The Problem with Kapwa: Challenging Assumptions of Community, Sameness, and Unity in Filipina American Feminist Fieldwork

This article brings into question the ethics of conducting feminist research on and with Filipina American women as a Fili-pina American researcher. Through identifying and challenging the assumptions of kapwa —a “pillar” of Filipino cultural values that refers to viewing the “self-in-the-other” 1 —I ask, how does one research communities they have deep and personal stakes in without reproducing the existing “fissures and hierarchies of power” existing in Filipinx American studies? 2 Drawing from personal experiences of navigating research-participant conflict during fieldwork, I center this methodological question to inter-rogate the affective assumptions of sameness and unity amongst Fil-Ams in diaspora and to address what responsibilities we might have as Fil-Am feminist researchers to challenge such assumptions in our research and writing. In order to center women’s complex lived experiences and disrupt positivist, static representations of Filipinx American diaspora, kapwa must be reimagined as a critical standpoint and “sameness” de-centered through the feminist methodological tool of critical self-reflection