Piracy in the City: Manila and Illicit Capital

Book published by Peter Lang (in press)

This chapter examines the dynamics between pirate capital and the urbanisation in the city of Manila, Philippines.

From International Solidarity to Migrant Activism: Critical Junctures in Philippine-Australian History

in Social Movement Studies (2013)

This essay examines the social and political contexts of the establishment of the first Philippine Australian Solidarity Group (PASG) and then its subsequent demise in the face of intragroup and external ... [more ▼]

This essay examines the social and political contexts of the establishment of the first Philippine Australian Solidarity Group (PASG) and then its subsequent demise in the face of intragroup and external challenges. The demand to decolonise the conduct of solidarity within the PASG was more than a case of alleged racism, but a symptom of two intersecting phenomena. There was the growing population of immigrants who sought to find an identity in Australia through activism. Their solid political agenda, thus, intersected with the need to re-evaluate the structure and political agenda of PASG as an ‘old’ social movement. Drawing from the critical junctures in Philippine– Australian social movement, the essay sheds light on the risks of a centralised political body with a ‘diverse’ membership but also the benefits of responding to challenges to continuously re-write the rules of activist engagement, thus to re-invigorate the politics of resistance. [less ▲]

The World Social Forum on Migrations 2012: Consolidating efforts towards an equitable society

in Regions & Cohesion (2013), 3(3), 146-154

This report examines the conduct of resistance and activism by social movement actors on migrations and refugee movement through the body World Social Forum on Migrations. Specifically focusing on a ... [more ▼]

This report examines the conduct of resistance and activism by social movement actors on migrations and refugee movement through the body World Social Forum on Migrations. Specifically focusing on a meeting held in Manila in 2012, the article interrogates the issues, problems, analytical frameworks by which migration discourses are discussed today. In particular, the article gives attention to international migration governance, or the so-called 'migration management' and how this takes central position in contemporary understanding of mobility. [less ▲]

Reading the Gendered Body in Filipino-Australian Diaspora Philanthropy

in Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies (2012), 9(2),

Diaspora philanthropy has increasingly become a visible resource of nations from the South, next only to the more widespread money transfers from members of diasporic communities in the first world. The ... [more ▼]

Diaspora philanthropy has increasingly become a visible resource of nations from the South, next only to the more widespread money transfers from members of diasporic communities in the first world. The discourse of transnational giving is shaped by the liberal philosophy that has always accompanied solidarity through philanthropy, which sidelines questions of the unevenness of giving, political accountability, and the role of the state in regulating and transforming resource transfers into profitable investment. I argue in this paper that the problematic operations wherein benevolence rendered are manifested in covert gendered techniques. The yearly Sydney Fiesta Cultura’s Miss Philippines-Australia exemplifies the solid links between gender and the political economy of giving. What renders this otherwise ‘ordinary’ beauty contest as more contentious than other forms of generating funds for philanthropy are the specificities of Filipino-Australian migration: the transnational movement of sexual labour that hyperfeminised the community like no other in Australia. The fiesta, not unlike other expressions of cultural production that attempt to conceal this sexualised past, nonetheless raises the spectre of the ‘mail-order bride’ whose migration ‘built’ the community, an assertion that meets opposition from the middle class, professional and mestizo migrants from the Philippines. However, the processes that the fiesta puts into place in facilitating diaspora philanthropy are reliant on women’s labour, thus revealing the intersections of the community’s past and present. This overlooked facet also hints at the philanthropy engendered within diasporic formations as distinct and conditioned by the migrant history that has shaped these communities. [less ▲]