Belonging against the National Odds: Globalisation, Political Security and Philippine Migrant Workers in Israel

Abstract

This article looks at the experiences of Filipino migrant workers in Israel to argue that a conceptual reliance upon notions of political security and formal political activity has overstated the relevance of changing national identity among migrants in globalised times. The political conditions linked to the transformation of migrant national identity appear to be absent in the Philippines–Israel case. Officially, there is no general system for permanent residency or political incorporation in Israel for non-Jewish foreign workers. Yet research amongst Philippine workers show that some Filipinos develop attachments to elements of their lives in Israel despite episodes of substantial political and economic insecurity. New belongings arise from multiple social and political contradictions impacting Filipino workers in Israel. These derive in part from the different migration careers of Philippine workers over globalised time, shaped by modulating Philippine and Israeli migrant labour regimes amid wider social and political contexts. To understand new belongings, more emphasis should be placed on everyday processes beyond formal politics. However, incipient belongings do not yet signal the development of new progressive coalitions which could address Israeli state domination over Palestinian populations

Notes

1. Jon Fox, “National Identities on the Move: Transylvanian Hungarian Labour Migrants in Hungary”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2003).

2. Stephen Vertovec, Trends and Impacts of Migrant Transnationalism, Working Paper No. 3 (Oxford: Centre for Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, 2003), available: <www.compas.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/files/pdfs/WP0403.pdf> (accessed 15 April 2009).

3. Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialised Nation-states (London: Routledge, 1994).

4. Ruud Koopmans and Paul Statham, “How National Citizenship Shapes Transnationalism: A Comparative Analysis of Migrant Claims Making in Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands”, Revue Européene des Migrations Internationales, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2001).

5. Yasmin Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994); R. Kastoryano, “Citizenship and Belonging”, in U. Hedetoft and M. Hjort (eds), The Postnational Self: Belonging and Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).

6. J. Tully, “Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity”, in Hedetoft and Hjort (eds), op. cit., p. 57.

7. The term “undocumented” is used here for two reasons. Firstly, the term “illegal” is a state-based, socially constructed term of discrimination between workers. See Sarah Willen (ed.), Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), p. 8. Secondly, several cases were encountered in which the state was yet to determine a categorical legal status in particular circumstances.

11. Anthias, op. cit., p. 94.

8. R. Handler, “Is ‘Identity’ a Useful Cross Cultural Concept?”, in J. Gillis (ed.), Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Floya Anthias, “‘Where do I belong?’: Narrating Collective Identity and Translocational Positionality”, Ethnicities, Vol. 2, No. 4 (2002); R. Brubaker and F. Cooper, “Beyond Identity”, in R. Brubaker (ed.), Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

9. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, new edn (London: Verso, 2006).

10. See Rogers Brubaker, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox and Liana Grancea, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 9.

12. Brubaker et al., op. cit., p. 15; Anthias, op. cit.

13. See, for example, Michael Peter Smith and Matt Bakker, Citizenship across Borders: The Political Transnationalism of El Migrante (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2008).

14. Aihwa Ong, Flexible Capitalism: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 4.

15. I use the term “postcolonial” here to indicate states formerly occupied by European powers and the United States of America, in distinction to the ongoing military occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

16. James A. Tyner, Made in the Philippines: Gendered Discourses and the Making of Migrants (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).

17. Amal Jamal, “Nationalizing States and the Constitution of ‘Hollow Citizenship’: Israel and its Palestinian Citizens”, Ethnopolitics, Vol. 6, No. 4 (2007), p. 471; Yoav Peled, “The Evolution of Israeli Citizenship: An Overview”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2008), p. 345; see Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

18. Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), “Overseas Employment Statistics 2007”, Table 25, available: <http://www.poea.gov.ph/stats/stats2007.pdf> (accessed 15 April 2010).

19. James A. Tyner, The Philippines: Mobilities, Identities, Globalisation (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 1.

20. Pauline Gardiner Barber, “Contradictions of Class and Consumption: When the Commodity is Labour”, Anthropologica: Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2004), p. 205.

21. Tyner, Made in the Philippines, op. cit., p. 38.

22. Ibid., p. 34.

23. Abigail Bakan and Daiva Stasiulis, “Making the Match: Domestic Placement Agencies and the Racialization of Women's Household Work”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1995).

24. Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), “Stock Estimate of Overseas Filipino: as of Dec 2004”, available: <http://www.poea.gov.ph/html/statistics.html> (accessed 15 April 2010).

