In the turquoise waters between the southern Philippines and northern Indonesia, an elderly man from Watunapatto sits in a small wooden boat he built himself from trees felled from the island where his ancestors once migrated when the fishing season changed. The sea breeze caresses his face, wrinkled by time and salt. He doesn’t know…
Tag: Decolonisation
Mawale Turns Twenty: A Movement Without a Final Destination
We Came Back, but Not as We Left Two decades ago, we returned — not as heroes, not as the enlightened, and certainly not as experts. We were simply young Indigenous people who had wandered far from our homelands, drifted into cities, classrooms, online worlds, and in many ways, away from ourselves. Some of us…
Not Just Waves to Be Counted
I was born on an island that barely makes it onto your maps. Not that I’m offended. In fact, I am super proud of that. After all, your satellites were built to track typhoons and shipping routes, not to notice small Indigenous fishing communities sitting quietly on coral reefs, weaving nets from coconut husks and…