Bourdieu, Historical Forgetting, and the Problem of English in the Philippines

Abstract

This article explores the nature of historical forgetting in the Philippines through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's notion of forgetting as misrecognition, which is invested with power and struggle. The notion is concretized in the context of Reynaldo Ileto's discussion of the Schurman Commission, which was tasked to gather information about the Philippines as part of the United States' pacification campaign. Because historical forgetting is rooted in the structure of society itself, policies concerning language and education are imbued with power and class dimensions. The necessity of change in consciousness is enmeshed in the broader politics of social change, which is thus the context of the debate on the critical role of English in the Philippines. The political imperative to forget is inherent in - and partly sustains - the fundamental structure of social relations in the Philippines.