Congratulations to Vernon Wells, ASAM UAB, and former ASAM Undergraduate Research Fellow, senior majoring in Anthropology and Sociology with a minor in Asian American Studies, for receiving a Fulbright U.S. Student Award for 2024-2025!
They have been offered a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to conduct research in cultural an-thropology in the Philippines for the 2024-2025 academic year by the U.S. Department of State and the Ful-bright Foreign Scholarship Board.
During their program, Vernon will pursue their project, “Tinadhana para sa Pag-unlad? Negotiating Indigenous Economic Self-Sufficiency in Indigenous Philippines,” which evolves from their senior thesis research. Through collaborations with Indigenous organizations and communities, bureaucratic offices, and scholars throughout the Philippines, Vernon’s fieldwork and archival research will examine how pag-unlad, or “development,” is negotiated in relation to goals of economic self-sufficiency and changing institutions in the Indigenous Philippines.