Suffering that counts: The politics of sacrifice in Philippine labor migration
College
College of Liberal Arts
Department/Unit
Literature, Department of
Document Type
Article
Source Title
Humanities Diliman
Volume
16
Issue
2
First Page
26
Last Page
48
Publication Date
1-1-2019
Abstract
Sacrifice is a fraught concept that both describes and prescribes the fate-playing ventures of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Suffering on behalf of loved ones promises a better life in return; it is also used to serve very different discursive ends: as a state strategy to promote overseas work or as a rhetorical tactic to condemn the government’s labor export policy. This paper tracks the trope of sacrifice in the state’s and migrant activists’ rhetoric and looks at how OFWs receive these meanings and respond to these discourses. The paper then examines Migrante International’s campaign, Zero Remittance Day, as a complex political act of withholding that defies the state’s remittance-centred strategy of migration-for-development. © 2019 University of the Philippines. All rights reserved.
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Recommended Citation
Piocos, C. M. (2019). Suffering that counts: The politics of sacrifice in Philippine labor migration. Humanities Diliman, 16 (2), 26-48. Retrieved from https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/2102
Disciplines
Labor Economics
Keywords
Sacrifice; Foreign workers, Filipino; Labor policy--Philippines; Migrant remittances--Philippines
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