The Mamanuas of Basey, Samar have been in an itinerant state since the 1950s. Their indigenous experience can be capped in the term ‘diaspora,’ which pictures their plight as dispersive habituation, moving from town to town away from their homeland. In a recent study which this paper hinges upon, the concept of diaspora can no longer work and is argued to imperatively function as a vanishing mediator so that indigeneity must come to mean as a constant identity of becoming. Following (...) from such a theoretical lens, this paper delves again into the concept of ‘diaspora’ in the Mamanuan indigenous experience to argue further that its act of mediating functions as performative indigeneity. To do this, the paper runs in three parts: first, it plots the Mamanuan diaspora experience; second, it briefly reiterates the core argument of diaspora as vanishing mediator; and finally, it theorizes on a concept of what Judith Butler calls ‘performative indigeneity’ that takes its form from the mediation of an indigenous diaspora experience. (shrink)

Among scholars and intellectuals, Europe is often celebrated as a postnational space, i.e. a space built around cosmopolitan values rather than culturally and/or ethnically specific factors. This view is also often sketched in normative terms, being rarely based on what people actually think of this post-national Europe. The present article essays to fill this gap, by focusing on two post-national questions: is European identity constructed in the absence of an Other? Does Europe stand for the separation of the `cultural' from (...) the `political'? Relying on qualitative information collected in four regional case studies in Western Europe, this article maintains that the `postnational' view finds expression also among people. Yet, it coexists with a `national' view, which continues to shape how people see themselves and the world, Europe included. The article argues that it is exactly in the interaction, at times contradictory, between these two views that the normative idea of Europe as a post-national space should be analysed. (shrink)