New Article: Lim, Transnational Migration of Filipino Caregivers to Israel

Lim, Anna. “Networked Mobility in the ‘Migration Industry’: Transnational Migration of Filipino Caregivers to Israel.” Asian Women 31.2 (2015): 85-118.

 

URL: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Journal/ArticleDetail/NODE06362705

 

Abstract

This article examines how labor migration is facilitated and shaped within the neoliberal economy system, focusing on the case of Filipino migration to Israel. For Filipino women who seek to find economic opportunities abroad but lack skills, Israel has emerged as one of the most popular destinations since the mid-1990s, since it is a destination in which they are allowed to work as paid caregivers. In Israel, the caregiver sector occupies the greatest part of the overseas labor market, while providing local senior citizens with live-in caregivers at a cheap cost. In investigating the migration flow of Filipino caregivers to Israel, I draw a special attention to the informal operations of intermediary networks and their roles in initiating and sustaining Filipino migrant flow to Israel. In this article, the intermediary networks involve all those who engage in the migration process such as agents/sub-agents, family, friends, and the friends of their friends. In the context of Israel, where a relatively higher wage is assured for foreign caregivers yet where entry conditions require an exorbitant placement fee, the migration is operated through the complementary roles of a wide range of formal and informal intermediaries. Significantly, such privatization of overseas labor recruitment, characterized by a binding system and an overseas recruitment scheme, contributes to producing power to private agencies, enabling them to impose excessive placement fees on the migrants and control the employment. It is within this context that Filipino women are channeled into the Israel labor market, shaping the current migration flow.

New Article: Ron, Impact of Military Operations on Philippine Migrant Care Workers

Ron, Pnina. “It Is Not Their War: The Impact of Military Operations on Philippine Migrant Care Workers for Elderly People in Israel.” Clinical Interventions in Aging 10 (2015): 1053-61.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CIA.S77886

 

Abstract

Objective: A majority of work immigrants from the Philippines came to Israel to fill positions involving personal and nursing care. Most of them were in Israel during the Second Lebanon War, the Cast Lead operation, and the Protective Edge Operation. These migrant care workers experienced these events no differently than did the Israeli population. The goal of this study was to examine the connections between the Philippine migrant care workers’ exposure to the military operations and the levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), death anxiety, and burnout among them. Methods: A random sample of 147 Philippine migrant care workers was recruited through four agencies that employ migrant care workers. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire. Results: Philippine migrant care workers reported high levels of PTSD, high levels of death anxiety, and low levels of burnout. Levels of exposure were positively associated with levels of PTSD, death anxiety, and negatively with burnout. A significant inverse relationship was found between interpersonal variables (self-esteem and sense of mastery) and the PTSD, death anxiety, and burnout levels reported by the participants.

 

 

New Article: Brown, Re-examining the Transnational Nanny

Brown, Rachel H. “Re-examining the Transnational Nanny. Migrant Carework beyond the Chain.” International Feminist Journal of Politics (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616742.2015.1007728

 

Abstract

This article explores whether the concept of a global care chain is useful in understanding the migration of careworkers internationally. It examines how an affective approach to understanding migration could supplement the care chain analysis by accounting for the overlapping, shifting, contingent and non-linear networks of emotion that arise during migrations. Analyzing carework through the lens of an “affective economy” is more revealing of the multiple experiences of Filipino gay and transgender caregivers in Tel Aviv and New York, Peruvian careworkers in Spain and Polish careworkers in Germany, as but three brief, illustrative examples. First I will discuss what the care chain approach can illuminate about the multiple and varied stories of migrant careworkers and how it may also essentialize or oversimplify their experiences. I will then suggest that the model naturalizes the caring, biological mother and reinforces geographical and ideological binaries such as North/South, winner/loser and domination/dependency. Finally, I will discuss how the care chain model presents a linear conception of time and space, obscuring the overlapping and multi-directional routes of migration that careworkers travel. Ultimately I will argue that an affective approach creates the theoretical language that can help build what Chela Sandoval calls a coalitional consciousness.