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Kababayan Solidarity? Filipino Communities and Class Relations in United Arab Emirates Cities

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21534764.2013.802945

2153-4780

Naomi Hosoda,

Migration and Labor Dynamics

Abstract Class relations among Filipino workers in the urban United Arab Emirates (UAE) are examined through three Filipino communities: the kababayan street community, voluntary associations, and born-again Christian groups. Although Filipino populations in the UAE engage in various occupations, both middle- and lower-class Filipinos are bound by the same legal restrictions: partial citizenship and temporary employment. This has accorded importance to the kababayan street community as the basic safety net that ideally covers all Filipinos, although Filipino solidarity co-exists with class consciousness in a complex and fluid way. Though some middle-class Filipinos distance themselves from ordinary or domestic workers, they need such workers to affirm their own worth in the UAE; solidarity too is experienced differently from its egalitarian form by being one in which professionals can be providers. Class relations take different shapes, and intimacy can even develop in some faith groups where frequent and close interactions occur, backed by a common spiritual experience and a new outlook. As such, unlike other transnational Filipino communities, e.g. the USA where anomie exists along class lines, UAE cities provide more occasions and locations for class relations, reflecting the state's political and economic structure, but also the subjectivity and everyday practices of Filipino workers. Keywords: Filipino diasporaGulf migrant communityclass relationstransnational labor migrationUAE Notes 1 Okamura, Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities, and Communities (1998), p. 117. 2 'OFWs' refer Filipino citizens working temporarily outside the country, as either documented or undocumented workers. On the other hand, the term 'Filipinos overseas' applies to both OFWs and people of Filipino ancestry who are citizens or residents of a different country. 3 Pinches, "Class and National Identity: The Case of Filipino Contract Workers", in Organising Labour in GlobalisingAsia, eds Hutchison and Brown (2001), pp. 204–5; Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (2001), chap. 7; Alegado, "International Labor Migration, Diaspora and the Emergence of Transnational Filipino Communities", in Filipino Diaspora: Demography, Social Networks, Empowerment and Culture, ed. Tsuda (2003), p. 6. 4 Guevarra, Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labor Brokering of Filipino Workers (2009); Rodriguez, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World (2010). 5 Hollnsteiner, The Dynamics of Power in a Philippine Municipality (1963); Kerkvliet, Everyday Politics in the Philippines: Class and Status Relations in a Central Luzon Village (1990); Cannell, Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines (1999). 6 Pinches, "Class and National Identity", (2001), pp. 187–213; Aguilar, "The Dialectics of Transnational Shame and National Identity", Philippine Sociological Review 44 (1996), pp. 101–36. 7 Johnson, "Diasporic Dreams, Middle Class Moralities and Migrant Domestic Workers among Muslim Filipinos in Saudi Arabia", The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 11.3–4 (2010), p. 2. 8 The information I collected in the semi-structured interviews includes educational and professional background, educational level, family composition, migration or recruitment process, visa status, duration of stay, monthly salary and benefits, living conditions, number of accompanying family members, amounts remitted to the Philippines, religious and recreational activities, and family and friends in the UAE. 9 Tagalog is the first language spoken by people in Manila and its vicinity, is a second language for most in the Philippines, and is also the basis for Filipino, the Philippine national language. 10 Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, OFW Statistics (2011), pp. 6–21. 11 Commission of Filipinos Overseas, Stock Estimate of Overseas Filipinos as of December 2010 (2011). 12 Rodriguez, Migrants for Export, pp. xiv–xv. 13 During the same decade, according to the UAE Statistics Bureau, the population of the UAE increased 2.5 times, from 3.2 million to 8.3 million. See Anon., "UAE population at 8.26m in 2010 H1", Gulf News, 17 June 2011. 14 Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, OFW Statistics (2011). 15 Ibid. 16 Horinuki, "The Dynamics of Human Flow, Control, and Problems in the UAE: the Relationship between Labour-Sending and Receiving Countries in 2000s", presented at the University of Exeter Gulf Studies Conference (30 June–3 July 2010). 17 Another category is undocumented workers, such as those overstaying their visas. However, because I could not interview these people in detail, I omitted this category from this paper. According to a Philippine statistical source, as of 2009, there were 32,000 undocumented workers, or 5% of the total estimated Filipino population in the UAE. See Commission of Filipinos Overseas, Stock Estimate of Overseas Filipinos as of December 2010 (2011). However, some of my interviewees regarded this number as an underestimate. 18 Interview with Mr Lonnie (office worker), Dubai, 13 Feb. 2009. 19 The term ordinary people or in Tagalog, karaniwan tao, refers to the masses or common folk who comprise the lower strata of the Filipino population. For detailed discussions on class consciousness in the Philippines, see e.g., Cannell, Power and Intimacy, p. 15; Kerkvliet, Everyday Politics, pp. 59–63; Pinches, Class and National Identity, pp. 166–7. 20 See for example: Vora, "From Golden Frontier to Global City: The Shifting Forms of Belonging Among Indian Businessmen in Dubai", American Anthropologist 113.2 (2011), pp. 306–18; Gardner, City of Strangers: Gulf Migration and the Indian Community in Bahrain, chap. 4. 