Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, University of Southern California, will discuss "Serial Labor Migration: Filipino Women's Patterns of Temporary Migration" with co-authors Rachel
Silvey (Associate Professor of Geography, University of Toronto) and Maria
Hwang (PhD Candidate, American Studies, Brown University).

Discussant: Deborah Thomas,
Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Core
Faculty.

GSWS Conference Room. Please note our new address at 3810 Walnut.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Sociology.

Most migrant workers are non-citizens who
confront exclusionary contexts of reception. Using the case of migrant Filipino
domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates, this article examines how migrant
exclusion, including ineligibility for permanent residency, absence of labor
market flexibility and denial of right to family reunification shapes the
migration patterns of migrant contract workers. As illustrated, exclusion
encourages serial labor migration, meaning the multi-country migration process
of temporary labor migrants who remain anchored in the sending country while
they work in more than one country during the course of their migration. The
concept of serial labor migration points to the need for studies to pay greater
attention to mobility instead of integration and migrant exclusion rather than
inclusion for a more accurate description of temporary labor migrant
experiences. This article relies on in-depth interviews conducted with 85
Filipino migrant domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates.