Monica FA W Santos trained in anthropology at the University of the Philippines Diliman and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where she specialized in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology and the Anthropology of Human Movement. She learned Labanotation and attended advanced classes at the Dance Notation Bureau in New York City. Her dissertation, in progress, is about ballet dancing in the Philippines. While at UIUC, she was a graduate fellow of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities and worked as assistant to the editor of the Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement (JASHM). She was Guest Editor of Musika Jornal 12 for its special issue on Music and Movement, and published “Philippine folk dances: a story of a nation” (2019) in Narrativizing Bodies, a special issue of the Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature. Her extension work includes projects that promote the performing arts in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, interdisciplinary research that interrogates development work conducted in poor communities in the country and lectures on research methods in social anthropology and the anthropology of human movement and its possible applications to the preservation of expressive cultures. She has also trained in various performing arts traditions, including classical ballet, Balinese gamelan music and dance, and kulintang playing.

Performing Arts, Language and Culture, Linguistic Anthropology, Anthropology of Human Movement, Anthropology of Performance

Botolan (Zambales), Hagonoy (Bulacan), Metro Manila, Philippines

• Cajilig, P., Santos, M. F. A., Sicam, O., & Cervantes, S. (2023). Understanding the materiality of disaster injustice in post-disaster housing reconstruction. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 71(4), 529–560.
• Santos, M. F. A. (2019). Philippine folk dances: A story of a nation. Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature, 18(1). https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/jescl/article/view/6884
• Santos, M. F. A. (2019). The UP in our minds. Ugnayan Diliman, 1(1).
• Zialcita, F. N. (Lead author), Soco, A., Sarmienta, R. F., Stanyukovich, M., Toohey, A., Canilao, M., Mondiguing, R., Roldan, S., Tamayo, A. L., & Santos, M. F. A. (2015). Preserving the Ifugao terraces: A literature review. UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines.
• Grim-Feinberg, K., & Santos, M. F. A. (2015). Movement notation and the analysis of embodied knowledge: Three ethnographic examples. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, 22(2). https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/22.2/grim-feinberg.html
• Santos, M. F. A. (2015). The Tagalog body. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, 22(1). https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/22.1/santos.html
• Grim-Feinberg, K., & Santos, M. F. A. (2015). Labanotation and the study of human movement in anthropology. Congress on Research in Dance, 2015, 59–67. Cambridge University Press.
• Hill, J., Saenghong, N., Grim-Feinberg, K., & Santos, M. F. A. (2013). AwHui (dance-music) and ethnic identity among the Lahu Na Shehleh of Northern Thailand. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, 20(2). https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/20.2/hill01.html
• Hill, J., Saenghong, N., Grim-Feinberg, K., & Santos, M. F. A. (2013). When one good shot is not enough: Writing Lahu Na Shehleh dance with Labanotation. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, 20(2). https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/20.2/hill02.html
• Santos, M. F. A. (2012). Review of Dance and the nation: Performance, ritual, and politics in Sri Lanka by S. Reed. Visual Anthropology, 25(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2012.629598
• Santos, M. F. A. (2006). Film review of Riles by Ditsi Carolino. The Loyola Schools Review: School of Social Sciences, 5.
• Santos, M. F. A. (2005). Review of What place for hunter-gatherers in millennium three? by T. Headland & D. Blood (Eds.). Philippine Studies, 53(4). https://philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/446/453
• Santos, M. F. A. (2001). The Ayta woman in servitude: An agent of socio-economic transformation in the resettlement. Philippine Sociological Review, 49(1–2). https://pssc.org.ph/wp-content/pssc-archives/Philippine%20Sociological%20Review/2001/10_The%20Ayta%20woman%20in%20Servitude_%20An%20Agent%20of%20Socio-economic%20Transformation%20in%20the%20Resettlement.pdf

• Ayta Women in Servitude (A research grant awarded by the University Research Coordination Office, De La Salle University, Manila, December 2001)
• Transacting Bridewealth: The Case of the Ayta in Loob-Bunga Resettlement in Botolan, Zambales (MA Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines Diliman, April 2001)
• Constructing Bikol Culture: The Ibalong Festival (with Kristine Layug and Magnolia Silvestre) (Undergraduate Thesis, Video Documentary, 52 minutes, April 1994)