Peer-reviewed article
Kapwa child participation, kapwa childhood, and a path towards the indigenisation and expansion of international agreements
Roberto S. Salva ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper explores how the Filipino concept of kapwa (shared self or togetherness) can ground child participation in the Philippines, going beyond the communication-focused approach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The authors propose that kapwa expands child participation to include social engagements and negotiated relationships between children and adults, rather than fixed hierarchies. They develop a kapwa childhood construct that recognises children as both vulnerable beings needing protection and as equals with adults. The paper offers a framework for other countries to indigenise and localise international child rights agreements using their own cultural values.
Key points
- The Philippines has strong cultural anchors in kapwa that ground implementation of the CRC in local context
- Kapwa expands child participation from communicative processes to broader social engagements
- Kapwa reframes child-adult relationships from hierarchical and fixed to negotiated and interdependent
- Kapwa childhood integrates diverse Filipino childhood constructs and acknowledges children as simultaneously vulnerable beings and equals with adults
- The paper provides a methodological path for other countries to domesticate global agreements through local cultural frameworks
Limitations
This is a conceptual and theoretical paper that does not evaluate an actual child participation programme or provide empirical data on outcomes for children in the Philippines. It does not assess whether kapwa-grounded participation actually improves child well-being or voice compared to other approaches.
Abstract
The Philippines has championed child participation from the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to the creation of child participation structures in domestic and regional intergovernmental governance. This has been possible because the country has strong anchors that ground CRC in the country. We explore one such anchor, kapwa, a Filipino equivalent for the Western ‘other’ but means more as ‘shared self’ or ‘together with the person’ and identified as a core Filipino value and/or virtue ethics. Using a model of social ontology, we turn this anchor into a ground of child participation. In a kapwa ground, child participation expands from the communicative processes the CRC confines it to social engagements; from fixed and hierarchical child-adult roles to negotiated and interdependent roles. Kapwa child participation also gives way to a kapwa childhood construct that can integrate the diverse Filipino childhood constructs, a construct that acknowledges children’s vulnerability and need of protection as it acknowledges their equality with adults; children are simultaneously human beings and ‘becomings’. In this paper, we present a path, which other investigators or practitioners can follow, to domesticate and to develop alternative local discourses that could enhance global agreements.