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Paper short abstract

Through the narratives of the Filipino women care workers, I have argued in this study that transnational end-of-life care work organizes intimacy through kin-like relations, creating moral spaces within which Filipino care workers exercise moral agency and negotiate moral experiences.

Paper long abstract

It is not new for Filipinos to engage in migrant work as the culture of emigration is prevalent (Parrenas, 2015). Many literatures focusing on Filipino women in transnational care and their families has been published. However, studies on the role of Filipino women in transnational end-of-life care in Japan remain unexplored. This study aims to explore how end-of-life care encounters between caregivers and their care recipients transform notions of end-of-life situated in care institutions in Japan through the lens of Filipino women care workers. Moreover, under what circumstances does it allow Filipino female care workers to reframe migration as meaningful moral purposes rather than merely for economic stability and survival? Through the narratives of the Filipino women care workers, I have argued in this study that transnational end-of-life care work organizes intimacy through kin-like relations, creating moral spaces within which Filipino care workers exercise moral agency and negotiate moral experiences despite the structural constraints of intimate labor. The narratives of Filipino women care workers in Japan provide an insight into what caregiving looks like as experienced by both the caregiver and the care receiver. With this, transnational care for the elderly is assumed to be a byproduct of capitalism, where intimacy and emotional labor are commodified. However, humanistic care created in moral spaces through kin-like relations, moral agency, and moral experience is something that capitalism can never touch - one that has no market value and can not be commodified.

Keywords: transnational care, Filipino women care workers, end-of-life care, moral agency, moral experiences