"Food, Plants, and Transoceanic Trade: The Making of the Filipino Identity"

Using the quintessential Philippine garden described in the folk song, "Bahay Kubo," this presentation emphasizes how Filipinos’ ideas of food is based on an active regional interaction and a regional maritime trade that spans at least 1,000 years. “Bahay Kubo” is first learned in pre-school. It is supposed to broaden children’s knowledge of the culture of local foodways, although its Tagalog-centric focus tend to leave out local and indigenous histories. I use food and plants as backdrop to a discussion on Philippine links with the broader Asian Region and the global maritime trade in the Early Modern Period (1400-1820 CE). I also examine human-environmental interaction through a historical-ecological approach to argue that changes observed in the Philippines were part of a more extensive regional process that connected the islands to other parts of the world.

Stephen Acabado is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His archaeological investigations in Ifugao, northern Philippines, have established the recent origins of the Cordillera Rice Terraces, which were once known to be at least 2,000 years old. Dr. Acabado directs the Bicol and Ifugao Archaeological Projects and co-directs the Taiwan Indigenous Landscape and History Project. He is a strong advocate of an engaged archaeology where descendant communities are involved in the research process.