Perceptions of fatherhood among people displaced by war in the southern Philippines

This study interrogates the experiences of people in conflict-induced internal displacement, specifically, among the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the southern Philippines. The interest is to describe and examine how IDPs, particularly male parents, navigate their families through the hardships of being uprooted from their traditional communities because of war. The study was participated by 13 Maranao Muslim IDP fathers through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Findings revealed three major themes; the paternal miseries in displacement, perceptions of paternal roles, and the consequences of displacement-induced poverty on self-perceptions of fatherhood. The findings show that being continually confronted by unfulfilled roles together with an underlying social expectation attached to gender, fathering not only becomes a difficult task to accomplish but is also creating a negative self-image of fatherhood.