Papers by Evangeline Katigbak
In this article, I examine how internal migrants in a Philippine village negotiate shame. Specifi... more In this article, I examine how internal migrants in a Philippine village negotiate shame. Specifically, I analyse how shame is embodied and performed by internal migrants in "Little Italy", a village in the Philippines populated by overseas Filipino workers (OFW), who largely work in Italy, and their families who remain resident in the village. Little Italy's internal migrants are other Philippine nationals who have moved to the village for employment opportunities within OFW households. These intersecting flows of international and internal migration render Little Italy a 'migrant village'. I interrogate internal migrants' shame in two ways: first, as underpinning the subservience that is necessary for negotiating their nominal membership of the village; and second, in contesting and reframing Filipino stereotypes in relation to local social standing and place-based meanings of paid domestic work. I argue that as much as shame has been viewed as an element of social cohesion in the Philippines, its analysis is also a critical tool for troubling current understandings of social positions in migrant spaces such as Little Italy. My findings contribute to scholarship on migration and emotion by, first, demonstrating how emotion in general, and shame in particular, flows between international and internal migrations; and second, by underscoring the role of emotion in creating new dimensions of shame in spaces of migration.
In this article, I explain the intersections of morality and emotions in the (re)constitution of ... more In this article, I explain the intersections of morality and emotions in the (re)constitution of transnational familyhood and translocal moral economy. I use the case of the Philippines' 'Little Italy' to explore the translocal emotional geographies of sustaining transnational families through what I call 'emotional remittances', which indicate how emotions move across translocal social fields through remittances. I first probe the understandings of transnational familyhood in the Philippines and then move on to interrogate the translocal moral economy that influences the meanings of, and attitudes towards, emotional remittances. I first argue that the continuation of transnational familyhood implies the subscription to the translocal moral economy embedded in sending societies. Second, this translocal moral economy is underpinned by emotional constructs such as love, ingratitude and guilt, that (re)shape and are (re)shaped by transnational familyhood. The findings and analysis in this article contribute to further theorizations of the interrelations of emotion, remittances and transnational family formation.
In this paper, I underscore the importance of "placing" the learner, or allowing them to engage i... more In this paper, I underscore the importance of "placing" the learner, or allowing them to engage in place-based learning activities to understand the concept of place. This is in support of arguments that hold place as open and fluid. Such a view of place is particularly relevant in this globalized age where transnationality characterizes many of our social relations. I draw on a place-based class activity that I did with my AAG10D (Singapore in Asia) students at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore in 2016 to emphasize the importance of place-based activities and their implications for understanding the geography of place. We focused on two translocal places in Singapore-Clarke Quay and Lucky Plaza-which are widely held as places for, respectively, expatriates and low-waged migrant workers. Such an activity allows students to experience the social interactions and processes that make up a place, and to recognize that place is not simply a location of things nor a container of human activities. Finally, I suggest that placing learners equips geography students with basic disciplinary knowledge that challenges them to think about being-in-the-world, which is what (human) geography is about.
The aquaculture sector in the Philippines has seen tremendous growth over the last three decades.... more The aquaculture sector in the Philippines has seen tremendous growth over the last three decades. Its growth is largely supported by both national and various local government units as aquaculture is seen to support food security programs in the country’s drive towards economic development. This is in response to food security challenges at the present and in the future, and also because growth in the sector is seen to increase export gains in the country. This study provides an analysis on how aquacul‐ ture development, which has largely been driven by the international demands for seafood, has im‐ pacted the livelihoods of coastal dwellers in the Philippines. The study captures local communities’ responses to this initiative as seen in the experiences of the people of Infanta, Quezon. It details the assertion of local peoples of their rights over mangrove areas, which are common property resource, against more economically and politically powerful fishpond developers who are not f...
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Papers by Evangeline Katigbak