Return to search

THE NANNY’S NANNY : Filipina Migrant Workers and the ‘Stand-In’ Women at Home

This article examines the case of Filipina women that substitute for Filipina migrant workers. Through semi-structured interviews in the Philippines this study draws attention to the experiences of the ‘stand-in’ women and demonstrates how the organisation of care in the transnational families is based on a system whereby female family members or friends are ascribed with a ‘natural’ responsibility to become social reproductive stand-ins for the migrated mothers. In the global transfer of social reproduction, hierarchies of women are maintained, based on intersectional power structures such as ethnicity, race, nationality, age, and class. But the stand-in women in the three-tier transfer of reproductive labour, or global care chain, do not  always occupy one single position, but actually shift in time and place between ‘the middle’ and ‘the bottom’ of the hierarchy. Regardless of location, Filipina women remain under the burden of their gendered duties and whether working abroad as domestic workers or acting as local stand-ins, they have to take on both local and global social reproductive work. They become the breadwinner in their families, at the same time as they are ascribed natural responsibility for households and families, as wives, mothers and stand-ins ‘at home’.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-306
Date January 2008
CreatorsBäck , Hanna
PublisherMittuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Page generated in 0.0017 seconds