Defending the Land: Filipina Activists amidst Authoritarian Rule in the Philippines

Miriam Zimmermann, Wolfram Dressler and Ana Bibal

Development and Change, 2025, vol. 56, issue 1, 137-171

Abstract: In Southeast Asia, environmental and human rights activists resisting authoritarian rule and extractive development face harassment, intimidation and lethal danger in dramatically different ways. In the Philippines, this atmosphere of violence intensified under former President Rodrigo Duterte, a political ‘strongman’ whose militarized masculinity deepened the repression of left‐wing women activists and other political opposition across the country. Despite macro‐level studies examining the trends and patterns behind the surge in activist harassment, the micro‐politics of Duterte's misogynistic and revanchist violence towards women activists has received insufficient attention. Drawing on feminist political ecology, this article explores how and why women activists on Palawan Island and elsewhere in the Philippines continued their advocacy work as they navigated intersectional spaces of violent misogyny and government repression. It shows how women activists in Palawan drew upon hope to persevere in their work amidst the violent atmospheres stoked by authoritarian masculinity. The article describes how the temporalities of intersectional gendered violence variously impacted the lives of women activists as they defended the environment and human rights on the island, while the country's highest office legitimated toxic chauvinism as a mode of governance.

Date: 2025
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