The UP Asian Center will be hosting the onsite lecture, "F. Landa Jocano and the Quest for Filipino Identity" on 20 July 2026, 2 PM, PHT, at the Seminar Room, UP Asian Center. The event is free and open to the public, but online registration is recommended due to limited slots.
ABOUT THE LECTURE
The paper discusses two accounts of Filipino identity, one essentialist and “negative,” with identity conceived as having been lost or distorted, and the other processual and “positive,” with identity taken as being present and active. It argues that these accounts inform two distinct approaches to the problem of postcolonial identity—the problem, that is, of articulating a national identity independently of a colonial one: decolonization and epistemic struggle, respectively. Decolonization is characterized by the quest for an autochthonous or emancipated identity and epistemic struggle by the effort to recognize and affirm contemporary identity. The paper examines these approaches through the work of Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano, whose oeuvre reflects both efforts. The aim of the paper is to distinguish between decolonization and epistemic struggle and to make the case for the latter as the more mature—more liberatory and democratic—expression of nationalism.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
MARCO Z. GARRIDO
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
Marco Garrido is an Associate Professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Patchwork City and is currently working on a new book about the imbrication of corruption, politics, and the politics of knowledge in the Philippines called "Bad Words."
ABOUT THE REACTORS
FERNANDO NAKPIL-ZIALCITA, PH.D.
Professor Emeritus, Ateneo de Manila University
Prof. Dr. Fernando Nakpil-Zialcita has a MA in Philosophy from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a MA and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii. He is presently a Professor Emeritus at the Ateneo de Manila University, and head of the university’s Cultural Heritage Program. Though from Manila, much of his field research took place among farming communites in the Ilocos, Northern Luzon. Lately, however, he has shifted his focus to street research because of his interest in urban heritage and regeneration. Some of his books are: Philippine Ancestral Houses, Authentic Though not Exotic: Essays on Filipino Identity, and Quiapo Heart of Manila.
FELIPE P. JOCANO JR.
Assistant Professor, UP Department of Anthropology
Asst. Prof. Felipe P. Jocano Jr. is a member of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (CSSP) at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. He has a master’s degree in anthropology and is currently pursuing his PhD at the same department. Prof Jocano also shares insights on Filipino culture and values to interested entities in both the academic and private sectors. He also gives lectures on these topics at the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health and at the Department of Psychiatry, University of the Philippines and in the past, at the Foreign Service Institute. Outside of office hours, he also teaches martial arts, focusing on Filipino, Chinese and indigenous (Mindanao) martial arts. His research interests include: Anthropological theory; anthropology of the body; anthropology of martial arts; cultural heritage; medical anthropology (psychiatry and anthropology); economic anthropology; internet anthropology.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
This lecture is organized by the UP Asian Center. For inquiries, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 891-8500 loc. 3586