The UP Asian Center will be hosting the online forum "Contextualizing Mindanao: Archives and Digitization for the Study of a Global Past" on 13 November 2026, 3:00 PM, PHT, Online via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public, but signing up for a (free) Zoom account is required.
ABOUT THE FORUM
If one wonders about the comparative dearth of research on pre-twentieth-century historical studies on Mindanao, a number of paradoxes will provide an answer. To begin with, Mindanao has mostly been written by people from outside. To some degree, this is not surprising, given the legacy of the colonial past and its forms of bureaucratization and where the documents from and about Mindanao are stored today. But archival fragmentation and (unjust) colonial material legacies are not the only reason for limited historical scholarship from Mindanao. Truly and deeply studying the distant past is a luxury preserved to elites and wealthy states. This is more than a cruel postcolonial reality; it is also the reason why there are so few historical studies. For historians from outside, it is almost impossible to possess the necessary cultural and linguistic knowledge to appreciate the historical legacies ingrained in traditions, stories, and objects. Even written sources are often only partly accessible for researchers from outside. Mindanao-based researchers, in contrast, have physical, economic, or technical access limitations to their pasts. Making productive use of the linguistic and archival turns, the presenters in this forum will reflect on ways to empower future generations of historians to contribute to writing their local pasts into global narratives. To that end, they will introduce different types of archival sources and how to access and disseminate them.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Atty. Ayshia Fernando Kunting
Department of History, Western Mindanao State University
Atty. Ayshia Fernando Kunting serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Western Mindanao State University. A Filipino academic, historian, researcher, textbook author, and Shari'ah counselor/lawyer, her scholarship explores Moro/Bangsamoro narratives, Islamic law and Shari'ah, socio-cultural histories, and Islamic and Mindanao history across local and international research initiatives.
TIRMIZY ABDULLAH, Ph.D.
Department of History, Mindanao State University
Dr. Tirmizy Abdullah is a Professor of History within the Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, at Mindanao State University in Marawi City, Philippines, where he instructs students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in history, with a concentration in Mindanao Studies, from the same institution. Beyond his academic responsibilities, Dr. Abdullah directs a local Islamic center in his province dedicated to educating young Muslim students and youth on the core principles of Islam. Furthermore, he actively engages with several civic organizations and non-governmental bodies that promote interreligious dialogue, social justice, peacebuilding, nonviolence, environmental protection, and human rights.
BIRGIT TREMML-WERNER, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in Global History, Stockholm University
Birgit Tremml-Werner is Senior Lecturer in Global History at Stockholm University and Adjunct Professor at UP Diliman. She earned her PhD from the University of Vienna in 2012 with a study on early modern Manila, published as Spain, China and Japan in Manila (AUP, 2015; Chinese translation 2022). Her second book Negotiating Imperialism: Murakami Naojirō’s Archival Diplomacy (CUP 2025) examines how archival practices shaped narratives about a Japanese early modern expansion into Southeast Asia. Her research focuses on early modern diplomacy, trade, and multi-lingual communication. She held fellowships at the University of Tokyo, the University of Zürich, and Linnaeus University. A founding member of the Global Diplomacy Network, she also co-developed Global Archives Online, a digital resource for historical research.
ELEONORA POGGIO, Ph.D.
Professor of History, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Eleonora Poggio is an Associate Professor of History at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Trained in colonial Latin American and early modern European history in Mexico and Spain, her research has focused on the links between mobility, commerce, law, and political power in the Atlantic world. In recent years, she has expanded her research to maritime Southeast Asia through the Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia research program, collaborating on research on treaty-making, kinship, and inter-polity relations, with particular attention to Muslim communities in the Philippines. Across this work, she combines European and Indigenous sources and is especially interested in tracing Indigenous agency across different archival traditions.
Locally-preserved Manuscripts: Importance and Challenges
MIDORI KAWASHIMA, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan
Midori Kawashima is Professor Emeritus at Sophia University in Tokyo, where she taught in the Faculty of Global Studies until her retirement in 2019. She specializes in modern Philippine history and Islam in Southeast Asia, with a focus on the religious, political, and social movements of Muslims in Mindanao and Sulu. Her current research focuses on the intellectual activities of Mindanao Muslims from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, their connections with other parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and the Islamic manuscripts and books they used and wrote. Professor Kawashima has written extensively on these subjects. For more information on her research, please visit her website, where most of her writings can be accessed: https://kawashimamidori.jp
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
This symposium is organized by the UP Asian Center. For inquiries, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 891-8500 loc. 3586.