Culturally tailored workers for specialised destinations: producing Filipino migrant subjects for export

ABSTRACT

This multi-sited, mixed-methods study in Canada and the Philippines examines how migrant workers are manufactured and deployed to a range of global destinations by the Filipino migration apparatus. Building on scholarship examining how the Filipino state markets, selects and prepares Filipino (labour) migrants from and to the Philippines, I show that beyond seeking to produce a temporary migrant workforce with a ‘comparative advantage’ (including traits like ‘docile’, ‘hardworking’, ‘English-speaking’ and ‘loyal’), the state alongside recruiters and other actors in the migration industry also seek to produce workers with cultural knowledge of norms in receiving destinations. This is another dimension through which the Philippines aims to establish its ‘superiority’ in the international market for temporary labour. This study has implications for how we think about transnational labour brokering under highly saturated conditions, and the role of culture and other mediating factors in configuring ‘ideal’ worker constructions and flows.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration industry
• labour brokering
• ‘ideal’ worker
• fast food
• Canada
• Philippines

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Interestingly, the process of defining the skill level of workers and occupations in the Philippines includes factors like the status of the host country. Canada is not regarded to be a country that receives ‘low-skilled’ workers (even for occupations like fast food) in part because of Canada’s high status as a receiving destination.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of British Columbia; Liu Institute for Global Issues.