Papers by Philip C Parnell
Abstract
Decisions by the US Supreme Court in the Insular Cases at the end of the Spanish America... more Abstract
Decisions by the US Supreme Court in the Insular Cases at the end of the Spanish American War facilitated US expansionism by laying the foundations of penal law—a two-tiered system of rights—in the Philippines and other territories. As the Court deliberated boundaries of US citizenship, politicians and media were extending race-based practices of American governance into administration of the Philippine colony through Congressional speeches and graphic caricatures that racialized Filipinos as underdeveloped and threatening humans. Practices of territorial governance drew on law and patron-client relationships to create a new Filipino elite and bring them into collaboration with colonial authorities and cultural imperialism; in this way, the racial patterning of white American/Filipino relations was transduced into class relations among Filipinos that continue to stratify Philippine society. Filipino elite replaced colonial administrators in the top tier of imperial law’s two-tiered system of rights while the urban poor moved into the bottom tier. Today, the racial categorization and organization of people that spread into US territories through imperial law reappear in popular newspaper images of the Philippine poor; and replacement of race with class in a rights-based bifurcation of Philippine society shapes contemporary practices of penal law in urban carceral spaces of Metropolitan Manila where the poor, who comprise between 40 to 50 per cent of the population, experience a diminished citizenship. This article draws on textual analysis and urban ethnography to examine colonial production of white Americans and ‘black’ Filipinos and a transduction of race relations into class that extends constitutional rights to some Filipinos and penal law to others. These practices appear in criminalization of lower-class Filipinos and their “culture,” illegal demolitions and forced relocations in urban poor neighborhoods, and the reproduction of poverty through penal law. Ethnographic research compares vicissitudes of patronage within two contemporary neighborhoods of Metropolitan Manila’s informal settlers while locating an alternative to imperial legacies in democratic grassroots organizations of Filipino poor. Today, these organizations are seeking, articulating, and practicing rights in ways that challenge poverty and its institutionalization in the carceral city.
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Papers by Philip C Parnell
Decisions by the US Supreme Court in the Insular Cases at the end of the Spanish American War facilitated US expansionism by laying the foundations of penal law—a two-tiered system of rights—in the Philippines and other territories. As the Court deliberated boundaries of US citizenship, politicians and media were extending race-based practices of American governance into administration of the Philippine colony through Congressional speeches and graphic caricatures that racialized Filipinos as underdeveloped and threatening humans. Practices of territorial governance drew on law and patron-client relationships to create a new Filipino elite and bring them into collaboration with colonial authorities and cultural imperialism; in this way, the racial patterning of white American/Filipino relations was transduced into class relations among Filipinos that continue to stratify Philippine society. Filipino elite replaced colonial administrators in the top tier of imperial law’s two-tiered system of rights while the urban poor moved into the bottom tier. Today, the racial categorization and organization of people that spread into US territories through imperial law reappear in popular newspaper images of the Philippine poor; and replacement of race with class in a rights-based bifurcation of Philippine society shapes contemporary practices of penal law in urban carceral spaces of Metropolitan Manila where the poor, who comprise between 40 to 50 per cent of the population, experience a diminished citizenship. This article draws on textual analysis and urban ethnography to examine colonial production of white Americans and ‘black’ Filipinos and a transduction of race relations into class that extends constitutional rights to some Filipinos and penal law to others. These practices appear in criminalization of lower-class Filipinos and their “culture,” illegal demolitions and forced relocations in urban poor neighborhoods, and the reproduction of poverty through penal law. Ethnographic research compares vicissitudes of patronage within two contemporary neighborhoods of Metropolitan Manila’s informal settlers while locating an alternative to imperial legacies in democratic grassroots organizations of Filipino poor. Today, these organizations are seeking, articulating, and practicing rights in ways that challenge poverty and its institutionalization in the carceral city.
Decisions by the US Supreme Court in the Insular Cases at the end of the Spanish American War facilitated US expansionism by laying the foundations of penal law—a two-tiered system of rights—in the Philippines and other territories. As the Court deliberated boundaries of US citizenship, politicians and media were extending race-based practices of American governance into administration of the Philippine colony through Congressional speeches and graphic caricatures that racialized Filipinos as underdeveloped and threatening humans. Practices of territorial governance drew on law and patron-client relationships to create a new Filipino elite and bring them into collaboration with colonial authorities and cultural imperialism; in this way, the racial patterning of white American/Filipino relations was transduced into class relations among Filipinos that continue to stratify Philippine society. Filipino elite replaced colonial administrators in the top tier of imperial law’s two-tiered system of rights while the urban poor moved into the bottom tier. Today, the racial categorization and organization of people that spread into US territories through imperial law reappear in popular newspaper images of the Philippine poor; and replacement of race with class in a rights-based bifurcation of Philippine society shapes contemporary practices of penal law in urban carceral spaces of Metropolitan Manila where the poor, who comprise between 40 to 50 per cent of the population, experience a diminished citizenship. This article draws on textual analysis and urban ethnography to examine colonial production of white Americans and ‘black’ Filipinos and a transduction of race relations into class that extends constitutional rights to some Filipinos and penal law to others. These practices appear in criminalization of lower-class Filipinos and their “culture,” illegal demolitions and forced relocations in urban poor neighborhoods, and the reproduction of poverty through penal law. Ethnographic research compares vicissitudes of patronage within two contemporary neighborhoods of Metropolitan Manila’s informal settlers while locating an alternative to imperial legacies in democratic grassroots organizations of Filipino poor. Today, these organizations are seeking, articulating, and practicing rights in ways that challenge poverty and its institutionalization in the carceral city.