'Toy napigket nga daga
Pitpitenmi nga umuna
Danggayanmi't kankanta
Takkiagmi a napigsa
Kettang ken bannogmi
dikam igingina 

     Mannamili
     Ilokano Folk Song

FULL PAPER

Introduction

 Each nation has its own way of introducing itself to the global community. Japan is known for its Garden and the concept of wa or harmony, Korea with its Kimchi, India with its Dance of Shiva, Brazil and its samba, the German Symphony and the American Football, the Italian opera and the Spanish bullfight, among others. Using cultural metaphor, Martin Gannon in his book “Understanding Global Cultures” (2001) made metaphorical journeys through 23 nations and probed deeper into each nation’s cultural imagery that is often than not perceived as cultural stereotype. Interestingly, Gannon’s interest in cultural metaphor climaxed during his 10-day cross-cultural training program in 1990 here at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, which was led then by Professor Richard Brislin. His experience here during that training led him to propound more questions leading to the significance of using cultural metaphor as a way of understanding global cultures.

Accordingly, “a cultural metaphor is any activity, phenomenon, or institution with which members of a given culture emotionally and/or cognitively identify. As such, the metaphor represents the underlying values expressive of the culture itself.” (Gannon 2001, xv)

Today, as we celebrate the centennial of the first 15 Filipino migrants to Hawaii in 1906, with our theme Nakem: Imagination and Critical Consciousness, we shall also endeavor to make that metaphorical journey back to the Filipino nation and back to our ethnic origins in the Amianan. Perhaps, making that journey back to the Filipino nation is less nostalgic than to find one’s way back to the Amianan. It is because Gannon’s metaphorical journey also carries with it the historico-cultural and even the socio-psychological realm to one’s beloved ili. While the nation is very much constructed along the lines of the state and its structures, the ili is codified in terms of the personal. It signifies the phantasmagoric world for Ilokano migrants and exiles longing for home. It is this longing, the desire and imagination of the ili that sustains and vivifies the Ilokano wanderer in an alien land.

With Gannon’s cultural metaphor as a method of studying global cultures, how has the world looked at the Philippines? Has it risen above its smokey mountain image? Has it graduated from its being a cheap source of labor since 1906? Perhaps, more importantly for this conference, how do we look at the Iluko folk and/or the different cultures from the northern Luzon hemisphere? Do they still account for the most number of migrants here and in the mainland? Do they have stories to tell and struggles to chronicle? Would there be more contradictions or confluences within the northern Luzon cultures? Does the naked Ifugao in the St. Louis Expedition in the first decade of the 1900s still serve as the archetype of Filipinos from the northern hinterlands? Or is it the sakadas in the sugar plantations in the Big Island and those in the plantation farms in New Orleans in the roaring 20s to the great crash of the 30s that project the people from the Amianan?

The call for Amianan Studies is indicative of the times. It is a calculated organization of an epistemology predicated upon the assertions of ethnolinguistic groups in the north. It is intently a response of the locale to the hegemonic Manila-centered national and to the ever expansive global.

Setting the Context

For the last decade and even earlier, talks and papers on globalization have immensely saturated print materials and conferences. Many sounded apprehensive and pessimistic, though others excited yet suspicious. The concept was too intimidating for many to fully grasp its meaning and language; in fact, its ideological import presupposed its cultural practice. In the Philippines, globalization became a byword among the educated elite and mass swept by the desire to conquer a whole new techno-world. For the educated elite, globalization was synonymous to internationalism, urbanism and avant garde cosmopolitanism. For the educated mass, globalization simply means migration, immigration and/or job opportunities in the global market.

As a product of historical forces, globalization’s impact on the minds of men is similar to the earlier discourses on modernity and enlightenment. Modernity did not establish itself from the 17^th century as simply an inevitable outcome of historical forces. As Hau would put it, “One must also understand it as a form of thinking about that period of history.” Quoting Richard Beardsworth, Hau would continue, “This thinking concerns itself with the ‘how and wherefore of human freedom in an increasingly secular, technical and international context’.” (Hau 2000, 51-52) In similar vein, enlightenment did not only present itself as a veritable replacement of the old obscurantist instruction for clarity as in the German coined term aufklarung. It was indeed a period of thinking to which the French philosophes were able to give meaning and depth.

