BETWIXT CARE REGIMES: MIGRANT FILIPINAS IN EUROPE AND THEIR SOCIO-SPATIAL (IM)MOBILITIES

Abstract

With the aim to better understand how “care regimes” (that is, social protection systems) affect migrants’ lives, the present article draws from three separate studies on migrant Filipinas in Europe. The cases of three of these women unveil the important characteristic of the care regime in their country of origin and that in their respective receiving countries, which particularly shapes their lives. Interview data analysis suggests that insufficient care resources in the Philippines partly motivated these women’s migration as well as that of their offspring. In Europe, they experienced spatial and social class (im)mobilities due to the pro-undocumented migrant, family-focused, and transmigrant-friendly care regimes in their receiving countries, respectively France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their encounters with the social protection systems “here” and “there” highlight their lives betwixt interacting care regimes in their social spaces.