Theologies, Indigenous Cosmologies and Ecologies of Knowledge in the Philippines

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This research will challenge current understandings of Christianity within decolonial scholarship by articulating an alternative narrative of mission, capable of addressing the challenges of the 21st century. Colonisation exploited land and people, marginalising knowledge systems and cultures. This marginalisation and the resultant hierarchies persist in present day coloniality through colonial matrices of power (Mignolo, 2007). The exploitative capitalist system continues despite its failure, exemplified by our global climate crisis (IPCC, 2018). Providing alternatives, and moving beyond the violent historical 12 / 26 foundations of modernity on which our capitalist system is built (Ahenakew, 2016) requires learning from marginalised knowledges and redefining relationships between people and nature.Decolonial thinking is a growing field, explicitly challenging the capitalist system and hierarchies of knowledge. Extant literature focuses on the historical role of Christian mission in providing the theological justification for colonialism and enforcing cultural assimilation in the colonies (McEwan, 2018). Whilst acknowledging history, this project will highlight the potential role of church mission(s) in the 21st century, where contextualised Christianities reflect local histories, cultures and faith expressions.This research will work in collaboration with the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) and the Lumad Indigenous persons in the South of the Philippines, in their defence of human, land and environmental rights. It will articulate how the theology of the IFI and ontology of the Lumad peoples form an ecology of knowledges, where multiple worldview are held together (Santos, 2017), contributing to a pluriverse capable of challenging capitalist hegemony (Dunford, 2017).This research will take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from Indigenous methodologies that seek to move beyond western methodological understandings. It will use a scholar activist approach (Derickson and Routledge, 2014) in which the IFI and Lumads are co-collaborators, within a feministframework that values intersectionalities and positionalities (Crenshaw, 1990). Designed to benefit all collaborators, it will draw into relationship Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons working for decolonisation (Morgensen, 2012). Thinking for this research developed through discussions with students in Cape Town for my Masters dissertation on the role of the Church in a time of Fallist movements that challenge the neo-liberal foundations of our society (Booysen, 2017). Further influences came from working at a mission agency, reflecting on its colonial history and engagement with faith and development forums, where conversations and understandings of development are limited by western epistemologies incapable of bringing the destabilisation and decolonisation necessary to address the challenges of our time, including our climate crisis.