After centuries of marked changes in pursuit of progress with humanity cavorting with science and the industrial age, the material environment is unstoppable. Globalization is also an era of man’s quest for more freedom in the late 20^th century to the new millennium – from the confines of the national borders to the byways and hi-ways of transnational circuits and virtual spaces. Cognitive reality precedes physical presence and ontological history. It is in the cognitive and imaginative that the study on Amianan becomes a reverberation of globalization. Amianan does not simply mean ‘north’ or a reference to a particular locus such as northern Philippines. Amianan is in the minds of those who revere it, seek it, and desire it, from amongst the many who may have lived their lives away from it. Amianan, as in the concept of ili, resides not only within the confines of Philippine territory bounded on the upper north by Batanes and the south by Tarlac and Aurora, Quezon. Not even bounded by the China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. In the context of globalization, the study of the amianan is a study of the locale interacting with the global if not already in its interstices. Migration studies and diaspora while attendant to the study of the amianan may not necessarily be entirely constitutive of it.

Framing the Subject

It was in Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609) that Ylocos was first mentioned as a compact social and ethnic unit. This was followed by the citation Ilocans by Medina (1630) and Iloko by Latona (1662). The pioneering ethnographic study, which until now is still authoritative on mapping the Ilocos’ terrain is the work by Felix M. Keesing, “The Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon” (1962).

Eventually, the Iluko or Ilukano—or Ilokano—has been defined and constructed by academic writers in their books aimed at describing and explaining the Ilokano as a distinct ethnolinguistic group. F. Landa Jocano in his book “The Ilocanos” (1982) for example, describes the basic features of Ilokano character on page 201 as having a “strong sense of humor”, and being “friendly and reserved”. Without supplying sufficient historical and anthropological bases however, these generalizations account for the weakness of such construction. Perhaps, owing to its being a part of a grand project with the primary objective to document representative ethnocultures such as the Hiligaynon, Bicolanos, Warays, Cebuanos, among others, the book focused more on organization and formatting rather than substantiating its claims.

The construction of the Ilokano subject as peripatetic, hardworking and frugal has been reproduced tremendously through fiction writing from the works of vernacular writers Jose Bragado, Reynaldo Duque, Benjamin Pascual to the nationalized Ilokano writers in English Manuel Arguilla, Carlos Bolosan and Juan Laya.

But vernacular writing in Ilokano is not exclusive to resident writers in the Ilocos. Pangasinan writers who are also members of the GUMIL write both in Ilokano and Pangasinan such as the young exilic writer Ronnie Redillas. The Balon Silew (New Light) publication in Pangasinan contains a significant number of literary contributions in Ilokano.

If there is a construction of the Ilokano as a framed subject of power reified geopolitically, it is the mythic kingdom of Ilocandia by the self-proclaimed epic hero President Ferdinand Marcos. The reference to Ilocandia as an all-encompassing kingdom in the north with the imposing Malacanang ti Amianan as royal icon purports to a regional hegemon at a time when power was vested in the hands of the mighty Ilokano dictator. The myth-making process of a great epic hero in the late President Marcos contributed to the belief and later reality of the existence of a greater Ilocandia. Collapsed into this singular reference, all writings and activities about the north were considered Ilokano.

Used as a shibboleth by the great Apo Marcos, Ilokano had become synonymous to a powerful race (as in the Aryan and the Third Reich) and was used as passport to enter the gates of Malacanang. Thus, to non-Ilokano and those uninitiated, the northern cultures converged into one cult gravitating around the charismatic leadership of the Apo. Cordilleran literature, Itneg literature and even Pangasinan literature were perceived as cultural products of this Greater Ilocandia. So when non-Iluko professional artist Malou Jacob wrote about the struggles of Macliing Dulag against the state, her drama was naturally considered Ilokano writing.

But today, to still cling on to this construction of Ilokano by the then deposed President Marcos makes one anachronistic and historically insensitive. The Kingdom of Greater Ilocandia had seen its glorious days. Passé and disputatious, the Ilokano construction by the authoritarian state will always be a reminder of a hegemonic past: divisive and discursive.

