The Field: Dialogues, Visions, Tensions, and Aspirations (original) (raw)
Related papers
Orientations: Notes on the Study of the Philippines in the United States
This essay traces three reorientations in studies of the Philippines in the United States, in the wake of a critique regarding American orientalism in the late 1990s. The first is the rediscovery of the American empire at the heart of American national history and, by implication, of the buried significance of overseas colonies. Second is the renewed interest in comparisons between and among empires, colonies, and nationstates. Third is the emergence of "diaspora" as an analytical frame for understanding both filipino global migrations and filipino American cultural politics.
The Filipino, diaspora and a continuing quest for identity
Defining Filipinoness has been problematic throughout history. Previous studies have focused on the persistent impact of the colonial experience on Filipinos (Bernad, 1971; Constantino, 1977; Enriquez, 1992; Yacat, 2005). Some scholars have framed their understanding vis-a-vis the search for a national consciousness resulting in a unif ied Filipino identity (Anderson, 1983; Constantino, 1969). But in the age of globalization, statehood and nationhood have become questionable concepts (Adamson & Demetriou, 2007; Ahmad & Eijaz, 2011; Guéhenno, 1995; Omae, 1995). Who has the Filipino become amid a modern-day diaspora? I propose an analysis of history not as archival and disconnected from the present but as part of an ongoing story of identity formation. Recognition is given to kapwa, a view of self-and-other as one. This indigenous ontology offers a postmodern lens to understand the complexities of being Filipino through time and space. For contemporary Filipinos, identity formation may involve a continuing resistance against colonialism now set amid the diaspora in the digital age. This article further presents an alternative view of Filipinoness by arguing that diasporics remain Filipino despite physical estrangement from the Philippines. An essential point echoed from other scholars is how cultural identity should not be seen as singular and unchanging (Hall, 1990; Said, 1993/2012). Rather, Filipinoness may refer to evolving, varied and fluid Filipino identities. This evolution involves a past that folds into the present and impacts the future in locations around the world.
The Vernacular/Local, the National, and the Global in Filipino Studies
Kritika Kultura, 2003
Originally a concept paper for the Institute of Filipino Studies project in Oakland, California, this essay tracks a paradigmatic shift in area studies on the Philippines and ethnic studies of Filipinos/Filipino Americans toward what the writer calls "Filipino Studies. " Exceeding the national culture area assumptions of Philippine Studies and eschewing the assimilationist tendencies of long-standing notions of Filipino ethnicity, Campomanes bases this claim and project for a paradigmatic turn upon three critical planks: the diasporic dispersal of Filipinos in the age of globalization and late-modernity and how it problematizes unitary or organic concepts of Philippine nation, culture, and identity; the reformulation of Filipino nationalism to account for this global distension of the diverse constituencies that now appeal to a Filipino "national" identity and culture; and an historical etymology of the term "Filipino" to illustrate its power, over the term "Philippine, " to mark important junctures in the history of Filipino subject-and cultural formation and how these junctures might be read as instantiations of the vernacularizing act in Filipino formation. The vernacular or vernacularization, as used in this essay, is a term of mediation by which Filipinoness is evolved, contested, and opened up to new possibilities of reformulation; it is also used to underline the centrality of Filipino agency to the making and remaking of the nation to reflect not only diaspora but also its heteroglot/heterogenous composition. Keywords globality, national identity, Philippine diaspora, Philippine Studies About the Author Oscar V. Campomanes, on extended furlough from full-time teaching, is editor of the internationally-refereed journal American Studies Asia (DLSU Press) and currently sits, on a three year term, as Member-Elect of the National Council of the American Studies Association-USA (July 2002-June 2005). His work on US imperialism, Filipino American literature, and Philippine-American cultural relations has appeared in various critical anthologies and academic journals in the Philippines and the United States. "Filipino Studies" is a term used in this essay to distinguish an emergent field from "Philippine Studies"-the current rubric for study of the Philippines as a national and culture area in international (especially American) academic networks and institutions. The shift from Philippine to Filipino studies is more than semantic; it is, in fact, paradigmatic, as I hope to suggest here. It is a position and a project that is premised upon the emergence of Filipinos as distinct constituencies and as articulate voices in the recomposition of American or global polities and socioeconomic orders within the last three decades; that is, Kritika Kultura 3 (2003): 005-016 <www.ateneo.edu/kritikakultura> © ateneo de Manila university 6 C a m p o m a n e s the Vernacular/local Kritika Kultura 3 (2003): 005-016 <www.ateneo.edu/kritikakultura> © ateneo de Manila university as Filipinos, in large numbers, now exceed the borders of the Philippines, as well as those of the United States and other countries where they migrate, work, settle, or create new identities, communities, and cultures.
Homeland Developments: Filipino America and the Politics of Diaspora Giving
2011
This is to, again, distinguish the contemporary Filipino diaspora from-classic‖ diasporas. See Susan Koshy's discussion of-old‖ and-new‖ diasporas, which references the-shifting forms of capitalism‖ in determining modes of migration. Koshy,-Introduction,‖ in Transnational South Asians: The Making of a Neo-Diaspora, eds. Susan Koshy and R. Radhakrishnan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 7. 20 While contemporary diasporas call into question modernity's terms of belonging, territory, and the nation-state, David Palumbo-Liu also reminds us how the classic diaspora, the Jewish diaspora, entailed diasporic longings for home and-political strategizing for a nation-state.‖ Other contemporary diasporas such as segments of the Palestinian diaspora politically strategize for a nation-state as well.
Interventions of Memory and Visibility: Recovering and Reclaiming Filipino American History
Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina. By Denise Cruz. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. 312 pages. 89.95(cloth).89.95 (cloth). 89.95(cloth).24.95 (paper). Over the past twenty years, the field of Filipino American studies has exploded, from just a handful of scholarly books on the subject to more than three dozen titles and countless essays. The field's notable progress is not surprising given the growing population of Filipinos in the United States: estimated at 3.4 million by the 2010 US Census Bureau, the Filipino American population grew by nearly half within the last decade alone, to become the second largest Asian group in the United States. Yet despite this demographic support, the emergence of Fil-Am studies has been no easy task. In addition to the epistemological challenges involved in conceiving a field from such a heterogeneity of disciplines, combined with the practical challenges involved in institutionalizing a field that remains largely underrepresented in academe, Fil-Am studies scholars have also had to write themselves into existence—writing against decades of imperial amnesia that have maneuvered to erase the historical record that exposes the United States' forfeitures of democracy in favor of empire building. The ways in which Filipinos have become forgotten and made invisible despite their long-standing presence in the United States have been well documented by early scholars in the field, such as Fred Cordova and Oscar Campomanes.
TALA: An Online Journal of History, 2021
This book review explores the work of Nicole Cuunjieng Aboitiz’ Asian Place, Filipino Nation: A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution, 1887-1912. As opposed to previous works on the period, the said author challenges traditional narratives of the Philippine revolution by leveraging her study on a transnational, global approach. The book claims direction on three core focuses that this review hopes to hypothesize: the early days of Propaganda Movement and their effort to transnationalize Pan-Asianism, the Philippine revolution and its actors’ regional (and global) links, and the continuing effect of the Philippine cause beyond place and time.