Pinoys in Aotearoa: Family agency in the doing of family in the context of kapwa and structural migration
type: CreativeWork
description: Philippine migration and remittance-sending has become common among Filipinos. Much of the sociological migration and remittance literature tend to focus on motivations, often drawing from western understandings based on individual agency, even when analysing migrants hailing from collectivist cultures. Focusing on individual agency silences a collective type of agency and its role in (re)constituting family relationality, and in defining, reinforcing or altering understandings of traditional collectivist family norms of intergenerational reciprocity among transnational families and communities. I address this gap in the literature by drawing from my kuwentuhan (storytelling or informal conversations; also an indigenous Filipino research method) with twenty-six Filipino migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, investigating how structure and agency interface to produce migration, remittance-sending and transnational families. Viewed through the relational lens, I initially set out to interrogate how family relationality is done at home and in transnationalism. I found that within the context of structural migration, the possibilities for how family obligation and utang na loób (utang – debt, loób – inside; a Filipino cultural tradition which underpins intergenerational norms of reciprocity) are done were rewritten. Through the enactment of a collective type of agency, migration has become incorporated into how the participants and their families ‘do family’ in their home country. Post-migration, normative Filipino family practices of material and emotional nurturing have become transformed into transnational practices through remittance-sending. Moreover, focusing on emotions and emotional reflexivity, I was able to observe an attenuation of some participants’ adherence to utang na loób and the institution of the extended family. Based on the participants’ kuwento (storytelling), I theorised and introduced a nuanced family agency concept that provides a culturally appropri…
abstract: Philippine migration and remittance-sending has become common among Filipinos. Much of the sociological migration and remittance literature tend to focus on motivations, often drawing from western understandings based on individual agency, even when analysing migrants hailing from collectivist cultures. Focusing on individual agency silences a collective type of agency and its role in (re)constituting family relationality, and in defining, reinforcing or altering understandings of traditional collectivist family norms of intergenerational reciprocity among transnational families and communities. I address this gap in the literature by drawing from my kuwentuhan (storytelling or informal conversations; also an indigenous Filipino research method) with twenty-six Filipino migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, investigating how structure and agency interface to produce migration, remittance-sending and transnational families. Viewed through the relational lens, I initially set out to interrogate how family relationality is done at home and in transnationalism. I found that within the context of structural migration, the possibilities for how family obligation and utang na loób (utang – debt, loób – inside; a Filipino cultural tradition which underpins intergenerational norms of reciprocity) are done were rewritten. Through the enactment of a collective type of agency, migration has become incorporated into how the participants and their families ‘do family’ in their home country. Post-migration, normative Filipino family practices of material and emotional nurturing have become transformed into transnational practices through remittance-sending. Moreover, focusing on emotions and emotional reflexivity, I was able to observe an attenuation of some participants’ adherence to utang na loób and the institution of the extended family. Based on the participants’ kuwento (storytelling), I theorised and introduced a nuanced family agency concept that provides a culturally appropri…
author: Grava, Genevieve Rabe
keywords: agency, collective agency, family agency, bricolage, family relationality, transnational families, drivers of migration, culture of migration
license: https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:03:56Z
provider: University of Auckland
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: ResearchSpace@Auckland

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2292/72865