Filipino indigenous ethnic communities : patterns, variations, and typologies / F. Landa Jocano.

The materials on which this book is based were put together in 1982-83 as lecture notes and readings for my class in Philippine Social Organization at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines. I rewrote these notes with additional materials in 1991 for another course on Philippine Society and Culture. In 1994, I published part of these notes under the title Problems and Methods in the Study of Philippine Indigenous Ethic Cultures. The post-modernist anthropologists will certainly object to this conventional and "out of date" methodology. I anticipate severe criticisms from them--in addition to their commentaries on the inadequacies of ethnographic details for valid comparisons and remarkable differences in ethnic community life for meaningful generalizations. But if we have to have proper understanding of the nature and internal dynamics of indigenous ethnic cultures, we have to begin somewhere. I find Eggan's and Steward's methodological and conceptual approaches the most convenient starting points. Once the ethnic organizational boundaries--i.e., shared similarities and differences--are identified and clarified, then we can move on to new approaches in ethnic studies and in other areas of anthropological researches. We can even go on re-conceptualizing our community organizations and re-explaining our experiences within these systems. --Preface of the book.