Abstract

In this essay, I argue that rather than merely a physical or geographic location, “place” is that locus of encounter which enables new or alternative representations. Place and, being “in place,” allow individuals and communities to claim a presence in history, as opposed to absence in it, in the effort to countervail the de-historicizing, hegemonic imperatives of globalization. I examine the politics that engender a “sense of place” by drawing from semiotics or sign theory to reconceptualize both the notions of politics and place themselves. I analyze how the menus of three selected Baguio restaurants show a fecund and volatile terrain of encounter between the global and the local, where various strategies are deployed in the continuing and oppositional local projects of place-making and identity constructions. Striking similarities characterize the manner in which these restaurants present themselves through their menus, which all offer narratives of self-representation. With these narratives and their “semiosis” (sign-production and -circulation) about local history, culture, and cuisines, these restaurants are able to root themselves in the sphere of the local even as they are compelled to participate in the discourse of the global.