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Abu Sayyaf: Displays of Violence and the Proliferation of Contested Identities among Philippine Muslims
Author(s) -
Frake Charles O.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1998.100.1.41
Subject(s) - hegemony , agency (philosophy) , ethnography , identity (music) , gender studies , sociology , armed conflict , structural violence , criminology , ethnology , political science , anthropology , social science , law , politics , aesthetics , art
Violence between and among Christians and Muslims of the southwestern Philippines provides the ethnographic setting for an investigation of Herzfeld's paradox of social indifference. But there is yet another paradox in this case: Why has this 400‐year conflict been characterized by a proliferation of contested identities among the insurgents, those who most need to be united? Is this another case of the force of “hegemony,” with the oppressed somehow duped into practices detrimental to their own interests? But how? And by what agency? The Philippine case reveals the challenging complexities of identity construction to be faced in any attempt to reach an understanding of these issues.