Subordination and Resistances: Ethnicity in the Highland Communities of the Cordillera Administrative Region, Northern Luzon, Philippines

The past debates in ethnicity theory between the antithetically opposed primordialists and circumstantialists and those who attempt to compromise this dialectic, though rooted in discussions initiated decades ago, continue to have lively and intellectually stimulating traces. This paper, in its examination of the ethnicity of the highland communities in the Cordillera Administrative Region, who have been collectively designated as and who often subscribe to the metonym of Igorot, is situated within the primordialist-circumstantialist debate. In it, I examine Igorot (pan)ethnicity within the framework of ethnicity theory and depends heavily on ideas proposed by Max Weber, Brackette Williams, and Dru Gladney. Crucial to my investigation of Igorot ethnicity will be my own understanding of ethnicity and the dynamic discourse of identity construction. In this endeavor, I will be proposing my own model of ethnicity and identity construction, which is now tentatively referred to as the Labrador-Bell amoeba. What this model attempts to capture is the multiple, shifting, relational, relative, situational, and negotiated reality of ethnicity and identity. In turn, I will use this model in my efforts to understand Igorot ethnicity and identity, but will also find utility in my attempts to articulate what I claim as the