Panel
3. Prosperity, the Pains of Growth and its Governance
As migration regimes in Indonesia and the Philippines glamorize Palawan devisa and Bagong bayani to normalize remittance-based model of development, state imaginaries of migrant heroism also mute discourses of the reinforcing conditions that underpin and worsen precarity as an accompanying social phenomenon of labour diaspora.While existing research on Filipino and Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong has generated comparative understanding of the risks and challenges these ‘agents of development’ face, these studies are often focused on a singular issue in terms of migration trajectory, prohibitive conditions, gender, and occupation. The analytic voices of people with lived expertise of migration are also underrepresented in the body of currently available research. There is an enormous need and opportunity, therefore, to unpack the determinants and processes of precaritization experienced by an array of overseas Filipino and Indonesia migrant workers in Hong Kong if the goal is to offer a counter hegemonic analysis to the neo-optimism of the migration and development discourse.
Unveiling the Socio-Ecology of Precarity in the Lives of Migrant Remittances will contribute to these tasks by drawing insights from the Lives of Migrant Remittances project that followed the remittances of Indonesian and Filipino migrant workers in Hong Kong back to their homelands and families. This presentation will map out the multi-level socio-cultural, political-economic, and policy landscapes that force remittance generation, mobilization, and dependence. It will also highlight migrant, migrant family, and grassroots migrant organizations’ articulation of whether or not migration promises of prosperity outweigh the pains of transnational productive labour engagement.
Marian C. Sanchez
University of Alberta, Canada