Suchergebnisse

Policies on migrant workers are characterised by competing frameworks of
governance that do not necessarily protect migrants. Despite their vulnerability,
however, migrant workers also possess agential capacities. Guided by the concept of "fugitive witnessing", I discuss excerpts from the book "Bantay-Salakay:
Anthology of Short Stories by Domestic Workers in Singapore, Hongkong and
Taiwan" (Mga Bantay-Salakay: Antolohiya ng Maiikling Kuwento ng mga Indonesian Domestic Worker sa Singapore, Hongkong, at Taiwan), a collection of
stories originally in Bahasa Indonesia and translated into Filipino. Specifically,
I problematise how stories written by Indonesian domestic helpers reveal and
negotiate varied aspects of migration. The paper concludes that stories of subaltern groups within the diaspora may serve as complex and discursive means to
assess, interrogate and reform the contemporary phenomenon of labour mobility.

Abstract
The uprising alternately called EDSA Revolution or People Power Revolution or EDSA People Power Revolt, which led to the downfall of Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, supposedly ushered in the formal restoration of civil freedoms that had been snatched away by Marcos' martial law. In the aftermath of the uprising, formal democratic institutions and civil rights were returned, including the right to free elections and the right to peaceful assembly. But as this article seeks to show, the administrations after EDSA have been marred by the neglect of workers' welfare and the failure to address old labor concerns such as inadequate wages, job precarity, and contractualization. Given the shortage of employment opportunities in the Philippines, the administrations after EDSA have also promoted migration as its de facto job-generating mechanism. But the export of human resources is not without its ugly consequences, such as making overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) susceptible to abuse and exploitation. Deploying the notion of counter-history and using various materials from both government and non-government organizations, this article undertakes to critically assess the labor conditions during the historical period after the fabled EDSA People Power Revolt, and concludes that no notable changes have taken place.

Enforced disappearances have been deployed as a strategy of terror and tension against dissenting voices even in so-called democratic societies. They are aimed to suppress and harass individuals and groups, as well as their families, friends, and sympathizers, situated in oppositional politics. One of the pedagogical tools of resistance against such forms of hegemony is testimonial literature. Using thematic analysis, this paper problematizes testimonial writings of the families and loved ones of desaparecidos (the disappeared). Among the dominant themes are the struggle of memory against forgetting, the sense of sufferance and sacrifice, and the discourse of solidarity. Their discussion is likewise predicated on the notions of countermemory and counternarratives. This paper recommends the retrieval of such alternative social/cultural practices to resurrect "subjugated knowledges" and challenge hegemonic assumptions about history and society.