The critical temporalities of serial migration and family social reproduction in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The prevailing neoliberal labour migration regime in Asia is underpinned by principles of enforced transience: the overwhelming majority of migrants – particularly those seeking low-skilled, low-waged work – are admitted into host nation-states on the basis of short-term, time-bound contracts, with little or no possibility of family reunification or permanent settlement at the destination. As families go transnational, ‘family times’ become inextricably intertwined with the ‘times of migration’ ( Cwerner, 2001 ). In this context, for many migrant-sending families in Southeast Asian source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, parental migration as a strategy for migrating out of poverty or for socio-economic advancement requires the left-behind family to resiliently absorb the uncertainties of parental leaving and returning. Based on research on Indonesian and Filipino rural households (studied from 2008 through 2017) including paired life-story interviews with parental/non-parental adult carers and children, the article investigates the crucial links between the time construct of seriality in migration on the one hand, and the temporal structure of family based social reproduction on the other. It first focuses on how serial migration produces, and is produced by, spiraling needs and expanding aspirations, hence creating its own momentum for continuity. The paper then explores how competing temporal logics create difficult choices for migrants, leading to the recalibration of priorities within constrained resources. By drawing attention to the co-existence of and contradictions between multiple temporalities in the lives of migrants and their families, a critical temporalities framework yields new insights in understanding the social reproduction of families in a migratory context.