It’s great to see you here! I’m guessing you’re a bit curious about what this site has to offer. Let’s start with the basics: I’m John Lee Candelaria, but I much prefer going by Lee. While my scholarly endeavors have taken me to Japan, my heart and research are firmly rooted in the Philippines.
My disciplinal training is in History, but I have since expanded my academic horizons to straddle different fields in the social sciences and humanities such as sociology, political science, media studies, heritage studies, and memory studies, among others. Nevertheless, I still consider myself a historian of the Philippines.
I write in Filipino and English, and although my most recent work are all in English due to the demands of my current job, I plan to continue writing in Filipino.
I graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with bachelor’s (2008) and master’s (2014) degrees in History. My studies then were focused on Japan’s visual propaganda in the Philippines during the Asia-Pacific War. In 2018, I was awarded the Monbukagakusho (MEXT) research scholarship, and in 2019, I proceeded to a MEXT doctoral scholarship of the International Peace and Coexistence program of the Graduate School of International Development and Cooperation.
My original doctoral research project, focusing on Southeast Asian peace process mediation, was hampered by the global COVID-19 pandemic, which had me refocus my studies to war memory and heritage in the region, something I was already passionate about. Thus, I obtained my Ph.D. with the dissertation, States and Stones: War Memorialization and Nation-Building in Twentieth Century Southeast Asia focusing on three case studies: The Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. Honestly, I felt lucky because this shift in focus led me to a research field where my passion and advocacy go hand-in-hand.
My time as a doctoral student had me exploring different research interests and fields, as I was opened to the multi- and interdisciplinarity of studying peace and conflict. I became a Student Fellow at the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability, where I co-authored papers on the interconnection between peace and sustainability. I was able to publish the work I initiated on Southeast Asian mediation of peace processes, focusing on the Philippines (Bangsamoro) and Indonesia (Aceh). I was also selected for Chulalongkorn University’s Empowering Network for International Thai and ASEAN Studies (ENITAS) research scholarship, as well as the National University of Singapore’s Asian Graduate Student Fellowship, which greatly contributed to the research necessary for my dissertation.
Upon obtaining my Ph.D., I worked as a Research Associate for the Center for Peace, and a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, before I was appointed as a Training Assistant Professor of the International Peace and Coexistence Program of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University.
I teach an undergraduate class on the Visualization of War, which deals with the various ways media has portrayed war and how this portrayal has influenced war’s public perception. I also teach a graduate class on the Politics of Conflict and Memory, which looks at the different conflict cases where memory politics played a role.
I was recently awarded a grant for early-career researchers from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) to investigate war commemoration spaces in the Philippines. This research, focusing on both physical sites and digital platforms, will be my primary focus from 2023 to 2025, involving extensive fieldwork in the Philippines.
This website will serve as a platform to share updates and reflections on my research journey. I hope you find the content engaging and insightful, and gets you interested in the same things I am passionate about.
JOHN LEE CANDELARIA 