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It Takes Modern Means to be Traditional: On Recognizing Indigenous Cultural Communities in the Philippines
Author(s) -
Hirtz Frank
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2003.00333.x
Subject(s) - indigenous , modernity , dilemma , bureaucracy , expression (computer science) , state (computer science) , government (linguistics) , sociology , political science , political economy , corporate governance , environmental ethics , law , epistemology , politics , economics , management , ecology , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , computer science , biology , programming language
The main thesis of this essay is that being recognized as traditional or indigenous requires the employment of modern means. A form of ‘Bureaucratic Orientalism’ has been devised, constructing and reaffirming ‘the Other’ through the minutiae of administrative procedures and contemporary representational processes. These procedures exist for the twin purposes of establishing the right to act as an indigenous group, and of circumscribing the obligations of the state, and possibly of other institutions of governance. The entire debate is the expression of a dilemma that has no solution but is actually an expression of modernity. The three pillars upon which indigeneity is affirmed are a national (internationally legitimized) legal system, the contemporary world of NGOs, and the institutions of local government. Thus, through the very process of being recognized as ‘indigenous’, these groups enter the realms of modernity. The Philippines provide a case study for these explorations.