James A. Tyner

The Global Context of Gendered Labor Migration From the Philippines to the United States

Throughout the 20th century, international labor migration from the Philippines has exhibited a shift both in global points of destination and in gender composition. Whereas early Philippine immigration consisted predominantly of male laborers to the United States, current flows are directed to more than 130 countries, each revealing distinctive sex differences in composition. To understand fully the gendered dimensions of this global shift, it is necessary to situate current patterns within a global context. The migration of Filipinos to the United States and the rest of the world must be seen as part of an institutional response to a changing world economy. Findings suggest that the role of government and private institutions is deeply implicated in the gendering of international labor migration. Moreover, a states position in the global economy translates into different institutional pursuits and, hence, different processes and patterns of international labor migration.

Pan‐national identities: representations of the Philippine diaspora on the world wide web

This paper shows how the world wide web can facilitate the transformation of a trans-national identity into a global, or pan-national identity. Specific to the Philippines diaspora is the concept of tahanang, or home as a metaphor for a pan-national Philippine identity. Not only does the web facilitate the spatial interactions of diasporic communities but it also fosters the representation of national identity. In the case of the Philippine diaspora we find that social networking, via the web, operates at and through a variety of spatial scales, including intra-diasporic, inter-diasporic, diaspora-host, and diaspora-homeland.

Global Cities and Circuits of Global Labor: The Case of Manila, Philippines

The ‘global city’ concept has captured the attention of geographers and other social scientists. Research focuses predominantly on capital mobility and the important managerial role exerted by cities in the ‘developed’ realm (i.e., New York, London, Tokyo). The mobility of labor is also important and yet has been neither critically conceptualized nor sufficiently analyzed in existing studies of global cities. Using the Philippines as a case study, I examine 1) how global circuits of labor are socially organized, and 2) the extent to which this social organization is spatially concentrated in Manila. In so doing, I reaffirm the critical role played by Third World cities as global cities.

Constructions of Filipina Migrant Entertainers

While international labor migration from South and South-east Asia has received a considerable amount of attention in academic circles, a feminist discourse is largely ignored. This ignorance is reflected in a dearth of materials on women labor migrants, as well as explicit considerations of gender. Discussions of Filipina migrant entertainers commonly emphasize poverty as the primary determinant of their movement. Evidence does suggest that unemployment in the Philippines has contributed to their search for overseas employment. However, this discourse has kept hidden other institutionalized forms of oppression that continuously and simultaneously affect Filipina migrant entertainers. In particular, the concrete realities of their gender, race, and nationality have been replaced by a reductionist overemphasis on economic factors. Through an examination of government and private institutions engaged in the recruitment, deployment, regulation, and protection of overseas contract workers, I identify and deco...

Population geography I: Surplus populations

The subject of ‘population’ is undergoing a renaissance in geography; this is seen, for example, in the voluminous studies addressing ‘marginalized’ populations, including but not limited to refugees, internally displaced persons, and children. In short, scholarship has focused on those lives rendered ‘wasted’, ‘precarious’, or ‘superfluous’. Population geographers have made substantial contributions; however, more can be done. In this and the next two progress reports, I suggest that population geographers reflect more deeply on the spatiality and survivability of vulnerable populations. More specifically, population geographers should consider the politics of fertility, mortality, and mobility from the standpoint of a layered demographic question: within any given place, who lives, who dies, and who decides? In this first report, I resituate the concept ‘surplus population’ within the broader domain of population geography. In subsequent reports, I consider more closely population geography’s association with related subject areas (i.e. biopolitics and necropolitics). I maintain that, by addressing vulnerability and survivability, we join others in geography and allied fields who are writing about ‘populations’ not as biological, pre-given entities, but instead as political subjects at risk of premature death.

Memory and the everyday landscape of violence in post-genocide Cambodia

This paper addresses the politics of memory in post-genocide Cambodia. Since 1979 genocide has been selectively memorialized in the country, with two sites receiving official commemoration: the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide Crimes and the killing fields at Choeung Ek. However, the Cambodian genocide was not limited to these two sites. Through a case study of two unmarked sites—the Sre Lieu mass grave at Koh Sla Dam and the Kampong Chhnang Airfield—we highlight the salience, and significance, of taking seriously those sites of violence that have not received official commemoration. We argue that the history of Cambodias genocide, as well as attempts to promote transitional justice, must remain cognizant of how memories and memorials become political resources. In particular, we contend that a focus on the unremarked sites of past violence provides critical insight into our contemporary understandings of the politics of remembering and of forgetting.

The Web‐based Recruitment of Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Asia

In the last three decades, there has been an increased “feminisation” of international migration within the Asian region. In part, the increased mobility of women migrant workers within Asia has resulted from the increased bureaucratic regulation of labour migration. This commodification of the migratory process, however, has placed women in significantly more vulnerable positions vis-´-vis their male counterparts. Comparatively little research, however, has examined the critical role of private recruitment agencies, and especially the use of the Internet, within the migratory process. In this paper, I examine the Web-based recruitment strategies of private recruitment agencies in Asia. Based on a qualitative analysis of 25 recruitment-related Web sites, I suggest that the commercialisation of migration serves an important “socialisation” process that contributes to the vulnerability and exploitation of female foreign domestic workers.

Violence as fetish Geography, Marxism, and dialectics

The study of violence has increasing academic purchase. However, the academic treatment of violence imparts an ontological status that masks violence from critical scrutiny. We argue for the social sciences to (re)theorize violence and to develop a dialectics of violence. Our purpose is to provide a space for dialogue, to open a broader debate within the social sciences on the theoretical determination of violence. We advocate for a new approach to violence that eschews the development of essentializing typologies or generalized explanations of violence as an epiphenomenon of society.

Migrant labour and the politics of scale: gendering the Philippine state

The purpose of this paper is to situate the study of international labour migration, and especially the policies of labour export, within a gendered geopolitical framework. In so doing I open avenues of inquiry into the complexities of political ideologies that guide state apparatuses. Specifically, I examine how the Philippine state negotiates and operates within contradictory capitalist spaces through discourses of scale. Spatial scales are politically and socially constructed to legitimise power relations and to justify particular policies and programmes. In its support of capital accumulation, the Philippine state tends to adopt a discourse of globalisation; when confronted with charges of migrant exploitation, the Philippine state couples a discourse of the global with a discourse of the body. This corporeal discourse attempts to deflect attention and criticism away from the state, thereby maintaining its political hegemony.

“Defend the Ghetto”: Space and the Urban Politics of the Black Panther Party

Abstract Founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as a grassroots organization, the Black Panther Party achieved national and international prominence through their local activities and global ideas. By employing the concepts of spaces of dependency and spaces of engagement, I detail the spatial transformations associated with the evolving political thought of the Black Panther Party. I chart how the four “moments” of the Black Panther Partys doctrine (black nationalism, revolutionary nationalism, revolutionary internationalism, and intercommunalism) are geographically contingent, and argue that these four moments demonstrate, both ideologically and materially, how space matters within the political thought of black radical intellectuals. Despite considerable work within geography in articulating alternative conceptions of race and racism, serious lacunae remain. The concepts associated with black separatism, black radical thought, and, crucially, the Black Power Movement have received minimal attention in the geographic literature. And yet fundamental geographic concepts, including territoriality and scalar politics, are key components of black separatism and black power. I argue that a case study of the Black Panther Party provides insights into the fundamental questions of social justice and public space.