Stephen Acabado, director of the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, wins book prize for new reader “Plural Entanglements: Philippine Studies."

Nov 6, 2024. A recent book edited by anthropological archaeologist Stephen Acabado, director of the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, along with co-editors Dada Dacot and Clement Camposano, “Plural Entanglements: Philippine Studies” (Ateneo de Manil University Press, 2023) has won the Philippines' 42nd National Book Award for the social sciences. Known as the Elfren S. Cruz Prize for Best Book in the Social Sciences, the award is bestowed by the National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics Circle.

“This book, offered as the newest reader in ‘Philippine Studies,’ comprises a collection of 15 essays edited by and written by an emergent cohort of Filipino academics in diverse fields,” read the NBDB/MTC announcement.

“ It is important to note their positioning as homegrown scholars — all well-rooted, anchored in engagements with communities, ‘stakeholders’ in the discourses on Filipino identity, history and transformation; and their work potentially significant toward the ‘worlding’ of Filipino scholarship. The books is inclusive and innovative in its exploration of a diversity of vantage points and also by accomplishing the bridging of the local and diasporic contexts in which such knowledge production are situated.”