Oona Paredes
Bio
Oona Paredes is a Southeast Asianist specializing in the ethnographic and archival study of the southern Philippines, in particular its indigenous non-Muslim minorities known collectively as the Lumad. To date she has worked primarily with the Higaunon Lumad of northern Mindanao, with a comparative look at the experiences of other indigenous minority groups regionally and globally. At UCLA she teaches classes on Southeast Asia, Indigenous Peoples, and the Philippines.
In 2017, she was appointed inaugural Strom Visiting Professor by the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Previously, she was Assistant Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her past fellowships and grants include major awards from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research, Henry Luce Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. She was also a Graduate Research Fellow of the U.S. National Science Foundation from 1996 to 1999.
Education
Ph.D. and M.A., Anthropology, Arizona State University
B.A., Anthropology with a Minor in History, University of Hawai`i at Manoa
A.A., Liberal Arts, Honolulu Community College
Research
Oona is an anthropologist and ethnohistorian by training, and she studies the cultural and historical intersections of religion, politics, and identity, especially the ways in which minority “tribal” communities interact with state power and popular culture. Her current project unpacks the core Higaunon traditions of political authority and how this authority articulates with oral traditions (encompassing both customary law and indigenous religion) to reflect acute internal concerns about identity, indigeneity, and cultural heritage preservation in the modern Philippine state.
Her earlier archival research documented the extensive colonial-era contact between Iberian missionaries and the ancestors of today’s Lumad peoples, and analyzing the enduring cultural imprint of Western colonialism and Christianity on what was long presumed to be “uncontacted” peoples. Her first book, A Mountain of Difference (2013), frames this significant cross-cultural encounter as a distinctly pericolonial experience, in which various Lumad communities actively and strategically incorporated colonial alliances at the outer edges of claimed colonial territory, beyond the direct reach of Spanish power, for nearly three centuries.
Selected Publications
2022 “More Indigenous than Others: The Paradox of Indigeneity among the Higaunon Lumad,” SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 37(1): 27-57.
2022 “Making Mindanao: Place-Making and People-Making in the Southern Philippines,” Southeast Asia Research 30(1): 3-8.
2022 “Views from the Ground: Reflections on Studying Indigeneity in Southeast Asia,” with Rusaslina Idrus, Liana Chua, Poline Bala, Kwanchewan Buadaeng, Kelvin Egay, Prasit Leepreecha, Dave Lumenta, Zanisah Man, Kendy Mitot, Shanthi Thambiah & Vilashini Somiah, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 37(1): 113-127.
2021 “Christianity as Colonialism: Understanding the Impact of Catholicism Beyond Catholics in the Philippines,” Filipinas: Journal of the Philippine Studies Association 4: 41-50.
2021 “New Decade, New Directions: Advancing the Study of Southeast Asian Religions,” with Alexandra Kaloyanides, Chiara Formichi, Cuong Mai, Richard Fox, Kelly Meister Brawn, Nathan McGovern & Penny Edwards, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 36(3): 573-600.
2021 “Indigenizing Culture: Research Collaboration and Heritage-Making with Higaunon Lumad Communities in the Southern Philippines.” In Indigenous Peoples, Heritage and Landscape in the Asia Pacific: Knowledge Co-Production and Empowerment, eds. S. Acabado & D. Kuan (Routledge), pp. 183-201.
2019 “Preserving ‘Tradition’: The Business of Indigeneity in the Modern Philippine Context,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 50(1): 86-106.
2018 “Indigenous Peoples: Between Rights Protection and Development Aggression.” In Handbook of the Contemporary Philippines, eds. Mark Thompson & Eric Batalla (Routledge), pp. 341-351.
2017 “Custom and Citizenship in the Philippine Uplands.” In Citizenship and Democratization in Postcolonial Southeast Asia, eds. Henk Schulte Nordholt, Ward Berenschot, & Laurens Bakker (Brill), pp. 157-179.
2017 “Projecting Order in the Pericolonial Philippines: An Anthropology of Catholicism beyond Catholics,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 28(2): 225-241.
2016 “Rivers of Memory and Oceans of Difference in the Lumad World of Mindanao,” TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 4(2): 329-349.
2015 “Indigenous vs. Native: Negotiating the Place of Lumads in a Bangsamoro Homeland,” Asian Ethnicity 16(2):166-185.
2013 A Mountain of Difference: The Lumad in Early Colonial Mindanao (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press/Southeast Asia Program Publications).
1997 “Higaunon Resistance and Ethnic Politics in Northern Mindanao,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 8(3):270-290.
1996 “Benevolent Altruism or Ordinary Reciprocity? A Response to Austin’s View of the Mindanao Hinterland,” Human Organization 55(2):241-244.
As Editor
2023 Su Panud ta Baligiyan: Su kasaysayan hi apù Intampil daw su mga otaw gabi ha anay ha napuun ku kalapaya ta kalibutan (The oral tradition of Baligiyan) by Datu Limpukawan Budluwà Ansihagan, with Jerry Manlipania Obelno & Sansuwà Ansihagan. Edited by Oona Paredes (Manila, 2023)
Forthcoming Articles
“Decolonial Affinities: On Fake ‘Indigenous’ Icons and Self-Indigenizing Practices among Filipinos,” co-authored with J. A. Ruanto-Ramirez. In (Un)settling Genealogies: Transnational Manifestations of Indigenous Identity Fraud, eds. Victoria Grieve-Williams, Gordon Henry, Laura Junka-Aikio & Raven Sinclair (Durham NC: Duke University Press).
“(De)Constructions of Indigeneity in the Philippines,” co-authored with J.A. Ruanto-Ramirez. In Knowledge, Identity, and Rights: Studies on Philippine Indigeneity, eds. Leah Abayao, Jimmy Fong & Carolyn Podruchny (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press).
