Mahal, Kapwa, Dasal

This article presents an intellectual history of the University of British Columbia Philippine Studies Series (PSS), a network of scholars and students working on the Philippines and the Filipino/a/x diaspora, that sought to build community, foster dialogue, and establish solidarities through lectures, art exhibits, and forums from 2011 to 2021. Drawing from the critical conversations among three authors, the article explores how the PSS was shaped by both its scholarly commitments to the Philippines and its diaspora, and its ethical and political orientation toward doing this work on unceded Indigenous land. The article traces the development of the PSS’s thinking on what it means to do academic, advocatory, and artistic work within a settler colonial context through three major PSS projects: the three-part exhibition series Mahal; Kapwa: Sensing Ourselves in One Another, a Philippine Indigenous arts festival; and Padasal Para Sa Mga Patay (Prayer for the Departed), a performance reimagining the Catholic prayer-novena. By situating the PSS within broader debates on migration, decolonization, and the politics of knowledge production, the article reflects on the risks, contradictions, and possibilities of building Filipino/a/x studies in British Columbia as an ongoing decolonial practice of accountability, relationship, and care.