Explorations in the Crafting of Government’s Authority and Power Using Institutional Ethnography: The Case of the 2013 Zamboanga Crisis

• Main Authors: Advincula-Lopez, Leslie, Magno, Nota F
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2020
• Subjects: State-in-society; Legitimacy; Institutional ethnography; Internal displacement; Development Studies; Sociology
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/dev-stud-faculty-pubs/52; https://archium.ateneo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=dev-stud-faculty-pubs
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Crisis response is a clear illustration of what Migdal (2004) posits in his Statein-society approach: the iterative relationship between State authority and social actors' everyday practices. As the rise in recent natural and humanmade disasters call for proficiencies in crisis response, it becomes essential to observe how the variabilities in State-in-society responses unfold through institutionally coordinated everyday social relations. The situation reveals the need to theorize these relationships on the grounds of the dynamic coconstitution of State-in-society. This study employed institutional ethnography (Devault & McCoy, 2002; Smith, 2005); observing the interplay of various actors' interests and strategies within institutional processes after the massive internal displacement that resulted from the 2013 Zamboanga siege. Whereas the Philippines is often portrayed as a weak State with a resilient population, this study suggests the Philippine State's fluid crafting, as illustrated in how various social actors reinterpret, negotiate, and appropriate State, specifically the dispersed government's power and authority during crises. The processes of assisting IDP provided opportunities for local and national actors to redefine their positions against one another and influence the crisis response process's outcomes.