Annotation: Gamburd, Michele Ruth. 2000. Kitchen Spoon’s Handle

Gamburd, Michele Ruth. 2000. Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids. Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press. The book presents a longitudinal ethnographic study of Naeaegama, a rural village of about 1,000 residents in southern Sri Lanka. Outbound migration from the village to the Middle East began in the late 1960s, and over …

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Annotation: Pratt, Geraldine. 2012. Families Apart

Pratt, Geraldine. 2012. Families Apart: Migrant Mothers and the Conflicts of Labor and Love. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Based on long-term activist research with the Philippine Women Center-BC, the book follows a feminist and postcolonial framework to argue against the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) in Canada, which is often promoted with a neoliberal framing …

Annotation: Barber, Pauline G. 2000. Agency in Philippine Women’s Labour Migration

Barber, Pauline G. 2000. Agency in Philippine Women's Labour Migration and Provisional Diaspora. Women's Studies International Forum, 3(4):399-411. Analyzing three cases of Filipina domestic workers in Canada, Barber argues that while women acquire cultural capital through migration, they remain subject to symbolic violence 1) in their workplace and 2) through “conventions” of Philippine femininity. Barber …

Annotation: Stack, Carol B. 1974. All Our Kin

Stack, Carol B. 1974. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper & Row. Using ethnomethodology (i.e. researching without middlemen), Stack studies for three years the cultural and structural adaptations of black families in the poorest quarters of an urban ghetto, which the author fictitiously calls The Flats. Rather than …

Annotation: Choy, Catherine. 2003. Empire of Care

Choy, Catherine. 2003. Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History. Durham: Duke University Press. Critiquing previous studies of Filipino nurses migrating to the US, Choy writes that they tend to: 1) foreground the uniqueness of the US as a receiving nation of a diverse group of highly skilled migrants; 2) emphasize the …

Annotation: Parreñas, Rhacel S. 2001. Mothering from a Distance

Parreñas, Rhacel S. 2001. Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender, and Intergenerational Relations in Filipino Transnational Families. Feminist Studies, 27(2):361-390. The migration of Filipino mothers leads to a paradox: the achievement of financial security, and the increase of emotional insecurity. The various structural inequalities of globalization force Filipino mothers to sacrifice their emotional needs and …

Annotation: Brijnath, Bianca. 2009. Familial Bonds and Boarding Passes

Brijnath, Bianca. 2009. Familial Bonds and Boarding Passes: Understanding Caregiving in a Transnational Context. Identities, 16(1):83-101. The author writes that there are multiple narratives embedded in the lives that are lived transnationally, and she asks: “whose story do we focus on?.” She admits that she opted to omit certain poignant stories from this article, as …