21 Owen, Migrant Workers in the Gulf (1985), p. 8. 22 Interview with Ms Maricar (service worker), Dubai, 9 Feb. 2009. 23 Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, OFW Statistics (2011). 24 Interview with Ms Maricar, Dubai, 16 Feb. 2009. 25 Constable, Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers (1997); Asato, "Organizing for Empowerment: Experiences of Filipino Domestic Workers in Hong Kong", in Filipino Diaspora, pp. 41–66. 26 Lan, Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan (1999); Parreñas, Servants of Globalization. 27 Mateo, "The Church's Nonreligious Roles among Filipino Catholic Migrants in Tokyo", in Old Ties and New Solidarities: Studies on Filipino Communities, eds Macdonald and Pesigan, pp. 192–205; Charles and Guillermo (2000); Parreñas, Servants of Globalization; Tsujimoto, "Church Organization and its Networks for the Filipino Migrants", in Filipino Diaspora, pp. 125–62. 28 Together with Bur Dubai, Karama and Deira have been predominant since the mid-twentieth century as areas for South Asian migrants, regardless of their religious, ethnic, and political affiliations. The cosmopolitan atmosphere in these areas may have its roots in the era of migrant communities being established in Karama and Deira. See Vora, "From Golden Frontier to Global City", pp. 309–11. 29 Hosoda, "2008: 'Open City' –– A New Wave of Filipino Migration to the Middle East", in Asia Inside Out: Period, eds Siu, Tagliacozzo, and Perdue (forthcoming). 30 Levitt and Glick-Schiller, "Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society", International Migration Review 38 (2004), p. 1013. 31 For the fear of 'deportability' in the Gulf, see Gardner, City of Strangers, p. 21. 32 Interview with Ms Maricar's sister (domestic worker), Dubai, 21 Feb. 2011. 33 Nagy, "The Search for Miss Philippines Bahrain — Possibilities for Representation in Expatriate Communities", City and Society 20.1 (2008), p. 84. 34 Interview with Ms Leah (travel agent), Dubai, 20 Feb. 2010. 35 Interview with Mr Danilo (civil engineer), Kish Island, Iran, 25 Feb. 2010. 36 Interviews with Mr Bryan and Ms Sarah (civil engineers and former Filipino association leaders), Dubai, 23 Feb. 2012, and Abu Dhabi, 3 Mar. 2011. 37 Okamura, Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora, p. 70. 38 This is based on the list of associations prepared by the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai and the Northern Emirates of the UAE. 39 My research project colleagues (Dr Masako Ishii and Dr Akiko Watanabe) and I conducted a survey with twelve members of a Filipino professional association in Abu Dhabi in March 2011, and with fifteen members of a Filipino Catholic organization in Abu Dhabi in February 2012, during their regular meetings. 40 Inteview with Ms Diana (nurse and Filipino association leader), in Abu Dhabi on 25 Feb. 2011. 41Vora, "Producing Diasporas and Globalization: Indian Middle-Class Migrants in Dubai", Anthropological Quarterly 81.2 (2008), pp. 377–406. 42 Parreñas, Servants of Globalization, p. 225. 43 Interviews with Mr Bryan and Ms Sarah (civil engineers and former Filipino association leaders), Dubai, 23 Feb. 2012. 44 Al Jandaly, "Churches and Temples in the UAE", Gulf News, 5 Apr. 2008. 45 Interview with Filipino Catholic priest, Dubai, 12 Feb. 2010. 46 Hosoda and Watanabe, "Kaishu suru Firipin-jin rodosha no Shakai-kankei no Jizoku to Henka: Bon-agein Kurisuchan to Isuramu Kaishusha no Jirei", Hakusan Review of Anthropology 16 (2013), pp. 29–53. 47 Liebelt, "On Sentimental Orientalists, Christian Zionists, and 'Working Class Cosmopolitans': Filipina Domestic Workers' Journeys to Israel and Beyond", Critical Asian Studies 40.4 (2008), p. 583. 48 This is a pseudonym used to protect the group from any repercussions. 49 Interview with Mr Bryan and Ms Sarah (civil engineers and NFC members), Dubai, 15 Feb. 2011 and 23 Feb. 2012. 50 Interview with Sri Lankan NFC pastor, Dubai, 25 Feb. 2012. 51 Interview with Ms Flor (office worker and NFC member), Dubai, 22 Feb. 2011. 52 Jara-Puyod, "Loans, Credit Card Debts Among Top Concerns of Filipinos in UAE", Gulf Today, 12 July 2011. 53 See Sanchez, "An Oasis in the Desert: Ministering to Fellow Filipinos in Dubai", Kerygma (2008), pp. 30–1. 54 Interview with Mr Arnold (mechanic and NFC member), Dubai, 2 Mar. 2012. 55 Hosoda, "The Sense of Pamilya among Samarnons in the Philippines", in The Family in Flux in Southeast Asia: Institution, Ideology, Practice, eds Hayami, et al. (2012), p. 371. 56 Interview with Ms Janalyn (security guard and NFC member), Dubai, 21 Feb. 2012. 57 Interview with Mr James (labor camp manager and former born-again group member), Dubai, 18 Feb. 2011. 58 The statement does not mean that Filipinos in born-again groups are free from hierarchical power relationships. Future studies need to investigate and delineate other forms of power relations emerging in such groups. 59 Parreñas, Servants of Globalization, chap. 6. 60 Constable, Maid to Order; Asato, "Organizing for Empowerment", pp. 41–66; Yeoh and Huang, "Negotiating Public Space: Strategies and Styles of Migrant Female Domestic Workers in Singapore", Urban Studies 35.3 (1998), pp. 583–602. 61 Mateo, "The Church's Nonreligious Roles", pp. 192–205. 62 Okamura, Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora, chap. 7. Additional informationNotes on contributorsNaomi Hosoda This work was supported by JSPS Kakenhi Grant number 20401007 (2008–10) and 23401014 (2011–13). I thank two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments on this article. An earlier version was presented at the University of Exeter Gulf Studies Conference, 30 June–3 July 2010, and at the workshop on 'Overseas Filipino Workers in UAE: Transformation of Policies and Actual Conditions' in Abu Dhabi on 3 March 2011. I thank the participants for their insightful comments, and am deeply grateful to my Filipino interviewees in the UAE for having shared their everyday lives and views.