Ancestral Domain, Cultural Identity and Self-Determination: The Case of the Lumads

Abstract

"Historically marginalized and neglected, indigenous peoples like the Bagobos and the T'boli have come under renewed assaults as resource competition for 'development' expands in the Philippines. Due to twisted legal intervention, their land and resources have been placed under domination of the State. The dual forces of state-building and capitalism have encapsulated the T'boli and the Bagobo, and other indigenous peoples in Mindanao, resulting in a conflict which can be traced to the incompatibility of social systems (indigenous peoples' cultures and the state) and differing modes of production (kinship and capitalist).

"The Philippines is a society that is not only marked by class, regional and urban-rural stratification but also significantly by a sociocultural plurality and its acknowledgment is essential in understanding why indigenous peoples are resisting expropriation of their homelands. To development in the Philippines and elsewhere across the globe. Ethnic-cultural issues are as fundamental as the economic issue. They are, in fact, inseparably linked. Ethnicity is not a reactionary process but an assertion of a historically-based cultural identity system."