Third World Studies Center Fortieth Anniversary: Directors’ Forum

Randolf S. David, Maria Serena I. Diokno, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem, Maria Ela L. Atienza, and Ricardo T. Jose

At forty, the Third World Studies Center (TWSC) gathered in this multidisciplinary conference its vast and resilient network of scholars and public intellectuals, academics and activists, advocates and bearers of unorthodox views from different parts of the globe. The conference aim was twofold. First, it was a time to reflect on the center’s enduring history and its contributions to critical scholarship on Philippine, regional, and global issues. The center has encompassed anti-authoritarian scholarship and social movements, peace studies and human security, democratization and critical articulations of the nation, political economy of transnational corporations and the history of mass transit, and digital piracy and cybersex—pioneering research efforts that established the TWSC as a premier social science research center. Second, the conference extended the role of the Center as meeting point for established intellectuals and young, emerging scholars. It renewed a space that fosters the development of critical, alternative paradigms to promote progressive scholarship and action for change. It covered the following themes: political economy and globalization, social movements, authoritarianism and democratic governance, peace and human security, culture and identity, (new) media and technology.

Dr. Alfred W. McCoy, Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison was the keynote speaker. There were two plenary sessions, consisting of : 1) the center’s former directors and respected scholars whose long academic histories have included doing research in the Philippines; and 2) the TWSC visiting research fellows. The following proceedings of the first plenary panel, comprised of former and current TWSC directors, revisited the research agenda and engagements of TWSC in the past forty years, on how it has contributed to the growth of critical scholarship on the Philippines and the Third World. It also discussed how TWSC can further enrich social science inquiries in the Philippines.