Producing Spectacles, Appropriating Traditions: The Case of Baguio’s Panagbenga Festival (original) (raw)

Panagbenga is an annual festival held in Baguio City, Philippines every February, celebrating Cordillera’s flora and promoting the region’s culture and economy. Despite the festival being initiated fairly recently, it has found its way to many Filipinos’ calendars. Every year, it attracts millions of visitors and contributes to the city’s flower industry and tourism. It is curious, however, that even with the festival’s popularity, very few social scientists have been intrigued by the festival’s inception and traditionalization. To address this gap, this study offers a preliminary examination of Panagbenga using nuanced anthropological descriptions of tradition. Central to its analysis of traditionalization is the modification, institutionalization, and multiplication of festival practices that serve various purposes. In exploring the intersection of cultural expressions and economic practices during Panagbenga, the study validated the fluidity of tradition, refuting the prevailing Hobsbawmian distinction between “genuine” and “invented” traditions.