The Emotional Economic Geographies of Translocalities: The Philippines? `Little Italy?

Abstract

This thesis examines the emotional dimensions of migration through the lens of emotional economic geographies. Particular focus is given to translocalities ? the complex conditions of being simultaneously embedded in multi-sited translocal spaces. Drawing upon qualitative data gathered from fieldwork throughout 2011-2012 in a Philippine village dubbed `Little Italy?, I argue for the importance of intertwining emotions and economies to understand the multifarious embodiments and experiences of translocalities along the three registers of place, transnational family and translocal subjectivities. This thesis interrogates the translocal emotional geographies of migration by first considering the relational notions of place and place-making practices and activities. Invoking the relationality of place unravels the multiple landscape transformations that transpire in a situated locality, including the spatial flows of bodies, objects and ideas. This analysis also contributes to the theorizations of the linkages between international and internal migrations by looking at the continuing outflow of overseas migrants and the attending influx of internal migrants that take advantage of economic opportunities in a translocal village. Second, this thesis sheds light on the place of emotions in the translocal moral economies of transnational families. In particular, I demonstrate that transnational family is sustained by a whole gamut of emotions, including those that are not necessarily affirmative, contrary to the normative understandings of the family. Third, this thesis investigates the emotional negotiations of translocal subjectivities. I argue that even as social relations construct translocal subjectivities in varied ways through multifarious socioeconomic expectations, translocal subjects navigate the contours of such processual subjectification by articulating particular emotional subjectivities that may not be always positive. Broadly, the findings and analysis in this thesis contributes to the theorizations of translocal emotional geographies of migration.