Amianan Studies therefore, derives its constitution of all literatures and thoughts from the different northern cultures not in the sense of the Ilocandia hegemony. Amianan studies, while constitutive of all the northern literatures and cultures reaffirms the differences and distinctiveness of each ethnoculture. The foci of Amianan studies draw from these cultures the confluences and pollinating influences given the assumed differences and contradictions. This assumption rests on the specificities of culture and practice rather than on an essentializing category as the Greater Ilocandia. Amianan studies valuate Pangasinan, Cordilleran, Itneg, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcayan histories and literatures in terms of their specificities and particularities.

Brief Background of ‘Local Studies’ in Philippine Universities

‘Local Studies’ is loosely used here as a way of describing studies on the locale – referring to either the region or the ethnolinguistic group, or to the Philippines as a locale vis-à-vis the global.

Ethnic Studies vs Nationalist Studies

Ethnicity as a concept in the English language became popular in the halls of Philippine Universities especially after the dissolution of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in the 1980s. The collapse revealed longtime ethnic tensions and cleavages within the seemingly insoluble USSR. Consequent turn around events in Germany and Yugoslavia opened up interesting discourses on ethnicity. But actually, the reality of ethnic groups and their existence in the Philippines has long been a subject of study and inquiry although seen through a different prism and categories of thought.

Then, most of these ethnolinguistic groups were still viewed as ‘tribal/minority groups’ that were useful laboratories of Filipino anthropologists. Early ‘touristy’ books on Philippine history described these minority groups more as exotic, peculiar subjects for the appreciation of foreign visitors than as ethnic cultures originating from the same historic past. It was only in the late 80s and early 90s when ethnicity was understood as a concept that explicates the assumption of power relations between the state and its subjects. The much quoted book on ethnicity by Arnold Azurin “Reinventing the Filipino: Sense of Being and Becoming” (1993) lent intellectual sophistication to the discourse on ethnicity.

In the University of the Philippines Diliman, ethnic studies has seen reinvigoration from the 1960 UP Community Development Research Council which then challenged the dominance of Western theories. Ethnic Studies also went beyond the ‘displaying filipinos’ (using Benito Vergara’s booktitle) module that showcased the different ethnolingustic groups in either their nakedness or their colorful costumes and tapestry. Ethnic Studies today concerns itself about issues on center-periphery, marginalization, power, and statism.

The issue on power is also a concern of nationalist studies but had always been anchored on the imagination of the state (Anderson 1991).  Colonialism, which bedeviled national cultures, became an impetus to the solidification of disparate ethnic groups into one imagined nation. Lately, the more exciting discourses on ethnicity and gender somehow eclipsed the nationalist discourse as far as major universities in the Philippines are concerned. But the critique against globalization renews the nationalist discourse among the ideologized youth, which once enjoyed preeminence in the order of discourses.

Area Studies vs Philippine Studies

Many universities in the United States after the 2^nd World War became interested in the history and cultures of other countries institutionalized then as Area Studies. The US “found it necessary to organize information and data about its military theaters of operation which, after the war, became the basis and focus of so-called ‘area studies’ program.” (Salazar 1998, 301) The Philippines already a US colony in 1898 with the voluminous Blair & Robertson ethnographic data in the 1900s easily became part of the newly fashioned ‘area studies’ program. Area Studies provided a database for US colonial interests that mapped the world into epistemic regions in accordance with state objectives. The epistemic organization created the Southeast Asian Studies or Afro-Asian, Latin American or Oriental Studies that up to this day has become a helpful academic apparatus especially for visiting professors.

Many view Philippine Studies as a product of the ‘area studies’ program. But its existence actually antedated the creation of the ‘area studies’ program defined by the political necessities after World War 2. The idea of Philippine Studies was first introduced by Rizal when he organized the Association Internationale des Philippinistes in 1889 in preparation for an international conference in Paris, which would introduce, project and celebrate Philippine culture. That international conference never materialized due to organizational problems and political naivete on the part of Rizal. But the idea of a Philippine Studies as a field of study germinated through Rizal’s conception of a ‘Vaterland’ in need of sympathetic audience in the context of Spanish colonialism. 

