of elaborating on the emotional and moral salience of the Bangsamoro imagined community and the relationship between individual and social memory.