FOUR faculty members of the Far Eastern University presented their research paper in the recently concluded 9th Congreso Internacional de Estudios Latinoamericanos en Asia y Oceanía conference.

They are FEU Institute of Arts and Sciences dean Diego Jose Abad, IAS associate dean Francis Esteban, Romeo Galang, Jr. and Cecilia Bethina Elmido.

Galang presented a paper titled “Markers of Ethnicity in Philippine Santos: Narratives from the Material Culture Along the Transpacific Realms.”

The study underscores the importance of identifying motifs used by carvers, to shed light on their ethnicities.

Meanwhile, Elmido showcased her work “Of Teresas and Tikbalangs: A Voyeuristic Travelogue of Selected Philippine and Brazilian Cultural Texts”, which thematically compares selected fictions from Filipino horror writer Yvette Tan and Brazil’s eminent mystic, Clarice Lispector.

Abad made a significant contribution with his presentation, “Transpacific Intercoloniality: Redefining Our View of Filihispanic Literature as Part of Transpacific Hispanic Literature.”

The study discusses shifting the perspective of Filhispanic literature as one that is horizontally aligned with the literature of Latin America, the school said.

Moreover, Esteban delved into the “Populist Foreign Policy and the Personal: A Comparative Analysis of Rodrigo Duterte, and Jair Bolsonaro’s Foreign Policy towards the United States of America,” which analyzes the personal worldviews and interests of both leaders.

“The research looks at how Bolsonaro used his personal connections with former US President Donald Trumph to legitimize his regime, while Duterte saw the US as a threat both to himself and the narrative he built his regime upon,” FEU said.

The conference began in Osaka, Japan in 2003. For this year, the event was organized by the Center of Latin American Studies of Shanghai University.

It seeks to serve as a symposium for interdisciplinary research on Latin America and to facilitate academic discussions and collaboration among scholars of Latin American Studies across Asia and Oceania.

This year’s CELAO brought together scholars, researchers, and representatives from Latin America, China, Oceania and the Philippines.