Book Talk: Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration

Tuesday, 10 March 2026 | 11 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. | Room 280N, Second Floor, York Lanes, Keele Campus, York University & Virtually via Zoom

With Yasmin Y. Ortiga, SMU School of Social Sciences

Stuck at Home examines how the Philippine state and its aspiring migrants negotiated the meaning of immobility amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In this pioneering book, Yasmin Y. Ortiga studies the narratives that emerged around two groups of Filipino workers: nurses banned from leaving the country and cruise workers who returned home after COVID-19 shut down the travel industry. The book emphasizes the high stakes in telling the "right" story of immobility to a nation built around emigration—one that provides a compelling rationale for who deserves to move and who can be forced to stay.

Yasmin Y. Ortiga is Associate Professor of Sociology at SMU School of Social Sciences. She studies how the meaning of “skill” shapes people’s migration trajectories, determining how and why people cross national borders. Her work has also been published in Global Networks, International Migration Review, and Social Science and Medicine.

Virtual attendees can register using this link.

Supported by: Henry Luce Foundation, CSEASI and the following York University units: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York Centre for Asian Research and the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation as part of the the York University’s Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative (CSEASI) Research Colloquium 2025–26