THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LAND AND RESOURCES IN THE PHILIPPINES
A comparative and historical study of three peripheral regions

The research project aims to explore the ways land use has changed in Southern Negros Occidental, Southern Palawan, and Southern Mindanao, paying special attention to the historical and socio-economic dynamics at play among the State and non-state actors present in these provinces. We are trying to look at how land use change through the years influenced the socio-economic development of the project areas.

It is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Department of International Relations, of the University of Montreal (UdeM). It is a collaboration between the University of Montreal and the Third World Studies Center (TWSC) of the University of the Philippines.

The project is headed by Dr. Dominique Caouette, of the University of Montreal political science department. Dr. Caouette has studied power dynamics in Southeast Asia, and revolutionary movements in the Philippines. He is responsible for coordinating the whole project and ensuring the cohesion and continuity between its disparate components. The Third World Studies Center is a multidisciplinary research center of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy in UP Diliman, and collaborators from the TWSC are responsible for the project’s logistical aspects in the Philippines, as well as establishing and maintaining institutional linkages with local partners and other educational institutions.

The project’s expected outputs are research papers written by the researchers and participating post-graduate students from the University of Montreal. It is hoped that the information gleaned from this endeavor will prove useful for government and non-government entities, as well as for the general public.