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Home on the move: negotiating differential domesticity in family life at a distance

journal contribution
posted on 2018-09-01, 00:00 authored by Earvin Cabalquinto
This article examines the ways in which 21 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Melbourne, Australia, and their left-behind family members in the Philippines use mobile media to re-stage, experience and negotiate home. Based on deploying in-depth interviews and visual methods, the findings show the reconstruction of a sense of dwelling through mobile devices. This transformation is shaped by the performance of ritualistic practices, gender roles and socioeconomic conditions. The study also uncovers how mediated mobilities are undermined by social structures and uneven technological infrastructures, paving the way for unstable, exclusionary and ambivalent experiences. Hence, members of the transnational Filipino family often negotiate such challenges by deploying various tactics to ensure that ties are maintained. By unravelling the differential and constrained mobile practices of the transnational Filipino family in forging a sense of at-homeness, the article attends to a critical conception of domesticity in the age of smartphones and mobile phone applications.

History

Journal

Media, culture & society

Volume

40

Issue

6

Pagination

795 - 816

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

0163-4437

eISSN

1460-3675

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2017, The Author(s)

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