25. Sylvia Chant and Cathy McIlwaine, Women of a Lesser Cost: Female Labour Foreign Exchange and Philippine Development (London and East Haven: Pluto Press, 1995), p. 34.

26. Pauline Gardiner Barber, “Agency in Philippine Women's Labour Migration and Provisional Diaspora”, Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2000), p. 400.

27. Pauline Gardiner Barber, “Cell Phones, Complicity and Class Politics in the Philippine Labour Diaspora”, Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 51 (2008), p. 28.

28. Shirlena Huang and Brenda Yeoh, “Ties that Bind; State Policies and Migrant Female Domestic Helpers in Singapore”, Geoforum, Vol. 27, No. 4 (1996); Christine Chin, “Walls of Silence and Late Twentieth Century Representations of the Foreign Female Domestic Worker: The Case of Filipina and Indonesian Female Servants in Malaysia”, International Migration Review, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1997); Nicole Constable, Maid to Order in Hong Kong (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 33.

29. Mimi Ajzenstadt and Zeev Rosenhek, “Privatisation and New Modes of State Intervention: The Long Term Care Programme in Israel”, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2000).

30. Bridget Anderson, Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (New York: Zed Books, 2000).

31. Constable, op. cit., p. 153.

32. Bridget Anderson, op. cit., p. 152; Chin, op. cit., p. 355.

33. Anderson, ibid., pp. 39–42; Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalisation: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); author's research in Israel.

34. Barber, “Contradictions of Class and Consumption”, op. cit., p. 204.

35. Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick-Schiller, “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-state Building, Migration and the Social Sciences”, Global Networks, Vol. 2, No. 4 (2002).

36. Barber, “Contradictions of Class and Consumption”, op. cit., p. 207.

37. Parreñas, op. cit.; Elisabetta Zontini, “Resisting Fortress Europe: The Everyday Politics of Female Transnational Migrants”, Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 51 (2008); Abigail Bakan and Daiva Stasiulis, Not One of the Family: Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).

38. Filomeno V. Aguilar, “The Dialectics of Transnational Shame and National Identity”, Philippine Sociological Review, Vol. 44, No. 1–4 (1996), p. 115; Kimberley Chang and Julian Groves, “Neither ‘Saints’ nor ‘Prostitutes’: Sexual Discourse in the Filipina Foreign Worker Community in Hong Kong”, Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2000).

39. Basch et al., op. cit., p. 269.

40. Parreñas, op. cit., p. 197.

41. Aguilar, op. cit., p. 129.

42. A. Dirlik, “It Is Not Where You Are From, It Is Where You Are At: Place Based Alternatives to Diaspora Discourse”, in S. Randeria and J. Friedman (eds), Worlds on the Move (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004).

43. Ong, op. cit., p. 4.

44. David Bartram, “Foreign Workers in Israel: History and Theory”, International Migration Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1998), p. 306.

45. Jacob Metzer, The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Arie Bober (ed.), The Other Israel: The Radical Case against Zionism (New York: Anchor Books, 1972).

46. Bartram, op. cit., pp. 307–308.

47. R. Raijman and A. Kemp, “Labour Migration, Managing the Ethno-national Conflict, and Client Politics in Israel”, in Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 35.

48. Adriana Kemp and Rebeca Raijman, Workers and Foreign: The Political Economy of Migrant Labour in Israel (Israel: The Van Leer Centre and Kibbutz HaMeuchad, 2008), p. 15 (in Hebrew).

49. Israeli foreign labour recruitment is highly nationally specific by sector. Generally, Thai nationals work in agriculture; Chinese (and formerly Romanian) nationals work in construction; and Philippine nationals predominate in care-work. Additionally, African and Latin American nationals can be found in undocumented roles in cleaning, restaurant and hotel work.

50. Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 23.

51. See Kemp and Raijman, op. cit., pp. 9–10.

52. Ajzenstadt and Rosenhek, op. cit., p. 248.

53. Bartram, op. cit., p. 316.

54. Kemp and Raijman, op. cit., p. 112 (my translation).

55. Ibid., p. 112.

56. Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour, “List of Authorized Recruitment Agencies for Foreign Carers”, available: <http://www.moital.gov.il/NR/exeres/8CD0F279-80FA-43A6-934B-35B28B0CDE1F.htm> (accessed 15 April 2010).

57. Y. Weiss, “The Golem and its Creator, or How the Jewish State Became Multi-ethnic”, in D. Levy and Y. Weiss (eds.), Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), p. 89.

