Dams, dissent and indigeneity: repertoires of resistance against large dam development in the northern Philippines

Across Southeast Asia, national imaginaries of progress and modernity have fuelled the construction of large dams, generating political conflict and social disruption in their wake. This article examines the political struggles surrounding the establishment of the San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam project in the Agno River Basin, Northern Philippines. Drawing on mix-methods fieldwork, we analyse the local ‘repertoires of resistance’involving We interpret these strategies as a Gramscian ‘war of position’ showing how resistance mobilized indigeneity, counter-knowledge, memory and emotion to reshape state-society relations in changing democratic contexts.