American imperialism, anthropology and racial taxonomy in the Philippines, 1898-1946
View/ Open
Date
25/11/2019Author
Mohamed Ariffin, Nur Dayana Binti
Metadata
Abstract
Racial classification and taxonomy of the population in the Philippines was
formed primarily based on the colonial perception of race. In the time of the
Spanish colonial era that spanned across three centuries, the population was
segregated into the categories of Christians and the non-Christians. During
the American occupation from 1898 to 1946 the American administration
continued with the construction of racial categories in the Philippines
propelled by Anglo-Saxon sentiments and based on anthropological theories
and methods. A hierarchy of the population was formed, delineating first the
Christians from the non-Christians, then further classifications were made
based on ethnological characteristics.
In this study, the racial taxonomy of the population in the Philippines is
examined in three ways: First, I demonstrate that the archipelago was a focal
point of imperial interactions, particularly in the exchanges of knowledge and
ideas on race between Spain, Germany, Britain and the United States.
Second, I analyse how American colonial institutions studied and governed
different racial categories. Third, I amalgamate these discussions by looking
at the censuses of the Philippines taken in the years 1903, 1918 and 1939 to
demonstrate how racial classifications were standardised as a testament of
colonial knowledge. The censuses illustrate how various institutional
interactions influenced the categorisation of population, and how each
census reflected anthropological knowledge and political currents in the
Philippine islands. This thesis finds that racial taxonomy in the Philippines
was not created in isolation, but a product of various interactions from
imperial and institutional actors. Simultaneously, racial classifications,
despite their ‘scientific’ conceptualisation, were also governed by the
peculiarities of the inhabitants, environment and politics of the colonial entity.