On the other end of the spectrum, Bro. Karl Gaspar as a longstanding Mindanawon NGO and cultural worker has helped build indigenous communities. From the period of social unrest and militant protest actions during the 1970s, the political climate has paved way for alternatives in particular in Mindanao. His initial engagement, as part of the Mindanao Sulu Pastoral Conference and setting-up Social Action Centers has culminated in a consortium of Mary Knoll priests, Third World Studies Centre researchers and other passionate individuals brought about the inception of Alternative Resource Centre which would later become Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao. Among the issues of the day were human rights violations, dislocation, militarisation and enforced disappearances.
Given the context, all must come to an end even the dictatorship and there was a restoration of democratic institutions. There was a period of development aid boon in the country. The results of such flurry is the establishment of more NGOs especially in Mindanao. After a decade of agrarian reform, the development issue has remained an issue. Other factors affecting Mindanao peace and conflict situation were given attention but the emergent cause was structural. Despite of past development decades, after the Second World War, there was a shift among NGOs from needs based to rights based approach. From the prior to a more contemporary approach, Mindanao was asserted to have the right to development. The key to development are policies however it also demanded a basis. Through research, one can influence policy formulation, one could also determine if a policy could favour a particular sector or the greater number of members of the community.
Meanwhile, as a Philipinologist who was brought up in Mindanao, there are a number of attempts Bro. Karl Gaspar tried to conceptualize Mindanao Studies. From his yet to be published collection of speeches, conference papers and informal remarks, there are at least three articles dealing with the said issue. In his paper read during the first workshop of the “study group” with Fr Bert, he provided an overview of the state of the art of Local Studies in Mindanao. Bro. Karl summed up his ideas in a paper entitled “Mindanao Studies’ state of Theorizing and its Theorizing of Mindanao” in 2002. In a similar attempt during a National Conference of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines in 2002 at the island garden city of Samal, “The state of Contemporary Anthropological research in and about Mindanao.” Finally, the third paper on Mindanao Studies which he shared during the Mindanawon symposium in 2007, “the lives and works and anthropologists doing Mindanao studies.”
list of studies done on/ about Mindanao (Gaspar 2007)
- ancestral domain
- conflict and conflict resolutions
- peace and development
- social movements (resistance movement, revolutionary struggles) tri-people movement, leadership)
- social development programs, community development programs
- gender, women studies
- ethnohistory, ethnography
- various aspects of the history, life and culture of muslim
- traditional healing and belief systems interaction between xtianity and IP belief system
- cultural change
- folklore
- children
- sama dilaut studies
- others