This essay reflects on the problematic relationship between informal settlements and built heritage in Metro Manila, Philippines. Trained as a historian with scholarly and middle‐class socio‐civic sensibilities, I am oriented toward the preservation of historically significant structures. Such a seemingly safe positionality, however, is often made problematic by the reality of informal settlers occupying heritage sites, especially in the bustling cities of Asia’s so‐called “developing economies.” This complexity goes beyond finding the right balance between preserving mementos from the past and the material needs of the present. One cannot simply take a stance privileging socioeconomic provision over historical conservation, or vice‐versa, without accounting for class positionality, competing definitions of heritage, state‐capital relations, and the varying degrees and modalities of agency exercised by informal settlers. This paper foregrounds the ongoing struggle of informal settlers in Intramuros, Manila’s centuries‐old, Spanish walled city, by historicizing its “decline” from being a colonial nerve center to an area of blight. At present, these long‐time residents, who also provide the necessary labor for the tourism industry that sustains Intramuros, find it increasingly difficult to maintain their communities, even as tourist arrivals and the revenue they generate keep growing in number. Their situation provides insights that can deepen—and even unsettle—our understanding of this brewing tension between crumbling markers of the past and the present‐day inhumane housing conditions of our cities’ marginalized people.

中文翻译：

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马尼拉的定居点和遗产困境

本文反映了菲律宾马尼拉大都会的非正式住区与建筑遗产之间的问题关系。我受过具有学术和中产阶级社会公民敏感性的历史学家培训，因此我致力于保存历史上重要的结构。但是，这种非正式的定居者经常占据着文物古迹，尤其是在亚洲所谓的“发展中经济体”的繁华城市中，这种看似安全的位置常常使人们感到困惑。这种复杂性超出了在保留过去的纪念品与现在的物质需求之间找到适当平衡的范围。如果不考虑阶级地位，相互竞争的遗产定义，国家与国家之间的关系，以及非正式定居者行使代理的不同程度和方式。本文将马尼拉拥有数百年历史的西班牙城墙城市因特拉穆罗斯的“衰落”从成为殖民地神经中枢到疫病地区的历史性转变进行了历史性预测，从而展望了非正式定居者们正在进行的斗争。目前，这些长期居民还为维持Intramuros的旅游业提供了必要的劳动力，他们发现维持他们的社区变得越来越困难，即使游客的到来及其产生的收入不断增长。他们的处境提供了深刻的见解，可以加深（甚至使他们不安）我们对过去崩溃的标志与当今城市边缘化人群的不人道住房状况之间不断加剧的紧张关系的理解。