Paper short abstract:

In the paper I track the ways in which family members become sources of support in times of crisis, calamity, or social instability. Analyzing the case of underpriviledged Filipinos, I argue that relying on kinship relations becomes a common, yet ambiguous, strategy to attain a better life.

Paper long abstract:

In the proposed paper I track the ways in which family members become sources of support in times of crisis, calamity, or social instability. Analyzing the case of underpriviledged Filipinos, I argue that relying on kinship relations becomes a common, yet ambiguous, strategy to attain a better life. The other side of this assistance is the entanglement in a web of hard to escape reciprocal obligations.

The support received from kin enables migration, and thus social mobility: migrants not only pay the overseas employment agency fees, arrange employment or family-reunification schemes, but also become a source of information about life abroad. Having relatives abroad contributes to the betterment of one's social position: by sending in regular remittances, building a house, but also providing the necessary emergency resource basis. The ability to go through a crisis unscathed seems to be of most importance here, as it is the unplanned medical, repair, or other family expenses which have for a long-time been the source of instability.

Based on fragments of my ethnographic film about transnational family life, I discuss the relations between long-distance affection, care, and power. A close observation of the workings of such a family brings to the fore the intricate ways in which family-members maneuver their duties and obligations, taking them on and escaping from them, in a struggle to maintain their individual agency. This might also result in breaking some relationships and establishing new ones, which allow for more stability or freedom.