Through the ballads: Memory, peace formation, and the ‘hyper’ form of negative peace

What happens when a peace framework fails to include healing of the past?

In this research, PhD candidate Primitivo III Cabanes Ragandang advances the concept of ‘hypernegative peace’, which occurs when a peace project fails to include the healing of generational wounds caused by past violence and trauma by and during the colonial era. He argues that the current and future peace projects will only be successful if peacebuilding actors recognise and reconcile the past. Drawing from the case of the Tausug tribe’s ballad called parang sabil kissa, this research explores how the Philippine Tausugs remember the Bud Dajo massacre even after a century. Ballads are one of the mechanisms by which local communities express their unhealed wounds of the past. It is an artistic oral form of recalling the community’s traumatic history and a vehicle of memory passed across generations.

Lead researcher
PhD candidate Primitivo III Cabanes Ragandang, Department of International Relations 

Support from
Seeds for Mindanao’s Advocacy and Youth Leadership (SMAYL)