The next Ugat International Conference would be held onsite at Ateneo de Zamboanga University by November 9-11 with the theme “Anthropology of Home.” Ugnayang Pang- Aghamtao Inc (UGAT) Anthropological Association of the Philippines is going to celebrate its 50 th anniversary by 2079.

This year’s conference is convened by Melvin Jabar of the Department of Sociology and Behavior Sciences De La Salle University and its Social Development Research Center, Skilty Labastilla of Department of Interdisciplinary Studies/ Institute of Philippine Culture Ateneo De Manila University, Floraime Pantaleta of Ateneo Zamboanga – Mindanao Institute at Ateneo de Zamboanga University and Mary Racelis of AdMU Department of Sociology and Anthropology and IPC.

Some of the papers/abstracts/ short films may be related but not limited to the following: home and identity; home in the law; home as sites of struggle; bodies and buildings; material culture and domestic spaces; home as spaces of history and memory; anthropologists at home and anthropologists feeling at home; place, space and industrial revolution; earth as home; home, well-being, and covid19; home away from home and many more.

Based on the call for abstracts at the Ugat website, “Home is a place of inception and a space of beginnings. It is the origin where a coming into awareness and existence takes place. Notions of home are inflected in our language such as in the Ilokano “ili”, Filipino “bayan”, Malay Bangsa”, Japanese “ie”, German “Heimat”, Swahili “nyumbani” among many others.”

The most recent Ugat conference was hosted in Marinduque State College last year with the theme, “Kapuluan: Anthropology in the Archipelago” in October 2022. Since its founding in early 1977, being the national organization of anthropologists in the Philippines, it has conducted annual national conferences to make the discipline more engaged with the issues of today and pressing concerns about Philippine society and culture. Ugat is a regular member of Philippine Social Science Council and the World Council of Anthropological Associations and International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences.