Thursday, February 22, 2007 Ateneo holds Tausug history, culture national confab
IN LINE with the celebration of National Arts Month, the Ateneo de Zamboanga University, through its Institute of Cultural Studies for Western Mindanao, has organized the National Conference on "Tausug History and Culture."
The activity is attracting almost a hundred sociologists, artists, and professors and students concerned with studies on arts and history to Zamboanga City.
Mayor Celso Lobregat, who welcomed the participants during the opening program, cited Zamboanga as a historical and cultural center not only of Zamboanga Peninsula but the entire Western Mindanao.
Known as one of the oldest cities in Mindanao, Zamboanga is rich in history and culture and is the only city where a majority of the population speaks Chavacano, the Spanish derivative, Lobregat said.
The conduct of the two-day confab on Tausug history and culture in Zamboanga, he said, is timely and significant, as it would also be an opportunity for the local government to promote its new branding of Asia's Latin City.
The confab, which reeled off Wednesday and would end on Thursday, has Prof. Gerard Rixhon of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Social Sciences of the Ateneo de Manila University as its keynote speaker during the opening program.
Some of the topics to be tackled during the conference include Persistent Themes in the History of the Sulus; The Food and Culture of the Ta'u-sug; Tausug Language and Literature; Reflecting Gender in a Tausug Family: Formation and Change; The Pangalay Tradition: An Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Sulu Archipelago; Sulu Visual Art Context, Aesthetics and Some Issues: Focused on Ukkil, Figurative Forms and Military Artifacts; the Tausug Legal System: An Interplay of Customary Practice and Sha'riah; Politics and Governance of Tausug; Pagbanta: Exploration into the Dynamics and Approaches to Conflict Management in Tausug Communities; Tausug Peace, Development and Democracy; and The Tausug: On Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The opening program was capped by the opening of the Tausug exhibit with Professor Rixhon, Lobregat and ADZU president Fr. William Kreutz leading the ribbon-cutting ceremony. (SE)
