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CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Unique to this paper is a gendered examination of return migration from the point of view of male migrants. I analyze the perspectives of repatriated male migrant workers during their return migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a discussion of time as “accumulated delay”, I reflect on the (de)constructions of masculinity in relation to Filipino OFW’s experiences of waiting and delay under repatriation and quarantine. I use the framework of critical temporalities in Migration Studies to explore the complex and fragmented interplay between the changing policies and institutions of sending and receiving states and corporate priorities in the pandemic slowed down time for Filipino migrants (Baas and Yeoh 2019). Through the experiences of delay in repatriation, I suggest that systemic delays in the circulation of global capital, necessitated by the global health pandemic, challenged migrant men’s cohesive narrative of migrant productivity. With the use of the concept of “Filipino Time” (Isaac 2021), I explore the corrosion of capitalist significance on time under COVID-19 changed the meanings of Filipino migrant masculinity vis-à-vis their ascribed roles as breadwinning labor migrants (S. McKay and Miller-Chair 2011). Through qualitative interviews with repatriated Filipino men, I argue that the accumulation of delay and waiting, and then reintegration back to their home communities, have produced different types of masculinities in the time of corona.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Valerie Francisco-Menchavez is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. Her book, entitled The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age (2018), explores the dynamics of gender and technology of care work in Filipino transnational families in the Philippines and the U.S. Currently, she is a Fulbright scholar conducting research in the Visayas region of the Philippines, examining the effects of COVID-19 on repatriated migrants.

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