Watchtowers in the Eighteenth-Century Philippines: Material Representations of Colonial State Power
The symbolic dimension of defensive structures has received rare historiographical attention. This chapter fills part of this gap by analyzing a widespread defensive structure in the Spanish colonial Philippines: watchtowers. These constructions were recurrent constituents of the coastal warning sys...
| Autor: | |
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| Tipo de recurso: | otro |
| Estado: | Versión aceptada para publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/339488 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/339488 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | State representation Coastal defense Coloniality Material semantics Philippines |
| Sumario: | The symbolic dimension of defensive structures has received rare historiographical attention. This chapter fills part of this gap by analyzing a widespread defensive structure in the Spanish colonial Philippines: watchtowers. These constructions were recurrent constituents of the coastal warning system and played a fundamental role in the defense against raiders from neighboring islands. After presenting the Philippine setting and contextualizing the Spanish-Asian colony, this chapter traces the development of these watchtowers in the eighteenth century and, in particular, the circumstances of their creation and usage. Tentative ideas will be presented in regard to possible semantic aspects of the watchtowers, going beyond their mere functionality. In doing so, it will become evident that watchtowers played an essential role as material manifestations of the colonial state in the Philippines. |
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