A century after, Philippine Studies was institutionalized as a graduate program in the University of the Philippines Diliman at a time when political activism was at its height in the turbulent 1960s. It was also a radical time for many scholars who challenged western theories and foreign interpretation of Philippine experience such as the concepts of utang na loob, hiya, kapwa, etc. Philippine Studies has come a long way with many excursions through the Sikolohiyang Pilipino and the formal institution of Pilipinolohiya in 1989, exactly 100 years after Rizal’s Association Internationale des Philippinistes. But if Rizal’s Philippine Studies was outbound, in the sense, that the Philippines needed to project itself outside to foreign audiences, Pilipinolohiya was established to deal with matters pertaining to Filipino culture for Filipino audience. (Salazar 1998, 304)

Today, Philippine Studies is offered from the undergraduate level to the Masters and Doctorate level in the University of the Philippines. De La Salle University has recently established its own Philippine Studies program complete from the undergraduate level to the graduate level. But while Philippine Studies in UPD for the BA program is called Araling Pilipino, in DLSU, it is known as Araling Filipino. It is through the Philippine Studies program that courses on regional literature has been made possible. Philippine Studies has contributed much to the institutionalization of literatures from the regions, which account mainly for the propagation and enrichment of the study of ethnocultures, which became instrumental in the configuration of the Amianan Studies.

Ilokano Studies vs Amianan Studies

I have no interest here to polarize the two as competing studies. For reason of organization of this paper, the ‘vs’ between Ilokano Studies and Amianan Studies would only serve as a marker to differentiate the two.

Ilokano Studies has been given significant attention in the University of the Philippines Diliman and even in universities and colleges in the North. In fact, most students in UPD who are required to take up language and literature classes from the regions choose Ilokano from among other choices such as Bicol, Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Kapampangan and Pangasinan. Reasons vary why the students choose Ilokano but the most common is that a parent (either the mother or the father) is usually connected, by consanguinity or cultural affinity, to the Ilokanos. Perhaps, this is indicative of the peripatetic life of the llokano.

The wealth of materials on the Ilocos and its people alongside with the continuous production of books by prolific Ilokano writers whether in the vernacular or in English, has sufficiently justified the curricular requirements of the academic course on Ilokano. Moreover, from among all the 8 major ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, it is Ilokano literature which is the most vibrant as can be evidenced by the significant number of writers and organizations over there and here abroad. Indeed, the resilience of the Ilokano folk has become proverbial with the saying that the Ilokanos can easily be transplanted everywhere in the world. Here in Hawaii, even the way of life has become Ilokanized. Thus, Ilokano Studies would contain that rich body of work produced by the industry of the Ilokano folk.

However, while Ilokano Studies by its name, clearly refers to anything Ilokano, it somehow carries with it the reference to the ethnic identity of the people from Ilocos Sur and Norte. What becomes problematic is the body of work by writers not from the Ilocos but who are actually and actively writing about the ‘Ilokano’ – or perhaps, their imagined Ilokano. These are either the migrant Ilokanos or the third generation of migrants within and outside of the Philippines. Their place of birth or the issue on territoriality becomes a factor or interference in their own consciousness and imagination of the ‘Ilokano’.

While Ilokano Studies provide a clear description of what it contains and provides, a more expansive and general category such as Amianan Studies may encapsulate all literatures including cultural practices not only now by the Ilokano from Ilocos Sur and Norte but by all Ilokano from different parts of the world. It is as well a convenient ‘catch-all’ neatly organized body of work by the various ethnocultures in the north. 

Amianan Studies: Theory and Perspectives

Definition of Terms

‘Amianan’ is an Ilokano term to refer to the ‘north’. But even in Pangasinan where I come from (my father is an Ilokano from La Union but my mother is pure-blooded Pangasinan from San Carlos City), ‘amian’ is a term with a denotative meaning that refers to the ‘norte/north’. (Diccionario Pangasinan-Espanol by Lorenzo Fernandez Cosgaya 1865) Moreover, ‘amin-amin’ in Pangasinan means ‘everything’. Thus, for the coastal province, the point of view has privileged the north to include almost ‘everything’. This could be explained most probably, by the importance of the China sea up north as a cognitive and visual destination of the Agno river. It is the wide Agno river that has principally sustained the life of early Pangasinan folk and which is primarily responsible for the fertile soil that has attracted droves of Ilokano settlers even before the arrival of the first Spanish Agustinians in the province in the 16^th century.

