Difference and Alliance in Transnational Social Fields The Pendular Identity of the Filipino Middle Class

Abstract

This article offers a cultural analysis of Filipino middle-class identity emerging in transnational social fields. Although the practice of identity construction of the middle class leads to polarization and fragmentation of society, the ambivalent character of their identity results in social networks and alliances with members of different social classes in the Philippines. This article provides an approach to understand seemingly discrete and contrasting dual aspects—of differentiation and alliance, exclusion and inclusion, and plurality and unity—found in transnational social fields through an alternative framework of civil society and public sphere in the Philippines and other parts of the globalizing world.