Securing Land Rights through Indigenousness: A Case from the Philippine Cordillera Highlands

摘要: The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (1997) offers indigenous peoples in the Philippines opportunity to obtain title an ‘ancestral domain’. This article discusses how leaders of Bakun Tribes Organization (BITO) Cordillera Highlands strategically used state-sponsored indigenous-peoples discourse and political-administrative structure acquire land rights for inhabitants municipality Bakun. Though did not necessarily identify themselves as indigenous, they welcomed a protection against unwelcome incursions by mining companies other extractive projects. However, peoples’ tends essentialise difference between non-indigenous populations. Being has become politicised identity whose bearers are expected prefer ‘traditional’ over ‘modern’, ‘collective’ ‘individual’. In Bakun, moreover, eventually became arena which power struggle was played out BITO municipal council, both belonging community.