I devoted this past week clarifying my thoughts about the concept of “istambay”. This Filipino term is derived from the English idiom, “on standby” which generally refers to some Filipinos who are either out-of-school or out-of-work. I find them interesting because since childhood, I know a lot of istambay in my family and in my community. I became more fascinated with them during my fieldwork because I cannot ignore anymore the impact these istambay have not only on themselves but also their respective families, including mine. This is the logic why I labour to understand how it is like to be an istambay in the Philippines. This is my thesis.
I thought this would be an easy task but I was wrong. I realized one of the most difficult sociological tasks is to take a research problem that most people take for granted, just like the istambay. Often, the sociologist, too, is blurred by his own conceptual blinders, which he learned from the academic training that after all, disconnected him from the social realities of the subject matter he chooses to study. Unfortunately, I am afraid – I am the sociologist that I am describing.
