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Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to explore how river became a sign of temporality and political concern for the Bugkalot, an indigenous people of the Philippines, and how linearity of climate change was used as an excuse to evade corporate responsibility by the developer.

Paper long abstract:

California Energy is the largest independent geothermal power company in the world. In 1995, it secured a BOT project with the Philippine government to build the multi-purpose Casecnan Dam in the Bugkalot/Ilongot ancestral domain. The dam provides water for irrigation and hydroelectric power generation while its reservoir affords flood control. The Bugkalot have been involved in long-term disputes with Cal-Energy, and they started a new wave of protest in 2013 to demand compensations for environmental damages and the loss of biodiversity which they sustain as a result of the project. If in the Anthropocene time might come toward us from the future (Latour 2013), for the Bugkalot the river is a sign of temporality. Since the construction of the Casecnan Dam, they have experienced severe droughts and irregular floods that seemed to disrupt the alternation of dry season and rainy season, but the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) concluded this was due to global climate change. While climate change was regarded as linear and used to evade corporate responsibility by Cal-Energy, the Bugkalot�s resistance was informed by the way in which river featured in their traditional culture. In the headhunting past, collective fishing served as an importance occasion for exchange, conviviality and peace negotiation. In the present, the Bugkalot attempt to construct ancestral lands and rivers as culture heritages essential for their sustainable future in the age of development.