“How many sounds do you hear in the market?”
This was the thrilling question posed by Ms. Floraime O. Pantaleta, appointed executive director, as the commencement of the Ateneo-Zamboanga Mindanao Institute (AZMI) unveiled its mission of bridging transformative local culture knowledge across geographical boundaries.
The historical institution, in a two-part affair, launched its array of objectives to further strengthen the fabric of our history and facilitated plans to steer the melting pot of the Mindanaoan identity.
In a conference on September 14 from 2:00 to 5:00 pm at the FWS Multi-Function Hall, minds were embedded with curiosity when Pantaleta presented the institute plans and acknowledged significant dignitaries that took part in cementing its aspirations.
“By necessity, the AZMI believes that because of Zamboanga-Mindanao’s abundance in histories, expressive practices, languages, cosmologies, faith to account document engage,” implied by the appointed executive director.
Emergency to Emergence
Pantaleta’s remarks centered on the distinct blended sounds of the market being an emporium, a site of exchanges of various scales, as a paradigm to the current Zamboanga-Mindanao throughout the years. It allows recognizing several trajectories to comprehend things through learning, discussion, and elaboration.
In this expanse, the former program officer of Ateneo Center for Culture and the Arts highlighted knowledge production founded on resource management over time, as it “vanishes when not taken care of”. The AMZI is committed to being a productive ecosystem that coincides with research, art, and curation to elaborate arguments or propositions of methods.
“And sometimes, the most potent method of diffusing a narrative is merely to ask a question. After all, we are in a time when knowledge in itself is a contentious subject: what does it constitute?” she added to assert that Mindanao is painted from emergency to emergence.
On Goals and Aspirations
Fr. Karel San Juan, SJ graced the launch to express the essence of identity in an exploration of culture, arts, and history in society, while maximizing opportunities and potential inquiries. The intention, initiative, and invention of Ateneo de Zamboanga facilitate centers to further promote its understanding.
In this opening speech, San Juan celebrated the culture of indigenous communities through AMZI and leaned toward becoming a “research and resource center to stimulate and deepen the knowledge of Zamboanga – Mindanao, transnational, and inter-regional affinities”.
Additionally, based on his speech, there were three aforementioned inspirations and driving forces of the institute: continuing recognition of the centrality of culture and history in an ongoing struggle for peace and sustainable progress; the need to nurture and support people who will take on these struggles and; presence and promise of new exiting resources, connections, ideas, and possibilities.
LGU as Support Backbone
Taking shared responsibility, Mayor John M. Dalipe vowed to aid the institution on nurturing linkages of committing transdisciplinary and translocal inquiry based on academic-artistic production.
Dalipe, as a response from the Zamboanga City Government, ensured to aid AZMI in sustaining cultural identity and uniqueness for equal representation. The former Atenean graduate commits to work hand-in-hand in fulfilling the greater mission focused on intercultural, interreligious dialogue, transdisciplinary discourse, and social formation.
“Let us forge a stronger partnership in realizing more for the interest of the people. This initiative will surely widen the understanding needed to inspire as we visualize for a more vibrant and resilient Zamboanga City,” he exclaimed.
The Charbonneau Narrative
On the other hand, University of Glasgow’s Dr. Oliver Charbonneau debunked his written book “Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World” revealing the history of the United States’ colonization and connection to the Islamic Mindanao. This often-overlooked context highlights the role of the Muslim South as an intensive site for the development, engagement, and modernity of American Imperatives in the early 20th century.
Introduced by School of Liberal Arts Dean Dr. Robin A. De Los Reyes, the Glasgow professor argues that American power in the Islamic Philippines was rooted in a transformative vision of colonial rule. His argument destabilized and scrutinized Manila-Washington access traditionally used to understand the trajectories of US Colonialism in the Philippines based on “polycultural and polyvocal environments”.
“We need Mindanao history to understand not only the history of this region itself, but the history of the 2oth century Philippines writ large, Southeast Asia history and the Americans too,” the Canadian professor said in perpetuating the importance on critically evaluating, defamiliarizing, and reframing the history of the region. This is through national and imperial lenses for potential future scholars in layering insights “such as AZMI that cements a groundwork to write more about the American Period.”
Ultimately, the physical site is planned to be located in the ADZU Lantaka Campus. The benchmark milestone AZMI aims to start shall develop diversity and promotes a blend of research, artistic, and curatorial methods that goes beyond the parallel trajectories. Examining cultural historical links engages cultural representation to create knowledge grounded on ADZU’s Ignatian Values.