But ‘amianan’ as ‘north’ is used here carefully not in the way that it is used to dichotomize the ‘north and south’ in the US, for example. As in binary opposites, the ‘north’ has always been associated with strength/power/might/civilization as against the ‘south’ as provincial/bucolic/subjugated/peculiar. These connotations of course are rooted in the particular history of the US. This dichotomy cannot apply in the Philippines because in the biggest island of Luzon, the center is Manila that is located in the south. Moreover, to use the dichotomy of the ‘north and south’ in the entire Philippine archipelago will further deepen the chasm between the Christian population of the north and the Muslim people of the south.

The term ‘amianan’ as ‘north’ however, is a configuration instructive of the confluences of enduring ethnocultures since precolonial times. Ethnoculturally, the northern cultures exhibit significant confluences based on language, terrain, belief system, migratory patterns, marriages and affinity, and historical experience, which may have led to the construction of the regional stereotype of people from the north. Ethnopolitically, these northern cultures, while could have enjoyed a brief privileged position under the administration of President Marcos (particularly the Ilocos folk), are nonetheless peripheralized by the dominance of Manila as the center of political and economic power. The term amianan therefore, as a discourse, is a cultural configuration and a political assertion of people from the north.

The popularization of the word and concept of ‘amianan’ may as well bury the stigma of the appropriated use of ‘Ilokano’ under Marcos time. Although, it should be noted that cognizant of the problem of hierarchies, Ilokano is not subsumed nor subjugated under the term ‘amianan’. In fact, as a language, Ilokano is the lingua franca of people in the north. And, in spite of the documented ethnocentrism of the Hispanized Ilokano against the Itneg and the general Cordilleran populace, ‘Ilokano’ undeniably is the backbone of my own ‘imagined amianan’.

Hence, Amianan Studies is the epistemic organization of all literatures, thoughts and discourses, which propagate, enrich and assert the northern ethnocultures.

Critical Perspectives

From the point of view of the state, territories and cultures could be neatly categorized in terms of the ‘regional’. ‘Regional’ as a taxonomic reference from the state’s point of view, remains narrow, inaccurate, essentializing category that reduces the cultural into the political. With the use of ‘amianan’, albeit seen as still a reference to a geographic space (north), at least against the Manilacentric national, the political subdivisions by the state through regions is challenged academically. Amianan defies political territorial boundaries because to confine for instance Ilokano literature to the political subdivision of Region 1 is limiting and imposing. As has been mentioned, Ilokano literature springs from different corners of the archipelago and the world, with the peripatetic Ilokano’s transplantation everywhere. Amianan Studies becomes antistatist in that it sets itself free from political structuring and mapping. 

Given the freedom of Amianan studies from the clutches of the state, questions regarding its operations and dynamics necessarily cross our minds. How are works determined as constitutive of Amianan Studies? Should all writings be assertions of ethnicity? Who can write about Amianan? Should works be written in the vernacular?

Fiction or non-fiction works need not be outright denunciation of the state or agitations on ethnic lines. For the record, the bulk of fictive writing comprise of narratives of the hard life in the hinterlands and narratives of exile and/or diaspora. These are as well chronicles and testimonies of an ethnic group that struggles amidst the promise of progress vis-à-vis the national and even the global. Since literary production presupposes also power relations in terms of access to the production process, writers who get published are mainly those amalgamated in the Manila-center who may have been otherwise considered by some as nationalized writers. ‘Nationalized’ is used here to refer to writers from the regions writing about their locale but considered part of the canonized works from the center. Paradoxically, these nationalized writers not despite but because they are indeed canonized, effectively reach wider audience and therefore successful in the propagation of their stories about the locale and ergo, of their ethnic origins. This can also be said of exilic writers who can be considered as globalized writers following this line of thought. Since exilic writers intensify the image and the construction of the locale, as in the ili, these globalized writers in fact, make more impact than the downright political writings considered in a pejorative sense as propaganda.

