Governed from above, below and dammed in between: The biopolitics of (un)making life and livelihood in the Philippine uplands

Abstract

Acts of governing upland peoples and landscapes increasingly reflect biopolitical endeavours in the frontiers of Southeast Asia—endeavours that aim to enhance and optimise the possibility of life. Beyond state schemes, actors in civil society continue to fixate on the uplands to govern and discipline indigenous peoples' bodies, beliefs and behaviours in the service of outsider aims. Today, indigenous uplanders negotiate a range of non-state governance practices that aim to re-make and un-make life and livelihood through sustained discursive and material disciplining. Bridging Foucauldian biopolitics and material studies, I describe how the intersection of NGO (para-state) and missionary practices strive to optimise upland life in contrasting yet reinforcing ways to powerfully reorder the world of Pala'wan uplanders towards modern ideals and existence. In doing so, I examine how a small, curious upland item—the customary Tingkep basket—has come to mediate such biopolitical endeavours in the uplands of southern Palawan, the Philippines. Through the Tingkep's ‘lively character’, I explore how NGOs valorise custom and tradition to optimise the Tingkep's livelihood potential for forest conservation, and how Seventh Day Adventists prohibit myths, rituals, and livelihoods that support Tingkep world-making for proselytization. I describe how these actors' efforts to condition and discipline Pala'wan bodies and behaviours intersect, reforming how uplanders reproduce themselves over time and space. I conclude by asserting that indigenous sovereignty over life and livelihood matters now more than ever as biopolitical interventions intensify and manifest in the uplands.