Description

What is the relationship between sovereignty, often located on the conjuncture of power and freedom, and revolution, the violent assertion of sovereignty often imagined as the recuperation of a lost freedom? This paper asks about the unsettled relationship between sovereignty and revolution that circulated between the elites and non-elites during the Philippine Revolution (1896-1902). Given the recent surge of scholarly interest in the question of sovereignty in the making of Western modernity, can an inquiry into the history of the Philippine Revolution contribute to our comparative understanding of this topic? In particular, were there ways by which the Filipino revolution, especially in its vernacular articulation, opened up alternative notions of sovereignty and other ways of experiencing freedom distinct from imperial notions of self-determination and absolute mastery?

Vicente L. Rafael is professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the author of several works on the history and political culture of the Philippines, including “The Promise of the Foreign” (2005), “White Love and Other Events in Filipino History” (2000) and “Contracting Colonialism” (1993).