58. Ian Lustick, “Israel as a Non-Arab State: The Political Implications of Mass Immigration of Non-Jews”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1999).

59. Adriana Kemp, Rebeca Raijman, Julia Resnik and Silvina Schammah Gesser, “Contesting the Limits of Political Participation: Latinos and Black African Migrant Workers in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2000).

60. This can occur when an employer's life extends beyond the contract time and they are given special dispensation to retain their employee based on a strong emotional or dependent connection with the employee.

61. For contrasting depictions see Sammy Smooha, “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 8, No. 4 (2002); Oren Yiftachel, Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel–Palestine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); I. Pappe, “The Mukhabarat State of Israel: A State of Oppression is Not a State of Exception”, in R. Lentin (ed.), Thinking Palestine (London: Zed Books, 2008), p. 151.

62. Adriana Kemp and Rebeca Raijman, “Tel Aviv is Not Foreign to You: Urban Incorporation Policy on Labour Migrants in Israel”, International Migration Review, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2004), p. 36.

63. Z. Rosenhek, “Migration Regimes and Social Rights: Migrant Workers in the Israeli Welfare State”, in Levy and Weiss (eds.), op. cit., p. 140.

64. Kemp and Raijman, “Tel Aviv is Not Foreign to You”, op. cit., p. 34.

65. Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 13.

66. Kemp and Raijman, Workers and Foreign, p. 16 (in Hebrew).

67. Kav LaOved and Hotline for Migrant Workers, “Freedom Inc.: Binding Migrant Workers to Manpower Corporations in Israel” (Tel Aviv: Kav LaOved and Hotline for Migrant Workers, 2007), p. 54, available: <http://www.hotline.org.il/english/pdf/Corporations_Report_072507_Eng.pdf> (accessed December 2010).

68. G. Mundlak, “Litigating Citizenship beyond the Law of Return”, in Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 64.

69. These are: Physicians for Human Rights (health); Kav LaOved (work rights); Moked Siyua Le'Ovdim Zarim (deportation and detention advice).

70. Mundlak, op. cit., p. 65.

71. Ibid., p. 64.

72. This amnesty is contingent on several criteria. See Israeli Government Portal, “Frequently Asked Questions: My Children are with me in Israel. What are their Rights and Legal Status?”, available: <http://www.gov.il/FirstGov/TopNavEng/EngSituations/ESMigrantWorkersGuide/ESMWGFaq> (accessed 15 April 2010).

73. Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 15.

74. Jerusalem Report, Vol. XX, No. 9 (17 August 2009), pp. 14–17.

75. “Netanyahu Defers Deportation of Children of Migrant Workers”, Haaretz (31 July 2009), available: <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1104138.html> (accessed 14 April 2010).

76. Author's communication with migrant workers.

77. M. Alexander, “Local Migrant Policies in a Guest-worker Regime: The Case of Tel Aviv”, in Willen (ed.), op. cit.; Kemp and Raijman, “Tel Aviv is not Foreign to You”, op. cit.

78. Alexander, op. cit., p. 84.

79. Chang and Groves, op. cit., p. 74.

80. The term used for “care-worker” in Hebrew.

81. Kemp and Raijman, Workers and Foreign, op. cit., p. 125 (in Hebrew).

82. Nikolas Rose, Pat O'Malley and Mariana Valverde, “Governmentality”, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2006), p. 89: “The subject so created would produce the ends of government by fulfilling themselves rather than merely being obedient […] and would be obliged to be free in specific ways.”

83. A useful contrast is the US–Mexican transmigration field where some migrants are institutionalised into Mexican state politics. See Smith and Bakker, op. cit.

84. Claudia Liebelt, “On Sentimental Orientalists, Christian Zionists and Working Class Cosmopolitans”, Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2008).

85. Nina Glick Schiller, Ayşe Çağlar and Thaddeus C. Guldbrandsen, “Beyond the Ethnic Lens: Locality, Globality and Born-again Incorporation”, American Ethnologist, Vol. 33, No. 4 (2006).

86. Brubaker et al., op. cit., p. 381.

87. See here Brubaker et al.'s methodological explanation, ibid.

88. Author's conversation with participants.

89. Mundlak, in Willen (ed.), op. cit., p. 63.

90. A city near Tel Aviv.

91. The timescale taken to move from temporary residency to permanent residency differs for spouses and unmarried partners.

92. See also Liebelt, op. cit.

93. Basch et al., op. cit., p. 289; Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 177.

94. The Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, winter 2008/09.