Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

Forged in flames

Indigeneity, forest fire and geographies of blame in the Philippines

Bibliographic Data

ID4465569
AuthorsWill Smith (0000-0003-1913-6963, Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, corresponding author), Wolfram H Dressler (0000-0003-1105-3805, The University of Melbourne)
Year2020
Volume23
Issue4
Pages527-545
Publication date2020-10-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePostcolonial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-8790 • E-ISSN: 1466-1888
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13688790.2020.1745620
OpenAlexW3015657361
LanguageEN
Citations received14

The forests of Southeast Asia are represented as increasingly ‘at-risk' to fire, constituting a regional fire politics concerned with the management and organisation of environmental blame. State governments often place culpability for this increasing flammability on histories of deforestation that disproportionately blame Indigenous peoples who now face a correspondingly large burden in conservation schemes. By tracing the history of fire management from the colonial period to the 1980s, this paper explores how the management of forests and fire in the Philippines has been shaped over time with imperatives to govern and economically exploit upland spaces. While these histories clearly point to a political economy of knowledge production, they also show how forest governance in the Philippines has worked to construct ethnic difference through policies and practices that naturalise livelihoods, spaces and qualities to essentialised ‘tribal' uplanders. To understand the contemporary geography of blame that surrounds forest fires and deforestation in the Philippines and Southeast Asia more broadly, we argue for a more nuanced examination of ‘the uplands’ as a post-colonial geography co-constituted with the historical production of indigeneity and environmental knowledge. We conclude by emphasising the historical role of colonial forest and land management institutions in fashioning lasting socio-spatial differences

Agriculture · Archaeology · Blame · Colonialism · Corporate governance · Economic history · Economics · Environmental history · Geography · Indigenous · Livelihood · Political ecology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · History · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Ecology

  • An Eternal Flame

    Open Access•T Neale, Alex Zahara et al.•Cultural Studies Review•2019

  • From colonial forestry to 'community-based fire management

    Open Access•Cathy Smith•Journal of Political Ecology•2021

  • Recalibrating burdens of blame

    Open Access•Wolfram H Dressler, Christian Kull et al.•Geoforum•2020

  • Colonial policy, ecological transformations, and agricultural “improvement”

    Open Access•David Max Findley, N Amano et al.•Humanities and Social Sciences…•2024

  • Between a rock and a hard place

    Open Access•Rachel Carmenta, Federico Cammelli et al.•World Development•2021

  • Fire governance research in the tropics

    Open Access•Christoph Neger, Claudia Monzón-Alvarado et al.•Singapore Journal of Tropical…•2024

  • Firebreaks as indigenous knowledge system and cultural practice

    Open Access•Diana Suhardiman, Saw Sha Bwe Moo et al.•World Development•2025

  • The Construction of an Environmental Villain

    Open Access•Pin Pravalprukskul, Cecilie Friis et al.•Asia Pacific Viewpoint•2026

  • From Post‐Fire Interventions to Community Resilience

    Open Access•Lukáš Novotný•Sociologia Ruralis•2026

  • Territories of Fire

    Open Access•Christian A Rosales•Journal of Ethnology and…•2022

  • Shame in the Land

    Open Access•Macario Lacbawan•Anthropological Forum•2026

  • The materiality of air pollution

    M Mostafanezhad•Tourism Geographies•2021

  • In Search of Fire Villains

    Open Access•Viola Schreer•Environmental Humanities•2024

  • Beyond Loving Nature

    Open Access•Will Smith•Ethnos•2022

Citations per year2
Citation span2019 - 2026 (8)
Highly citedNo
Open DOISci-HubOpen Access
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae