Table Of Content

MIGRATION AND NEW MEDIA a m e Mirca Madianou and DanieL Miller MIGRATION AND NEW MEDIA 'An exemplary and groundbreaking study, with contributions to theory and our understanding of polymedia in e,,-eryday life, this stands out as an extraordinary read .y on the technology of relationships.' - Zizi Papacharissi. UPlil'f'TSity lIlil/ois-Chifago. UStI 'This fascinating, richly detailed book investigates the role that fluency across multiple digital platforms plays in enabling mothering and caring to be sustained at of a distance. A genuine breakthrough.' - Nick Couldry. Gvldmitlli, U"ivmily UJlllfoll, UK How do parentS and children care for each mher when they are separnu.-d bec:mse of migration? TIlt' way in which transnational families maimain IOllg-dist;lllce relationships has bCl.'n revolutionised by the cmcrgclln" of m~w media such as email. instanr messaging. social networking siles. wcbcam :lIld texting. A migrant mother can now call and tl'xt her left-behind children several tinH:S a day, peruse social networking sitL'S and le;lVe the webcall1 on for 12 hours, achieving a sense of co~presence. Drawing all a long-terrn ethnographic stlldy of prolonged scp:lf:ltion bct\vccn migrant mothers and their children who TCm:lin in the Philippines, this book dcvelops groundbf('aking theory for understanding both new media and the nature of mediated rel:ltiollships. It brinb'S togl't!wr the pcrspectives of both the mothers and children and shows how the very nature off.'llllily relationships is changing. New media. understood as an emerging environ ment of polYllledia. have become integral to the way f.1mily relationships :Ire L'l1:1ctcd and experienced. The theory of polYllledia extends beyond the poignant case study and is devdopl'd as a major contribution for undersL1nding thl' interconnections between digital media and imerpersonal relationships. Mirca Madianou is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicest....r. UK. Sill.' is thl' author of Medialing 1111' !Vmioll and sewml articles the social 011 consequenCl'S of the llwdia. Daniel Miller is Profl-ssor of Material Culture at the D....partlllent of Anthropology, University College London. UK. His most recent books include 'lilies from FiI(ebook and Di.l1itiJi /il//llrollol",(!y (edited with Heather Horst). AnthropologylMedia MIGRATION AND NEW MEDIA Transnational families and polymedia Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller R ~~;!~~R~p LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2012 by RoutledbO(> 2 Park Squal\:'. Milton Park. Abingdon. OX011 OX 1{ {RN Simull<l11ffiusly published in the USA <lnd CIlUW by Routledb'C:' 711 Thinl Awnue. New York. NY 10017 R"ru/('~\O{' is "" i",/,ri", <if III(' Tar/"r (; FromOs C",up, "" i,!("mla bllshl('ss Q 2012 Mirn Madianou and Daniel Millt."r The righl of Mirc<l M<ldi.mou <lnd Danid Miller 10 be id..mifit"d ~ the authors of Ihis work h:l$ been aSSc:"rted by them in <lcconbm:e with SC"CriOtlS 77 and 78 of the Cop)'rigllt. Designs and P~tents ACI 19l:lS. All righls rest."f"Iied. 0 pm of this book may be rt"prilllcd or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic. mochanial. or other me<lllS. now known or hef"(";lfier itl\~nted. including pholOcop}'ing and n:'<"ording. or in ;In)' Infornulion stOr.lge' or ~trit"o...l S)'Stl."lII. wilhout permission in writiug from the publishers. "/fiulNnam IIotitr. Product or rorpor.lle names rna)' be tr.ldcmarks or n.-giSll'red tr.Wenl;lrks. and an: usc:d onl)' for idenrifiarion ;lnd expbnarion withoul inte11l to infringe. Brilish Ulw.rry UtfdMgui".t( ill Pub/ita/ion Dilla A c~lJlogtH' n-conl for rhis book is av:ailable fmm rht' British Lib....ry Ubmry <if CoII,ll,rrsJ CrI"/''Xi"g in Pub/ilwimr D.UlI Madianou. Mirn. MigrJlion and ll!cdi:J : r....nsnation:Jl families and pol)'llIcdia I Mirca Madi;mou and riC'\\' Danid MilIt'r. p. CIlI. Indudl'S bibliog....phical reft"n'nces and index. I. Foreign workers. Philippine-F.lll1i1y rdationships-Great Ilritain. 2. Wom...n fordgll work<:rs-Famil)' relationships-Great I3rirain. 3. Children of foreigll workers-Family rd.ltionships-l'hilippill'''S. 4. Communication in fJ.ll1ilil"S-Philippinl"S. 5. Interpersonal comrnLinication-Technological innovatiom-$Q(;ial asp<:cts-l'hilippim·s. 6. Communication. lnrl'rnarional-Tcchnological innovations-Social aspccts-Philippines. l. Mill...r. Danid. 1')54 II. Tidl'. HD8398.1'55.M33 201 \ 331.40'141-dc23 2011022759 ISBN: 978-0-415-(,7928-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-67929-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-1542J-(, (cbk) Typl'"'kt in 101l2.5pl Belllbo by Graphicr'lft Limited. HOllg Kong CONTENTS v, A r/.?lIilI"ledgemenrs I Introduction I 2 The Philippines and globalisation: migration, mothering and communications 16 3 Why they go - and why they stay 31 4 Letters and cassettes 53 5 The mothers' perspective 69 6 The children's perspective 84 7 The technology of relationships 103 8 Polymedia 124 9 A theory of mediated relationships 140 Appendix: a notc on method 153 NOles 156 Rqerel/ces 159 II/dex 169 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As is always sadly the case in ethnographic work. we annot acknowledge any of our participantS individually. since our whole project was based on a promise ofanonym ity. But it will be obvious from every page of this book how much we owe [0 them all. They have provided not merely the gift of time and information. When mothers gr..ldually revealed their long history as migrants, often punctuated by considerable suffering including abuse, or poignantly conveyed the emotional traumas of their long-term separation from their children. and in turn these same children bared tht'iT souls with regard their own feelings, we realised the to privilege of any researcher who has been granced this intimacy and confidence. We hope this book goes some way to a deeper appreciation of those lives and their futures. We however. happily acknowledge the assistance given to us by Cora C;II1, Castle and all her staff at the Centre for Filipinos in London. The Centre proved very sympathetic to thc aims of our research and allowed us to hang out as much as we liked with both the staff and those who came to use their facilities and advice, typically Sunday mornings, the only free time many of the domestic 011 workers were actually givcn. We are also very much obliged to Jonathan Corpus Ong for working as our research assistant and providing accollllllodation during our s~y in Manila. We are grateful to Anna and Ibul Pertierra, Dierdre McKay, and the anonymous readers provided by Routledge for comments on our draft texts. In Manila we enjoyed the hospi~lityof Raul Perrierra and conversations with many academics at the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila and Miriam College, inciudingJun Aguilar, Maruja Asis, Diye de Dios, Lourdes Gordolan, Lulu Ignacio and Emma Porio. The Department of Media and Communications at Ateneo also kindly organised a symposium for us to explain project. We would OUT like to acknowledge the help of Lidia Pola, who hosted Danny and allowed him to participate in her sun.·(")'S of the use of new media by school children in a Acknowledgements vII (OWll south of Manila. We are deeply grateful our respective spouses, John and (0 Rickie, for their generous support and (Olerance, especially of our absences during fieldwork both in the Philippines and later in Trinidad. Mirea would like thank Alex Thompson for being a tremendous research assistant duriJlg the (0 I)hilippine fieldwork at the age of 15-18 months. She would also like to thank her own mother, Dimitra Gefou-Madianou for rransnational grandparenting and for uncomplainingly giving up much of her time to make our fieldwork possible. Finally, Mirca would Like to express her gratitude to the Fellows of Lucy Caven dish College, University of Cambridge for their support and for granting her the necessary study leave whieh was essential for carrying out the research. The research was funded by the ESRC as part of the award on "Migration. ICTs and the transformation of transnational family Ijfe' (RES-OOO-22-2266). with an additional grant from British Telecom specifically to covcr thc COSt of interview tr.mscnptlons. 1 INTRODUCTION Within the past few years a rcyolution has been taking place, one with huge consequences. but so far subject only limited systematic research. \Vhile there [0 are many studies of globalis..1tion and migram cransll:ltionalislll, few have addressed the consequence that probably matters most to those involved, which is the separation of f.'lIl1ilies. Specifically. how do parent~ and children care and look afier each ocher when they live in clifferem countries for m:lllY years separated because of migr:uion? A.lthough transnational families are not new, they are becoming increasingly cOlllmon. Furthermore this type of separation now often involves mothers and their children as a consequence of the fcminisatioll of migration, partly fuelled by the insatiable demand for care and domestic workers in the developed world. The dramatic change which has revolutionised the way in which f..1.milies Jllaintain long-distance COIllIlltlllication, is the emergence of:l plethora of imernet- and mobile phone-based platforms such as email, instant messaging (1M), social networking sites (SNS) and webcam via voicc over intcrnet prowcol (VOIP). These new media have engendered the emergence ofa new communica tive environ1l1ent, which we will call 'polymedia·. This book is dedicated to the undcrstanding of this new type of 'connected transnational f.1.Illily' which is the result of the convergence of these two phenomena: migrant tr:lnsllationalislll and the explosion of communicative opportunities afforded by new 1l1edi:1. This book makes both a substantive and theorctical contribution to the under standing of these profound, parallel developments of family separation and tr:ms national communication that are shaping our contemporary worlds. We believe that to undersr-,md these transformations we cannot and should not scparJte them as, on the one hand, a study of the media, and on the other hand, an enquiry into what it means to be a migrant, or a mother. Our understanding will be much enhanced if we study media situated in the context of what it means to be a transnational mother in this environment of polymedia. As a result, this book