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

• “Philippine Folk Dances: A story of a nation” (2019) Published in Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature, Vol 18, no. 1 https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/jescl/article/view/6884
• “The UP in our minds” (2019) Published in Ugnayan Diliman, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January-June) (Cultural Memories and Placemaking)
• Preserving the Ifugao Terraces, a Literature Review (2015) (Co-author with Fernando Zialcita [lead], Andrea Soco, Ramon Felipe Sarmienta, Maria Stanyukovich, Aileen Toohey, Michael Canilao, Remedios Mondiguing, Suzanna Roldan and Ann Loreto Tamayo) Published by UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines
• “Movement Notation and the Analysis of Embodied Knowledge: Three Ethnographic Examples” (2015) (Co-author with Kate Grim-Feinberg) Published in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall) https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/22.2/grim-feinberg.html
• “The Tagalog Body” (2015) Published in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring) https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/22.1/santos.html
• “Labanotation and the Study of Human Movement in Anthropology” (2015) (Co-author with Kate Grim-Feinberg) Published in Congress on Research in Dance, vol. 2015: 59-67. Cambridge University Press.
• “AwHui (Dance-Music) and Ethnic Identity among the Lahu Na Shehleh of Northern Thailand” (2013) (Co-author with Jacquetta Hill, Nannaphat Saenghong and Kate Grim-Feinberg) Published in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall)
  https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/20.2/hill01.html
• “When One Good Shot Is Not Enough: Writing Lahu Na Shehleh Dance with Labanotation” (2013) (Co-author with Jacquetta Hill, Nannaphat Saenghong and Kate Grim-Feinberg) Published in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall) https://jashm.press.uillinois.edu/20.2/hill02.html
• “Book review of Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Linka” by Susan Reed (2012) Published in Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, Issue 3 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08949468.2012.629598
• “Film review of Riles” by Ditsi Carolino (2006) Published in The Loyola Schools Review: School of Social Sciences, Vol. 5
• “Book review of What Place for Hunter-Gatherers in Millenium Three?” By Thomas Headland and Doris Blood (eds.) (2005) Published in Philippines Studies, Vol. 53, No.4 https://philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/view/446/453
• “The Ayta woman in servitude: an agent of socio-economic transformation in the resettlement “ (2001) Published in the Philippine Sociological Review, Vol. 49, Nos.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)