Colonial reception and cultural reproduction: Filipino elites and United States tutelary rule

This essay opens up the problematic of state intention versus local recepti on through an analysis of United States colonial rule in the Philippines. S pecifically, I examine how the Filipino political elite received the projec t of democratic tutelage, c. 1899-1910s. I argue that the Filipino elite re ceived the Americans' project through a particular tactic, one which is ana lytically irreducible to "resistance." By this tactic, which I call "domest ication," the elite refashioned the Americans' imposed discourses and insti tutions in accordance with their preexisting political culture. The elites thereby reproduced the very cultural field which the Americans tried to upr oot, effectively thwarting the project from the outset.