Remarks By Dr. Alexander Newell

12th Igorot Cordillera BIMAAK-Europe (ICBE) Conference
ULB Campus du Solbosch, Bâtiment S, Salle Dupréel, Avenue Jeanne 44,
1050 Bruxelles, Belgium

29 May–1 June 2025

Remarks 
By Dr. Alexander Newell

Igorot Cordillera

Many thanks for inviting me to this lovely and heartwarming event. I understand that this is the 12th version of this gathering, marking almost a quarter century of Igorot Cordillera community organization across Europe. As an anthropologist, I can't help remarking on this amazing achievement. Emile Durkheim, one of the most important ancestors of the anthropological tradition wrote: "Never does one feel so great the need to see once more one's fellow countrymen as when one is abroad". Living in a new social world makes you crave the company of others who have gone through these same experiences. That comfort in knowing that people who eat the same foods, sing the same songs, exchange gifts in the same way. Indeed, I have often thought that when one lives in a society that is not one's own, one is far more perceptive about what constitutes the features, good and bad, of one's society of origin. Since like you I am also a migrant to Europe, I can say this with the confidence of my own experience. In fact, all migrants are anthropologists, in a way, drawn to reflect on a daily basis on what makes them different from the world that surrounds them.

But when you live in another society for a long time, whether as an anthropologist or a migrant, you learn many new things, new traditions, new ways of being... and sometimes this can make you feel a distance from those in the home country who never went through these kinds of experiences, who have trouble identifying with these new stories. That is why it is so special that in this room you gather those who share the unique combination of being both Igorot and having settled within Europe, who have gone through the same processes of adaptation to your new society and reflection on the home culture from which you came.

Because of the 24 year time frame, I understand from the program that this event also marks the handing over of the organization to a new generation, a second generation many of whom were born in Europe. This is in itself an inspiring and fascinating accomplishment, a means of connecting and community building that holds together at once an identity at a distance, connected to a shared origin point, shared traditions, shared culture and a new identity with a collectivity produced by the encounter between Europe and those who arrived here from the Cordillera region. Children are often quick to embrace the majority society around them, and only through gathering together can you raise a new generation that holds on to your shared traditions, and this is an acheivement to be proud of.

There is another aspect of this event that is interesting from an anthropological perspective: this year the gathering has been organized by my student Gelai Marilla, who is at once a Filipina migrant and an anthropologist. We owe her a round of applause for all the work she has put into this. This was a way for her to give back to the Igorot who have treated her with such hospitality and generosity. But it was also a way for her to participate in your community, to participate in making community with you. And I think this is a mode of anthropology that needs to be valued and made more central to the discipline. For too long anthropologists have come and gone in communities around the world, always with the intention to create bridges of communication, but too often communicating the results of their research in only one direction, towards the university. More recently, anthropologists have been emphasizing the importance of working together with the people they are learning from. One of my favorite metaphors for thinking about this way of anthropology comes from Timothy Ingold, who says that the relationship of the anthropology and the people with whom they are learning is like walking together. When you sit face to face, he says, you are talking to the other person but you each see different things, you don't share the same perspective. You see the person across from you as different from yourself. But when you walk together while talking, you see the same thing-you see the landscape ahead, you see where you will be going together next, the future. You point out and comment on various elements of the landscape and you decide where to go. And this is what you as a community of Igorot migrants in Europe are doing, you are walking together on this journey, and in this moment, I feel very privileged to be walking with you.