Writers of Amianan Studies need not also be full-blooded GIs or ‘genuine Ilokanos’. They can be the Kankanais, Bontoc/Kalinga/Ifugao, Itnegs, the Pangasinan folk, the Cagayanos, Nueva Vizcayans. They can also be the migrants/immigrants and the 3^rd generation of these migrants/immigrants within and outside of the Philippines. Or the reverse, it can include even migrant Japanese, Chinese and Americans who have written extensively about the north and whose affinity is clearly not on their country of origin but to this place they now call home. There are even a number of Tagalog and Visayan migrants in the north who have intermarried with the residents and who write about their newfound home with their heart. Blood ties and/or consanguinity and indigenous tribalism are no longer the sole bases of works to be considered ‘amianan literature’. As long as these works represent the visual image, the cultural value of the ethnocultures of the north, these become constitutive of amianan literature. Furthermore, if these works are openly sympathetic to ethnic origins and language, it may as well be contributory to the development of Amianan Studies, in general.

Language is viewed to best represent one’s culture. Hence, vernacular writing will always have the advantage in transmitting an ethnic experience. But the constant flux of people creating emergent societies no longer permit a singular language to convey the message of a certain culture. Thus, amianan studies while vigorously promoting the vernacular, it is as well cognizant of the inevitability of other languages, primarily English, as a literary medium especially those who have transplanted into foreign lands. Language as in territory and consanguinity cannot be a prescription for the formation of Amianan Studies.

Transcending territory, blood ties and tribalism, ‘amianan’ as in the concept of a ‘nation’ becomes more dynamic, pragmatic, and evolutionary. This was how our national hero Rizal viewed the ‘nation’ in the 19^th century borrowing heavily from the post-Enlightenment German thinker Johann Gottfried Herder. (Quibuyen 2000) Rizal himself was a descendant of the Chinese trader Domingo Lam-co from the Fujian province of China. Rizal fully understood the multiracial multicultural matrix of the emerging Filipino nation with the creoles, insulares and the mestizos commingling with the rest of the indio population.

Thus, with the multiethnic polyvocal character of people from the ‘north’, the term ‘amianan’ embodies the lingua franca of the locale. With its diverse language, literature and culture, ‘amianan’ serves as the intersection or confluence of all these. More importantly, ‘amianan’ is not a static, unmediated, intolerant category of literature from the regions. It is an evolution of culture of different ethnolinguistic groups and thereby has the capacity to respond to the challenges foisted by the dominant Manilacentric culture and even to the expansive globalization. Yet, ‘amianan literature’ does not intend to impose itself as an ethnocentric canon of literary works vis-à-vis Philippine literature. In fact, ‘amianan literature’ is contributory to the development and advancement of Philippine literature.

Assumptions and Presuppositions

·         Amianan Studies shall in most part contain literary works, thoughts and discourses on the ‘amianan’.

·         Amianan shall refer to the different ethnocultures in the north.

·         Amianan Studies assumes that confluences/convergences of northern ethnocultures outweigh the differences and contradictions attendant to these cultures.

·         Amianan Literature is not exclusive to the dominant Ilokano writings but is cognizant of the prominence and preeminence of Ilokano language and culture in the amianan.

·         Amianan Literature defies political categories, territorial boundaries, consanguinity and tribalism as bases for its configuration.

·         Amianan Studies complements and reinforces the aims of Ethnic Studies and Philippine Studies.

·         Amianan Studies is an epistemic organization in response to the hegemonic national and global.

·         Amianan Studies is also a discourse and an advocacy by those who continue to imagine and to critique one’s existence in an ever-expanding global village.

Amianan Studies In/And the Nakem Centennial Conference (NCC): Globalization of the Locale and the Localization of the Global

The NCC, the Sakadas of 1906 and Filipino Global Migration

The first 15 Filipino migrants or the sakadas who came to work in the sugar plantations in the Big Island ushered in a new era of Filipinos that would eventually be a part of the global village. From the ilustrados in Europe in the 19^th century to the 20^th century migrant workers up to the new overseas contract workers, Filipino has spanned generations of transatlantic transnational citizens of the world.

