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Mixed views on the Philippines' Ifugao Rice Terraces: ‘Good’ versus ‘beautiful’ in the management of a UNESCO World Heritage site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2018

Kathrine Ann D. Cagat
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Abstract

This article concerns divergent visualisations about the Ifugao Rice Terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Philippines, which remain central to the economy and lives of the indigenous Ifugao. It focuses on the contrast between the Ifugao internal notion of ‘good’ and the visual emphasis on ‘beautiful’ associated with heritage bodies’ management and conservation of the terraced landscapes. These divergent visualisations frame various actors’ expectations of the terraces. In particular, this article features the community involvement in forums on mapping of core and buffer zones of the World Heritage clusters, and their responses to and criticisms of conservation initiatives in relation to their perceived impact on their livelihoods.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 84 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2018 

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Footnotes

The field research presented here was made possible with funding from the Fulbright Commission with a 2011–2012 Research Grant. The author thanks the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement and the National Commission of Indigenous Peoples–Ifugao for providing organisational support in the Philippines. UP Diliman–School of Urban and Regional Planning deserves gratitude for acting as an affiliate university during the field research, with special thanks to Prof David Leonides T. Yap and Dean Candido Cabrido. The author thanks the three reviewers who provided insightful comments to this article, as well as Dr Kostas Restikas and Dr Fabio Gygi whose comments on a thesis chapter also helped with the development of the ideas presented here. Lastly, sincere gratitude goes out to all interlocutors and the people of Ifugao. All photographs are the author's.

References

1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ‘Rice terraces of the Philippine Cordillera’, http://whc.unesco.org.en/list/722.

2 Nathaniel C. Bantayan, Margaret M. Calderon, Josefina T. Dizon, Asa Jose U. Sajise, Myranel G. Salvador, ‘Community-based mapping of the rice terraces inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List’, Technical report, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), Jan. 2009; http://www.eepsea.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=316:community-based-mapping-of-the-rice-terrace (last accessed 1 Aug. 2017).

3 Unless otherwise noted, local terms referred to in this article are Tuwali.

4 This study is grounded in 14 months of ethnographic research in the Ifugao municipalities of Kiangan and Hungduan from 2011 to 2012 as part of my doctoral research focusing on the connection between the management of the Ifugao Rice Terraces and a mini-hydropower plant project meant to fund conservation. This article draws mainly on research on the heritage management of the Ifugao Rice Terraces; semi-structured interviews with adult members of households from five Ifugao villages; observations of several municipal and provincial consultation forums on heritage management; and informal conversations with community members.

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6 Ibid.: 104.

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19 Ibid., p. 67.

20 Barton also notes this in The mythology of Ifugaos, but he refers to the word napintat. In Tuwali, an ‘s’ is often uttered as a ‘t’. Barton also does note that in Ifugao, the closest words which imply beauty are words that describe people. Madikit is used for females, but this usually refers to such qualities as possessing unblemished skin, shiny long hair and being industrious. For men, bullaki indicates a strong body, closer to the English word ‘strapping’ than handsome.

21 Okely, ‘Visualism and landscape’: 108.

22 Ifugao Provincial Government, ‘Ifugao Rice Terraces master plan 2003–2012’ (Lagawe: Ifugao Provincial Government, 2004).

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29 Ibid.

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35 Ibid.: 118.

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38 Barton, ‘The religion of the Ifugaos’: 109.

39 Ibid.: 110.

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42 Ibid.: 698.

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46 The Capitol houses the provincial government offices and meeting rooms.

47 UNESCO, Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage, WHC-12/36.COM/7A (2012), p. 65.

48 Ibid., pp. 66–7.

49 McKay, Deirdre, ‘Cultivating new local futures: Remittance economies and land-use patterns in Ifugao, Philippines’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34, 2 (2003): 306Google Scholar.

50 In this case, carrying capacity is a measurement of the number of visitors a site can tolerate without causing adverse impacts on the local ecology or community.

51 Peter Gow, ‘Land, people, and paper in Western Amazonia’, in Hirsh and O'Hanlon, The anthropology of landscape, p. 56.

52 Ibid., p. 57.

53 Ibid., p. 59.

54 Ibid.

55 Grasseni, ‘Introduction’, p. 9.