ABSTRACT
In the Philippine mountain province of Kalinga during the 1980s, the community station Radyo Tanudan broadcast in its namesake village of approximately 3,000 residents. Run jointly by two tribeswomen, the station embodied a ‘community sound’ that reflected the realities of the village, serving as a mediated point of contact and mode of connection for the voices it transmitted and the listeners who tuned in. The community station narrativized an overlooked space, allowing tribal residents to cultivate a type of mediated modernity, one that reverberated against an increasingly global, commercial, and indeed modern Manila, the nation’s capital. Broadcasting in the local dialect, the station presented an alternative to commercial stations that typically broadcast in English or Filipino, the country’s national languages. It served as a vehicle for social gain by encouraging residents to become creators and contributors of local media. Despite Radyo Tanudan’s fleeting, five-year existence on the air, it exemplifies the capability of broadcast technologies to frame and complicate perceptions of tribal cultures, however limited its given audience and geographic reach. The broader analysis foregrounds the roles of vocality, sound, and performance in public self-articulation, the sustenance of community, and fundamental aspects of political and cultural life.
