Research: Themes/Problems

Issues in Constructing Ethnicity

Research questions: What is ethnicity and why is it important? Does ethnicity promote the individual’s sense of identity? Will ethnicity disappear in the face of modernity? Will it cease to exist as globalization breaks down barriers and people migrate across borders in ever larger numbers? Or will ethnicity reinvent itself in reaction to modernity? What then is the process of reconstructing/constructing one’s identity, and hence, one’s identity as modernity proceeds further?

Topics:

• Construction and Reconstruction of Ethnic Identities
• Igorot-Ilocano Interactions and Relations
• Igorot Diaspora
• Spaces and Identities
• Emerging Ethnicities

Ethnicity, History and Culture

Research questions: What is the relationship between culture and ethnicity? What are the local cultural processes, factors and markers that determine ethnic group-formation and ethnic consciousness? In what ways can history be important in the creation of ethnicity? What is the relationship between ethnicity and other types of identity, social classification and political organization such as class and gender? (formulated by Alangui, 2005):

Topics:

• Language as Ethnic Marker
• Processes of Indigenization
• Historical Perspectives of Ilocanos as Cultural Brokers in the Cordillera and Northern Luzon
• Representations of Ethnic Identity in Various Forms of Material Culture (e.g pottery, woven materials, “bulol” and other artifacts)
• Local Narratives and Memory-making by Ethnic Groups in the Cordillera
• Space and Quantity Relations
• Dynamics of Gender, Sexuality, Class and Ethnicity

The Politics of Ethnicity

Questions: Under what circumstances does ethnicity become a political issue? How do the processes of state-formation affect ethnic consciousness and mobilization? What is the relationship between nationalism and ethnicity? What is the relationship between ethnic identity and ethnic political organization? What are the responses of ethnic groups to colonial and post-colonial “impositions”?

Topics:

• Politics of ethnicity/ethnicity in politics;
• Ethnic dimension of social and development issues;
• Ethnicity, conflict and conflict resolution (including peace and development studies);
• Indigenous Peoples’ movements and the Philippine state
• Globalization and localization.

Unpublished Papers

Alangui, Wilfredo V. Draft: A Concept Paper for Issues in Constructing Identity (as one research component of the Ethnicity Studies Program of UP Baguio ). August 1, 2005 .

Canilao, Narcisa P. A Report in Theoretical Gaps in Perspectives of the Ethnicity Studies Workgroup, U.P. June 29, 2005 .