Care of the Postcolonial Self: Cultivating Nationalism in The Philippine Readers

Abstract

The article examines the cultivation of revolutionary nationalism and the production of postcolonial subjectivity under a foreign regime. The analysis centers onThe Philippine Readers, one of the longest published and most widely adopted reading series for elementary students in grades 1 to 7 in the Philippines from 1920s to 1960s. Due to its use and scope, the Readers significantly impacted the development of Filipino mind, character, teaching, and learning for generations. The article mobilizes Michel Foucault’s notion of care of the self, whereby individuals undergo intensive self-scrutiny through texts that serve as manuals for living. It contends that the Readers functioned as a crucial guide that enabled Filipinos to care for themselves in instilling furtive yet subversive forms of nationalism under United States rule. More specifically, two forms of nationalism are discussed, and the concepts of covert and hybrid nationalism are situated within scholarly discussions regarding colonial complicity and opposition as well as Western and indigenous influences.