A Transnational Pig: Reconstituting Kinship Among Filipinos in Hong Kong

Abstract

Migration may offer Filipinos abroad new ways to practice religious faith and opportunities to extend social networks, but many must at the same time sustain and renegotiate kinship ties at home. The obligations of kinship can mean declarations of faith are not always what we may think. Rather than being the good converts or diligent congregation members of their self-descriptions, migrants may continue to be drawn into village ritual at home. The present paper aims to shows how an exchange-based approach to faith persists in the diaspora and enables migrants to renegotiate long-distance forms of kinship.

Keywords:

• Ifugao
• Filipino Kinship
• Faith
• Philippines
• Hong Kong

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my respondents in the Philippines and Hong Kong for sharing their experiences and my colleagues at University of the Philippines, Baguio, for their continued support and hospitality. I thank Pnina Werbner, Benjamin Smith, Kathryn Robinson and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All errors of fact and interpretation remain my own. Research travel was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant.