CURRENT RESEARCH
My current research examines the labour
market integration of Filipino immigrants in Toronto, the transnational linkages
they create with communities and families in the Philippines, and the process
of socio-economic change in sending areas. Conceptually, I am interested in the interface between political economy approaches to class and labour markets, and cultural approaches that expore the intersection of class and other bases of identity.
My recent work has been funded through
the following grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada:
- 2010-13 SSHRC Standard Research Grant 'Class Reproduction, Employment and Filipino-Canadian Youth Identity'. Principal Investigator: Philip Kelly.
Through these projects, I am exploring
several dimensions of migration and transnationalism:
Immigrant Labour Market Integration
In collaboration with the Community Alliance for Social Justice, a Filipino advocacy alliance in Toronto,
I have been conducting detailed empirical research on the labour market experiences of Philippine-educated
immigrants.The issue of access to regulated professions, along with experiences of discrimination, job
search patterns, and institutionalized deskilling through the Live-In Caregiver Programme are all of key
importance. I have also conducted collaborative research with the University of the Philippines Alumni
Association in Toronto.
My latest project, funded by SSHRC, relates to Filipino-Canadian youth and the ways in which ethnic identity, as constituted in Canadian urban contexts, is implicated in patterns of employment, education and economic outcomes. I am particularly interested in the processes through which class reproduction occurs for members of the immigrant second generation. This project involves research in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver (and particular neighbourhoods within these cities). The project continues my collaboration with the Community Alliance for Social Justice.
I am currently also directing a knowledge mobilization exercise called the Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative. It involves accessing data (primarily from Statistics Canada surveys) to service the needs of community organizations in Toronto that are engaged with immigrant employment issues.
Transnational Household Linkages
Participation in the labour market, searching for a job, information flows about new opportunities, and decisions
on the type of employment to accept, are all socially embedded processes that occur in local labour markets.
But I believe they are also significantly shaped by a household's transnational linkages. Thus, immigrant labour market
integration in Toronto cannot be divorced from conditions in sending areas. Nor can labour markets in those
sending areas be fully comprehended without acknowledging the role of distant connections. In this way, the
labour markets of Toronto and Manila, for example, become functionally integrated through transnational households and
individual decisions. I have been exploring this issue by interviewing transnational household members, and institutional
actors in the labour market, in both Toronto and the Philippines.
Migration and Agrarian Change in Southeast Asia
Migration and transnational linkages (for example remittance flows) have significant consequences for agrarian change in
Asia. The transformation of gender roles, household economics, and labour markets all impact on economic life in Southeast
Asian societies. But equally, changes in industrial and agrarian sectors create the conditions, motivations and
resources for international migration. Thus, it is important to integrate analyses of changing agricultural, manufacturing and service sector activities into an understanding of development and migration processes - the Philippine rice cultivating village
or coconut plantation is, for example, far less removed from the Toronto urban labour market in reality than the traditional academic division of labour might imply. Under a SSHRC major collaborative project (2005-2010) I am examining the implications of transnationalism and migration for agrarian change in Southeast Asia.
Picture: A jeepney in Tanza, Cavite, is emblazoned with the words 'Canadian' and 'Ontario' - highlighting the source of remittances that financed its purchase
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