Migrant platformed subjectivity: Rethinking the mediation of transnational affective economies via digital connectivity services

Abstract

This article investigates how commercial and government-based sectors in the Philippines deploy emotive mechanisms to promote the importance of connectivity services in addressing the affective and transnational needs of overseas Filipinos. By combining a walkthrough method with critical discourse analysis, the study compares and contrasts the interface, operating model and mode of governance of three selected case studies in the Philippines: Western Union, LBC Express Inc. and BaLinkBayan. The findings reveal that the emotionalising techniques of connectivity services construct what we call ‘platformed migrant subjectivity’. This conception articulates migrants as economic subjects and valued clientele within the commercial infrastructures and operations of an online platform. In sum, this article takes a nuanced approach to examine how commercial and government institutions utilise online platforms in mobilising emotional, transnational and digital transactions, which may redefine a migrant’s subjectivity, mobility and citizenship in a digital era.

The Paradox of a Mobile Society: Situating Cultural Studies in the Global South Context

“…In a sense, I contend that this approach contributes to complicating transnationalism, especially in a platform society (van Dijck, 2013) where positive, personal and intimate micro- and meso-interactions have increasingly become susceptible to increased macro systems and governance of control and commodification (Helmond, 2015). An example of this is how government agencies and remittance companies use mobile applications, social media and data to mediate feelings, decisions and actions of Filipino migrants to send money or consumer goods to their distant loved ones (Cabalquinto and Wood-Bradley, 2020). Lastly, cultural studies can further advance a scholarship on mobility justice, or articulate the production and reduction of inequalities and barriers in a mobile society (Sheller, 2018; Urry, 2007).…”

“…In a global economy, the transnational home becomes a node in fuelling and reinforcing extractive affective economies. This is even increased through the platformisation of society, wherein online channels and data are used to represent, frame and manufacture care expression and intimacy for loved ones and the community (Cabalquinto and Wood-Bradley, 2020) while the nation faces a scarcity of social support and public services for its citizens (Tadiar, 2016). Paradoxically, everyday transnational and digital practices do not necessarily translate into government provision of social welfare benefits as well as sustainable reunification and settlement programmes (Francisco-Menchavez, 2018).…”

The Walkthrough Method

“…Another important study is the use of the Walkthrough combined with discourse analysis to study how commercial and government sectors can influence motive mechanisms and promote the importance of connectivity services for transnational mediation (Cabalquinto & Wood-Bradley, 2020). One of the goals of the work is to reveal how the rhetoric imposed on digital platforms can influence migrant subjectivity and media representations, also consequently influencing public opinion on migrants.…”

“…Over the years, thanks to further developments, the Walkthrough method has been integrated to analyze the users' point of view and to evaluate the usability of software applications; therefore, it is configured as an analytical analysis tool that can combine analyses carried out across digital platforms (Katz, 2020) with classic qualitative techniques such as: interviews, for example to analyze how, in the context of global migration, the use of digital media can maintain transnational connections or to analyze the governance of different Apps and compare them (Li, 2020); focus groups, to evaluate the implementation of new Apps through the users' experiential system (Wardhani et al,2019); content analysis, to analyze the terms of service and privacy policies and establish measures for the collection, storage, transfer, use and disclosure of App data (Heemsbergen & Molnar, 2020); critical analysis of the discourse, to analyze the digital intermediation of connectivity services (Cabalquinto & Wood-Bradley, 2020); participant observation, to carry out comparative analyses on the phenomenon of platformization (Nieborg, Duffy & Poell, 2020). Anyway, the approach that developed the most is the one of usability evaluation: the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) implies an iterative process in which evaluation is fundamental to inspect the usability of the user interface.…”

The Filipino Migration Experience: Global Agents of Change by Mina Roces, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2021, ix + 254 pp.

“…Reconstructing Filipino migrant identities and subjectivities as social change agents (Burgess 2004) are enduring themes in Philippine global migration histories. These are often discussed in relation to migrants' place‐location (McKay 2006); gendered identity formation, mothering, and family reconfiguration (Ogaya 2004; Parreñas 2005; Pratt 2012); romantic–sexual relations (Parreñas 2005, 2011); and digital connectivity (Cabalquinto and Wood‐Bradley 2020). Roces rehearsed and complicated these themes in her book.…”