This Nakem Centennial Conference appeals to the human issues of ethnicity, migration and a common sense of destiny among the Iluko and the general population of the north. But while it addresses and celebrates the ‘Iluko’ or the ‘amianan’, it magnifies the national experience relating to ethnic issues and migration. The NCC is an attempt to understand the global through the lenses of the locale. This localization of the global concretizes the otherwise incomprehensible intimidating macro-universal systems of thought and practice.

Amianan Studies, the Locale and the Pursuit Towards Global Discourse

Amianan Studies as a projection of the locale is in itself a form of theoretical practice and production. It is a way of negotiating cultures caught in the web of global networks and industries. Amianan Studies as a representation of the locale seeks to dialogue with the global by making its presence felt in the global exchange of discourses. As Pertierra would put it, “My suggestion is to attack the root of this dependency by entering the arena of theoretical production so that a Philippine voice may be heard in what has so far been largely a Western discourse.” (Pertierra 1995,3)

This entry and presence into the arena of global discourses makes Amianan Studies an attempt as well to globalize the locale. In a welter of possibilities and in a highly multiracial multiethnic world, a voice from the amianan can be heard. This globalization of the locale is just a continuation of the first projection of Philippine Studies in Europe when Rizal organized the Association Internationale des Phillipinistes in 1889. 

The Institutionalization and Systematization of Amianan Studies and the Role of Universities

At this point, let me give credit to Dr. Aurelio Agcaoili who was my professor on Ilokano in my graduate studies at the UPD for having introduced to me the idea and concept of Amianan Studies. Dr. Agcaoili’s efforts at establishing linkages with northern universities and colleges to promote the promising and wide-ranging possibilities of the concept of Amianan Studies, has finally bore fruit. The Don Mariano Marcos University and the Pangasinan State University have been very attentive to the possible institutionalization of Amianan Studies to augment and expand their courses on culture. My own students in the graduate school whom I have passed on the Amianan Studies as a concept and program are on their own making progress in their dissemination as teachers and writers.

The Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature continues to improve its curricular offerings of literatures from the regions and the inclusion of Amianan Studies into the syllabus-making has been part of this improvement. Speaking of linkages, the Institut National Des Langues Et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in France, which is offering courses on the different Philippine languages including Ilokano has been open to the information about Amianan Studies. With the institutionalization of Philippine Studies in the De La Salle University from the undergraduate to the graduate level will certainly open channels for the promotion and propagation of Amianan Studies.

But it will not only be the academic institutions which shall realize the aims of Amianan Studies for it will not exist as an epistemic organization or systematization of knowledge without the cultural practices performed by ordinary folk living the dream and the imagination of the ‘amianan’. The academe provides critical consciousness but the wealth of Amianan Studies resides amongst those who continue that dream and imagin

                                      Bibliography

Azurin, Arnold. Reinventing The Filipino: Sense of Being and Becoming. UP Press, 1993.

Anderson, Benedict. Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World. Ateneo Press, 2004.

Gannon, Martin. Understanding Global Cultures. Sage Publication, 2001.

Hau, Caroline. Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation 1946-80. Ateneo Press, 2000.

Keesing Felix. The Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon. Stanford Univ. press, 1962.

Lumbera, Bienvenido. Filipinos Writing: Philippine Literature from the Regions. Anvil Publishing, 2001.

Pertierra, Raul. Philippine Localities and Global Perspectives. Ateneo Press, 1995.

Pieterse, Jan Nederveen & Parekh, eds. The Decolonization of Imagination. Zed Books, 1995.

Quibuyen, Floro. Rizal: A Nation Aborted. Ateneo Press, 2000.

Salazar, Zeus. The Malayan Connection. Palimbagan ng Lahi, 1998.

Nakem Centennial Conference Secretariat
E-mail: nakemconference@yahoo.com or precye@aol.com
Phone:  808-956-8405.  FAX:  808- 956-5978
Website developed and maintained by Raymund Ll. Liongson