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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Disciplines

Labor Economics

Keywords

Sacrifice; Foreign workers, Filipino; Labor policy--Philippines; Migrant remittances--Philippines

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