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Tracing Historical Confluences in Lowland-Cordillera Relations

Maria Nela B. Florendo

Discipline: History

 

Abstract:

Lowland-Cordillera relations have always been treated from a perspective of dichotomization. This view has its own value—as political rhetoric or as a form of characterization—considering the variations in features and historical experiences of the said regions. The late William Henry Scott posed: “Who can really say what makes the lowlander different from the Cordillera?”

 

The concept of historical confluence1 attempts to draw occasions of encounter between the lowlander and the peoples of the Cordillera. That the lowlands (with specific reference to Northern Luzon) and the Cordillera have maintained social ties in history is the focus of this paper. What are these historical confluences? What conditions led to this lowlandupland shared experiences?

 

The paper concludes with some notes on how historiographies of interethnic relations (both from the methodological and substantive dimensions) could fill the gaps or enrich the data on lowland-Cordillera historical confluences.