Recognition As Integration: Indigenous Rights and National Citizenship in the Philippines

Abstract

How does the granting of collective self-determination rights to indigenous communities affect national identity and integration into the state? In recent decades, many states have adopted policies recognizing distinct indigenous identities and devolving control over land and local governance to indigenous authorities. A large body of literature associates strong sub-national identity groupings and non-state authority structures with state weakness and fragmentation, but few have explicitly studied the effects of collective recognition on these outcomes in a post-colonial context. I investigate one such policy in the Philippines, leveraging spatial and temporal variation in the granting of collective land titles to indigenous communities and using an original survey experiment conducted among indigenous communities in three provinces. I find that titling is associated with increased indigenous self-identification, but also with indicators of state integration, including birth registration and legibility, measured using the extent of age heaping on the census. Results from the survey experiment provide evidence that collective recognition can increase individual identification with the national community and shape expectations about the benefits of engagement in the formal political system. My findings suggest that, rather than undermining the state's authority, the granting of collective rights may provide an effective means of integrating historically marginalized groups.