Philippines studies specialist to join Asian Studies Program

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Posted: Aug 5, 2011

Dr. Patricio Abinales
Dr. Patricio Abinales
The Asian Studies Program in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa welcomes a new faculty member, Dr. Patricio Abinales.  He will teach courses in Philippines Studies beginning in the Fall 2011 semester.
 
Abinales grew up in a frontier town in the Philippine island of Mindanao. He majored in history at the University of the Philippines, and later received his PhD in Government and Southeast Asian Studies from Cornell University. After working for five years as an assistant professor at Ohio University, he moved to Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and was affiliated with the Center for 10 years.
 
“Dr. Patricio Abinales is a valuable addition to the Asian Studies Program faculty at UH Mānoa with his broad expertise in Philippine Studies and outstanding interdisciplinary scholarship on Philippine history, culture, politics and society,” said Dr. Lindy Aquino, former Director of the Center for Philippines Studies. “In addition to his solid research record, he is also a dynamic teacher who engages colleagues and students with his provocative intellectual style.”
 
His written works include Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine State (Ateneo: 2000); State and Society in the Philippines, co-authored with Donna J.Amoroso (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005); and Orthodoxy and History in the Muslim Mindanao Narrative (Ateneo, 2010).
 
 “Professor Abinales strengthens and enhances the University’s commitment to Philippine Studies through his expertise in the southern and central Philippines.  Mindanao is increasingly important for understanding the Philippines as a modern global player and as part of contemporary Southeast Asia’s cultural and religious dynamic,” noted Ricardo Trimillos, professor of Asian Studies and former Director of the Center for Philippines Studies. “His experience in Japanese higher education brings yet another perspective to the diversity of the Asian Studies faculty at UH Mānoa.”
 
Abinales’ current research includes a field-based study of American economic assistance in the conflict-affected areas of Muslim Philippines, the relationship between agricultural infestations and insurgencies, and violence amidst the elite and middle classes of the Philippines. He was recently a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.