Remembering Vince Rafael and the power of words in Philippine history

Vicente L. Rafael died on February 21, 2026, his partner Lila Shahani announced. He was 70. Rafael was professor of history at different universities in the Philippines and abroad, most recently at the University of Washington in Seattle. In its tribute, the University of the Philippines Department of History said Rafael used other social sciences, like anthropology and sociology, in reading and interpreting history. Among his well-known works was Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Cornell University Press, 1988).

I knew Vicente L. Rafael by name long before I met him. Anyone who studied Philippine history, colonialism, or nationalism encountered his work early. His books circulated widely in classrooms and reading groups, shaping how many of us came to understand colonialism, language, and the making of the Filipino nation. 

I met Vince in person only briefly, in 2016, at the meetings of the Association for Asian Studies in Seattle. It was a short exchange between panels, one of those hurried academic introductions that often lead nowhere. But this one did. We promised to stay in touch, and we did. Soon after, we began corresponding and discussing possible collaborations.

In one email, he wrote:

Hi Stephen, was wondering if you have an essay or book chapter that summarizes the new archaeological work you’ve been doing and the ways it revises our understanding of precolonial history. Thanks!

That brief note reflected something essential about Vince. Although trained as a historian, he was attentive to archaeology and to how new material evidence could revise established narratives about the Philippine past. He wanted to know how excavations and landscapes might complicate inherited colonial chronologies. He read across disciplines and took seriously work that pushed against conventional boundaries.

In another message, he added:

BTW, I will be contacting you soon about another project — will let you know.

There was always another idea forming, another conversation opening up.

We also met in Manila when I was on my way to Bicol for my father’s funeral. Vince and his life partner, Lila Shahani, made time to see me. They were gracious. That meeting, in the middle of travel and grief, showed something about the kind of colleague and person he was — thoughtful and unhurried even when time was short.

For readers outside the academy, it is important to explain why Vince’s scholarship mattered so much.

In Contracting Colonialism, he examined how Spanish missionaries translated Christian ideas into Philippine languages. He argued that translation was not a simple act of replacing one word with another. It was a site of negotiation. When Spanish friars translated “God,” they often used the term Bathala, a precolonial supreme being in Tagalog cosmology. But Bathala did not map neatly onto the Christian, monotheistic God. The word carried associations rooted in a different cosmological system. Similarly, the term kaluluwa was used for “soul,” yet local understandings of spirit and personhood did not always align with Catholic theology. Even “sin” could be rendered as kasalanan, a word tied to social wrongdoing and relational obligations, not just a violation of divine law.

This approach also served as a counterpoint to strands of nationalist postcolonial scholarship in the Philippines that sought to recover an intact, internally coherent native consciousness prior to colonial disruption. Vince did not deny Indigenous agency; on the contrary, he foregrounded it. But he showed that agency operated through translation, mediation, and uneven encounters. The precolonial and the colonial were not sealed worlds. They were entangled through language. His work complicated both colonial triumphalism and nationalist romanticism.

That insight has deeply influenced my archaeological work. Archaeology may deal with objects and landscapes rather than texts, but interpretation is also a form of translation. When we write about rice terraces, ritual spaces, or settlement patterns, we are translating material traces into historical narratives. Vince’s work prompted me to ask: Whose language frames that narrative? Are we imposing colonial or nationalist categories onto precolonial societies? Are we imagining a pure precolonial past untouched by exchange and negotiation? His scholarship pushed me to see the past as dynamic and contested rather than static and self-contained.

He produced other influential works that extended these concerns. In White Love and Other Events in Filipino History, he examined the American colonial period and showed how US rule was framed as benevolent and educational even as it relied on force. He called this logic “white love,” highlighting how empire justified itself through the language of uplift and reform. The book unsettled both colonial and nationalist narratives by showing how power worked not only through coercion but also through schools, institutions, and everyday practices.

Later works, including The Promise of the Foreign and Motherless Tongues, continued his examination of language, nation, and belonging. Across these writings, he argued that words carry histories of power and that national identity is never fixed. In doing so, he expanded Philippine historiography beyond debates confined within the nation-state.

When he wrote the afterword to Plural Entanglements, which I co-edited with Dada Docot and Clem Camposano, he extended these concerns. He described the volume as emerging from the margins, moving across disciplines and languages. He reflected on indigeneity and decolonization not as fixed categories but as historical processes — contested, contingent, and often entangled with the state. He underscored that “native-ness” is continually negotiated and that the nation itself is an artifact of multiple colonialisms.

That perspective resonates with how I approach archaeology. Rather than treating indigeneity as a static inheritance anchored only in deep antiquity, I see it as historically produced and politically situated. Archaeological work is not only about documenting the age of terraces or settlements. It also involves examining how communities engage with categories such as “indigenous” in the present, often in dialogue with the state and with global discourses. It requires vigilance to ensure that our narratives do not reproduce colonial hierarchies or nationalist simplifications, even unintentionally.

More importantly, his influence extended well beyond his publications. Vince was supportive of early career scholars, including myself. I have heard many stories from friends and colleagues about his willingness to read drafts, write recommendations, and suggest collaborations. He reached out to younger scholars and treated their work as worthy of serious engagement. That pattern of mentorship shaped many careers.

With his passing, Philippine and Southeast Asian historiography loses a scholar who transformed how we read colonial archives and how we think about language and power. His books will continue to be read. His arguments will continue to provoke discussion. His questions remain urgent.

To Lila, and to the family Vince leaves behind, I extend my condolences. May you find strength in the knowledge that his work shaped a wide community of readers, students, and colleagues across generations and continents. Many of us carry his influence in our own work. For that, and for the conversations he began and sustained, we remain grateful. – Rappler.com

Stephen B. Acabado is professor of anthropology at the University of California-Los Angeles. He writes the fortnightly column Time Trowel for Rappler.