Introduction: globalization, change, and diversity in the Philippines.

Publication: Urban Anthropology & Studies of Cultural Systems & World Economic Development

Publication Date: 22-DEC-05

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Globalization has rendered alternative and at times surprising changes among the poor in localized communities. The articles in this special issue of Urban Anthropology consider the complex interplay among global processes, national political/economic policies and ideologies, and local interpretations and appropriations of these. With the Philippines as the site of this inquiry, the articles problematize the often assumed effects of specific global and national changes on the poor in local rural communities. Global processes that these articles explore include the movement to local Philippine communities of transnational religious ideologies, development paradigms, credit mechanisms, gender ideologies, and health care forms and technologies.

Although the articles in this special issue focus on a set of communities that are linked through their incorporation into the Philippine state, the studies also provide us with a glimpse of the cultural and social diversity and complexity of communities in the Philippines. While the diversity found within the country can only be incompletely portrayed in this volume, the variation in experience of globalization found in the communities examined here depict the myriad effects globalization can have within states. Divergent local communities within a state respond to and negotiate particular forms of global change through their own local historical cultural and social specificity. We find further diversity within local communities, and sometimes conflict and tensions, among members of different social groups who hold varying assumptions, objectives, and degrees of power as they negotiate global influences on their lives. Of particular interest are class, religious, gender, and ethnic diversity expressed within the Philippine communities investigated in this special issue.

During the last two decades, the Philippines has experienced increasing political instability and economic vulnerability, and continuing social inequality (Habito 2005; Laquian 2005; Muego 2005; Bello et al. 2004). This situation has emerged in the context of a globalist ideology, that of neoliberal capitalism, that has had detrimental impacts on the economy and population, and of an entrenched unequal class structure within the country. Neoliberal capitalism is supported by the Philippine government, and asserted by countries (such as the U.S.) and international organizations (including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and the World Trade Organization [WTO]) that have played a powerful and significant role in Philippine society historically (Bello et al. 2004; Lewellen 2002). IMF structural adjustment programs in the Philippines, initiated during the 1980s, have involved trade liberalization; prioritization of foreign debt repayment; deregulation; privatization of state enterprises and services; reduction of government spending; and monetary devaluations. While these policies promised to bring about development and growth, and implied the emergence of greater economic equality in the country, they have had negative effects on the society. A number of local industries have been destroyed, local agricultural production has been harmed, and the amount of government financial support for social services has been reduced. These policies have also led to increasing numbers of individuals engaging in short and long-term migrant labor to foreign...

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