Dr. Hana Qugana presents RESILIENCE IN THE WAVES: Art, Education, and Eco-Nationalism in the Oceanic South

RESILIENCE IN THE WAVES: Art, Education, and Eco-Nationalism in the Oceanic South, Hana Qugana

Though it is stormy and dark, 
I’ll strain my tearful plaints 
And struggle on 
I’ll set out in voyage 
And persist in my search 
For God our Father. 

— anonymous, ‘May Bagyo Ma’t, May Rilim’ 
 (Though It Is Stormy and Dark), 1605 

As oceans rise upon the innumerable islands of the global South, inundating societies  with the acidified, irradiated, and waste-strewn waters of modernity, the transformative  effects of human waves—waves of empire, globalisation, and migration—subside to  reveal as yet untold histories of resilience. Taking as its impetus poetic and pedagogical  responses to environmental catastrophe, this talk discusses resilience as a recurring  theme in Philippine culture and society, past and present. It explores how different  proponents of civil society—namely, the educational publishing house Abiva Press, and  the street art collective Ang Gerilya—have redefined what it means to be resiliently  ‘Filipino’, as the plundering of natural and human resources has driven the archipelago’s  inhabitants abroad, and as rising seas and incessant storms transform the lives of those  who remain at home. These visions of who Filipinos are, and who they want to be,  resonate with other searches for postcolonial identities and climate-resilient futures. The  talk concludes by locating such visions within the diffuse networks and diasporic  solidarities of artists, activists, sojourners, and exiles across an increasingly ocean oriented South—communities who are repositioning themselves at the centre of a global  struggle for a new social, political, and environmental order. 

Monday, March 11, 4-5pm
Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Reception to follow

Hana Qugana (PhD, University College London) is Assistant Professor in Global History  at the University of Sussex. She specialises in intellectual, cultural, and environmental  histories of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. She has most recently contributed essays to Tupaia, Captain Cook and the Voyage of the Endeavour: A Material History (Bloomsbury, 2023); The 1762 British Invasion of Spanish-Ruled Philippines: Beyond Imperial and  National Imaginaries (SOAS and National Historical Commission of the Philippines, 2024); and Educational Internationalisms in the Global Cold War (Routledge, forthcoming 2024).