Category: Uncategorized

PROF. REGLETTO ALDRICH D. IMBONG, PH.D.
Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy
University of San Carlos, 2020

Dissertation: “Alain Badiou’s Emancipatory Politics and Maoism: Toward a Reformulation of the Communist Hypothesis.”

The dissertation contributed in the theoretical discussion concerning the contemporary relevance of the communist party in emancipatory political procedures. While proclaiming himself to be a Maoist, Badiou’s reformulation of the communist hypothesis ultimately rejected the Marxist-Leninist category of the party. The rejection can be described as a reductionist reading of the party, reducing the latter to the supposed party-state fusion. The dissertation developed a Maoist reformulation of the communist hypothesis. Along the course of the socialist experiments of Russia and China then, indigenized and mobilizational politics were identified to have characterized certain moments that escaped the reductionist reading of the party-state suture. The Maoist categories of the mass line and protractedness helped in the theoretical construction of not only the notions of indigenized and mobilizational politics but also the category of the party-masses fusion. The dissertation argued how the structure of the party-masses suture, together with the dialectics of the party, the masses, and the state, define what could be the party of a new type today.

PROF. KAIRA ZOE ALBURO CAÑETE, PH.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), 2021

Dissertation: “Becoming Resilient: Disaster Recovery in Post-Yolanda Philippines through Women’s Eyes”

The thesis centers the experiences of women as a category of analysis and a methodological approach to understanding disaster recovery. I argue that women’s everyday realities are a site for disrupting the powerful circuits of knowledge and practice that underlie the notion of resilience. As a feminist research, analysing disaster recovery involves exploring possibilities for reclaiming alternative futures. Thus, my research asked: what possibilities for reimagining resilience might women’s experiences of recovery reveal?
I examined the reconstruction of Tacloban City, Philippines, after typhoon Yolanda. Specifically, I investigated: 1) how resilience has been inscribed in the institutional and social landscape of Tacloban, and 2) how resettled urban poor women qualified, re-appropriated, or contested attempts to build their ‘resilience’.
I reveal how building back better has been enmeshed in a citizenship project aimed at producing ‘responsible’/’resilient’ communities. I identify modes of governing characterised by state performances of ‘care’, and the instrumentalisation of women’s participation and care-based practices. Foregrounded are women’s navigations of precarity and the unknown: how the processes of self-formation, the workings of emotions and aspirations, and care relations with others and the environment counterbalance hegemonic views about ‘resilient’ recovery.
From women’s narratives, I reconceptualise resilience as ‘lived’, grounded in feminist ethics of care. Lived resilience requires broadening ethico-ontological horizons to view ‘resilient’ recovery as a process of becoming – not simply driven by the goal to rebuild what was damaged, but as a regenerative practice that centers care as a normative basis for exploring post-disaster futures.

PROF. HAZEL AVERGONZADO TRAPERO, DIT
Doctor of Information Technology
De La Salle University – Manila, 2020

Dissertation: “Investigating the Determinants of Air Travelers’ Adoption and Non-Adoption of Chatbots for Air Travel Transactions”

The Airline Industry has been identified as one of the world’s most important industries and that its rapid development makes it one of the most significant contributors to the advancement of modern society. While there is presently a rise of interest in chatbot design and development, especially when the entire airline industry is undergoing the worst crisis in its history because of the pandemic, some studies highlight the contradictory nature of the travelers’ technology-related experiences. There is also still a lack of investigation as to why chatbots are used today, particularly in the airline industry, and a lack of understanding on how customers respond to the replacement of human customer service staff with chatbots. Thus, this study aims to offer a better understanding of why chatbots are used today by investigating the users’ motivations and demotivation for using the said technology in undertaking air travel transactions and the determinants of its adoption and non-adoption. Adhering to the aims of the study, its investigation is anchored on UTAUT2 employing the mixed-methods explanatory design by bringing together the strengths of quantitative and qualitative methods. Based on the results, performance expectancy, price value, and habit are found to be the predictors of the travelers’ chatbot use behavior. This suggests that the air travelers are more likely to use chatbots if they believe that using it will offer advantages to them in performing certain activities. It was also found out that there is lagging or delayed chatbot adoption due to reasons like hesitation, doubtfulness, and insecurity and that the chatbot do not yet meet the users’ expectations of its efficiency and capability. Thus, adopting chatbots that comply with requirements like the accuracy, reliability, and failure-free performance, gives the customers the satisfaction that they need in terms of services, which may lead to customers higher engagement. This kind of advantage is found to be correlated with the adoption of innovation. Therefore, this study could serve as an avenue in the improvement of all the component areas of chatbots, which is the key to the overall perception of individuals.