Migrants Versus Minorities: Sons of the Soil Conflicts in the Southern Philippines
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Abstract
By the end of the Cold War, the study of international relations has experienced a reinvigoration of academic debate on intrastate conflicts as one of the greatest threats to international peace and security. A distinct form of these conflicts, also known as sons of the soil (SOS) conflicts, take place when migrants of a dominant ethnic group in a nation-state migrate to peripheral communities inhabited by indigenous minorities, triggering interethnic violence that eventually become highly intractable over time. Drawing census data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, this paper attempts to build a historical account of conflicts in the southern Philippines as a compelling case of an SOS conflict. The paper concludes by generating explanations why Mindanao has continued to experience SOS conflicts despite the cessation of conflict activities in the past decades.
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