Labels, Stigma Management and Social Identity Formation of a Mountain People in Central Panay, Philippines

Throughout history, mountain dwellers in the Philippines have been attributed with a range of pejorative labels that came to stereotype and spoil the identities of mountain people collectively, including the indigenous groups in the highlands of central Panay. This paper looks into the landscape of labels and names accorded to the people and the process foregrounding the role played by “outsiders” (i.e., colonial scholars, local anthropologists, and state agencies) in the construction of identities. Ethnohistory is employed to examine the people’s social identity formation—that complex and continuous dialogue of externally-driven label constructions and articulation of internally-ascribed constructs of identities. Local narratives revealed that social identity formation in this mountain community was borne out of the locals’ need to manage the stigma of past labeling and redress misrecognition. This paper hopes to contribute to the current discourse on the sociopolitical dimension of identity formation, assertion and recognition as well as to the pool of literature on the historical experience of the mountain people of the Philippines