Archiving the Lumad Schools of Mindanao

During the Duterte administration, Indigenous communities in Mindanao, striving to protect their ancestral lands from destructive logging, mining, and agro-industrial plantations, were subjected to attacks by military and paramilitary groups. This resulted in the enforced shutdown of 215 Lumad schools, whose ecocritical pedagogy molded Indigenous children into land protectors and environmental stewards. In response, the Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility (MCJRF) and former Lumad school volunteer teachers and students, Indigenous leaders, and supporters launched the “Lumad School Memory Project” in 2023. This research and archiving initiative aims to document the rich educational practices of the forcibly closed Lumad schools, ensuring that their legacy remains safeguarded for and, accessible to, future generations. This paper delves into the analysis of how MCJRF's "Lumad School Memory Project" effectively designed an Indigenous archiving framework tailored to the specific needs of the Lumad communities. Through the accounts of Lumad school volunteer teachers and students, Indigenous leaders, and supporters, this paper recounts the journey of school records and materials from militarized communities to the archive. These narratives present an Indigenous archiving process produced by the act of bakwit—urgently needed, collective in nature, and inherently transitory. This archiving practice emerges from the turbulent context of militarization, yet strives for the return and rebuilding of Indigenous Lumad schools within the Lumad’s ancestral territories.