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Simplifying the Challenges in Interpreting Cultural Landscapes

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  Simplifying the Challenges in Interpreting Cultural Landscapes Charl Justine Darapisa   Cultural landscapes mirror the ways societies have interacted with their environment over time. The flowering of interest in and understanding of cultural landscapes result in the emergence of different values and shared meaning system inherent in such landscapes 1 . However, these landscapes that anchor humanity and nature are continuously threatened by the ephemerality of their values and aging modernism 2 . These threats extend to the cultural heritage that represents numerous communities across the globe. Along with the depreciation of these landscapes, the embodiment of cultural significance, relation to history, traditional knowledge, and even spiritual values also disappear through time. These cases strengthen the need to interpret and understand cultural landscapes before such innately beautiful and culturally significant spaces cease to exist. The ephemerality of cultural landscapes
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The Terrible Twos: The Mangyan Iraya Tribe towards Dependency, and Continued Self-Sufficient Forest Conservation

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The Terrible Twos: The Mangyan Iraya Tribe towards Dependency, and  Continued Self-Sufficient Forest Conservation Charl Justine Darapisa             The Mangyan Iraya tribe practices endogenous mechanisms in forest conservation. While conservation science remains a convergence interface of multiple junctures, Indigenous communities depend on nature's ample benefits. The logic is simple; nature conservation as mutual respect for the tribe's Gods in return for agricultural abundance and health . This, however, begins to change through time as government projects intervene.  As I begin to explore the social-psychological systems towards forest conservation, two emergent and seemingly new mainstream cut across the Mangyan Iraya's recent practices---the dependency on the government's greening programs, and refrain from the long-practiced self-sufficient forest conservation.                The 'Terrible Twos' is a normal stage in a child's development in which a t
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The Triadic Relationships in Vernacular Landscapes of the Mangyan Iraya Tribe

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  The Triadic Relationships in Vernacular Landscapes of the Mangyan Iraya Tribe                The way an individual acquires his or her conception of landscape requires unveiling their thought process. To elucidate this, the researcher constructs a structure among the five landscape domains between the individual, the ancestral past, and the world around them. This process was inspired by Howard Murphy’s ‘reproduction of the ancestral past in the landscape’ ( Murphy, 1995 ). Here, Murphy emphasized the influence of actions and structure-based both on social theory and Aboriginal metaphysics as the central analysis ( Murphy, 1995 ). His main argument is that the interaction with the landscape is part of a process, and the Aboriginal society is reproduced by the component of its cultural structure ( Murphy, 1995 ) which are results or parts of the processes of human-landscape interaction. This concept goes similar to the Mangyan Iraya tribe. The deliberate emphasis on the interdepend
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The House beyond the Talahib Grass

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The path that I had taken through the tall talahib grass (Saccharum spontaneum) was as visible as any trail in a fresh snowfall. We are running against time. The July post-summer midday sun is upon us. The sweet scent of the talahib grass refreshes the air but my body sweat says different. The fifteen-minute walk wasn't exactly arduous. I am entertained by Kuya Paulo Cauayan and immediately set the interview as we glide through the dancing grasses. It was a theatrical scene laid out in an expansive stage. The burst of shades of green gradually transitions from the plains jugged up to the mountains around us.  Kabalatanaw stream. The nearly-jewel blue stream of Kabalatanaw reminds us that we're near our destination yet the promised house is nowhere to be found. Still grasses. "A few more streams, perhaps? or five more mountain ranges?", I mentally whispered as I ask Kuya Paulo more questions. The concept of walking distance to the Mangyan Iraya must be f
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