Thutulan sa Inged: Exploring Meranaw Indigenous Narratives of Peace and Culture
Venus Parmisana and Raihana Serad
Abstract
This descriptive-qualitative work draws on a long term ethnography of the thutulan sa inged (Den. stories in our land), the indigenous narratives of the Meranaw people in the municipality of Butig, Lanao del Sur, Philippines. We include as data ten narratives originally read in the Meranaw language by key informants and transcribed into English. To identify recurring patterns, as well as conflict and peace-related themes, we explore the contribution of the Butig indigenous concept of peace to peace theory. Framed as an ethnographic inquiry into local peacebuilding traditions in Mindanao, Philippines, this research appropriates a thematic analysis guided by Galtung’s Peace Theory and the Five Attitudes to Conflict framework.
We ultimately recommend exploring other perceived strategies of the Butig people when attending to peace-related challenges.
Keywords: Peace Narratives, conflict resolution, Mindanao, thematic analysis, Meranaw culture, linguistic anthropology