Women and armed conflict in the Philippines: narrative portraits of women on the ground

This article reconstructs the stories of three women who experienced armed conflict in the Philippines. Their narratives were documented through the process of individual storytelling, an exercise that involved reflexive meaning creation on the part of the storyteller. Thus, even as there have been numerous studies reflecting the discourses of women's victimization/vulnerability and agency in the context of armed conflict, this article stands by the importance of each and every story told by each and every woman. In other words, beyond the project of narrative documentation and analysis lies that marginal space where stories told are not just valuable for the hard data they contain; their significance must also be seen from the vantage points of storytellers as co-creators of knowledge that can provide alternative perspectives on the linearity of the discourses of women's victimization/vulnerability and agency.