Abstract
As Ifugao people have become more extensively integrated into the global market economy, their ability to adapt to the environment in the Philippine Cordillera Mountains has involved an expansion of the scope of the sources of livelihood available to them. Ifugao people have faced difficult environmental and social conditions in recent decades, including a growing population, deforestation, and rice terrace degradation. From engaging in tourism, transnational labor migration, craft production for global exportation, and international development programs, to maintain swiddens to raise particular crops, Ifugao people have coped with these challenges by finding creative ways to diversify their livelihoods and participate in opportunities both within and outside of the Cordillera Mountains. These labor practices have enhanced the ability of their culture, as well as their kin groups, to thrive and change in relation to their shifting social and natural environment. But this process has also been an uneven one among different social groups. This anthropological political ecology analysis assesses class and gender differences in approaches to coping with a changing social, cultural, and natural environment among Ifugao people in the Cordillera Mountains during the late twentieth century.
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- 1.
In 1992, the government designated poverty level for a family of six in Ifugao was set at an annual income of 27,396 Philippine pesos (approximately 1,074 US dollars at that time; National Statistics Office, Republic of the Philippines 1992b).
- 2.
This law has not been problem-free during its implementation in regions of the Philippines where indigenous people live, such as in Ifugao Province, sometimes leading to conflicts over land claims (Asian Development Bank 2002).
- 3.
Based on responses in the 1990 census, Catholicism was the most prominent Christian religion practiced in Ifugao, with 54% of Ifugao people identifying with this religion. Twenty-six percent of Ifugao people identified as Christians associated with Protestant or nondenominational churches, including Methodist, Evangelical, Espiritista, and Pentecostal churches.
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Kwiatkowski, L. (2013). Globalization, Environmental Change, and Coping Strategies Among the Ifugao of the Philippine Cordillera Mountains. In: Lozny, L. (eds) Continuity and Change in Cultural Adaptation to Mountain Environments. Studies in Human Ecology and Adaptation, vol 7. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5702-2_15
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