Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how learning - formal and processual - plays a cogent role in dealing with militarisation as an invasive condition in a Manobo community, an indigenous community, in the Philippines.

Paper long abstract:

Militarisation creates politically volatile communities and members have to learn to deal with subsequent uncertainties that come with it. This paper explores how learning plays a cogent role in dealing with this invasive condition in a Manobo community, an indigenous community, in the Philippines. Especially important is the strategy of turning towards formal education as an aspect of dealing with their unstable situation. Using Lave and Wenger's (1991) 'legitimate peripheral participation' as theoretical guide, the paper accounts how the Manobo learned to negotiate instability by learning to grapple with diverse relationships and structures associated with the institution of a school in an isolated highland community in the Philippines. Subsequent dynamics among participants - elders, parents, children, nuns, teachers, etc. - have led to other 'instabilities' of relationships; relationships that involve fluid negotiations with other sectors that are part and parcel in the operation of a formal school.