Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8950-9441
Abstract
In this critical introduction, I investigate the possibilities in as well as the potential limits of the notion of “halaga” or value in thinking about the works that are part of this Kritika Kultura special literary section on contemporary Philippine fiction. I argue that the value of value as a critical paradigm is simultaneously formal, political, thematic, and practical, as much an aesthetic curiosity as it is a discursive dilemma, and that any inquiry into what is valued in Philippine fiction today necessarily inquires into how one lives at a fraught historical moment marked by persistent structural violence. I situate the works within key political and historical phenomena such as globalization, genocide, and precarity, and unpack how they index, interrogate, and ultimately unsettle the fantasies as well as failures of these projects. At the same time, I hold for scrutiny the potential limits of the self-same exercise in terms of carving out a truly emancipatory space outside the capitalist notion of value in light of broader systemic and procedural factors.
Recommended Citation
Diaz, Glenn
(2025)
"In the Trenches: The Value of Value in Contemporary Philippine Fiction,"
Kritika Kultura:
No.
48, Article 12.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13185/1656-152X.2208
Available at:
https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss48/12
