Negotiating the Filipino in Cyberspace
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Negotiating the Filipino in Cyberspace: New Zealand-based Filipinos’ Identity Construction in Social Media Alwin C. Aguirre PhD 2014 Negotiating the Filipino in Cyberspace: New Zealand-based Filipinos’ Identity Construction in Social Media Alwin C. Aguirre A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2014 Institute of Culture, Discourse, and Communication School of Language and Culture ii CONTENTS List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Attestation of Authorship x Acknowledgements xi Abstract xiii 1 INTRODUCTION Dito ba, o dito ba? Belonging somewhere on the Internet 1 1.1 Little stories: What cannot be left behind in leaving 3 1.2 The bigger picture: Filipino diaspora as state-sponsored mass exodus 6 1.2.1 Filipino diaspora in a global context 6 1.2.2 Filipino diaspora in New Zealand 8 1.2.3 Filipino diaspora in the clutches of neoliberal globalisation 10 1.3 Rationale and significance of the study 13 1.4 Objectives and overview of the thesis 16 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Locating identity in the nexus of diaspora and new media 18 2.1 Introduction 18 2.2 Nuancing the Filipino diaspora 19 2.3 Filipino identity in diaspora 25 2.3.1 Class divide and identity discomfitures in Filipino labour diaspora 27 2.3.2 The gendered face of overseas Filipino labour 29 2.3.3 A discursive turn in constructing Filipino labour diaspora 31 2.4 Filipino diaspora, identity, and new media 32 2.4.1 New media in the lives of diasporic Filipinos 34 2.4.2 New media, discourse, and online diasporic identity 40 2.5 Conclusion 43 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Liminality and textuality in diasporic social media writings 44 3.1 Introduction 44 3.2 The Interpretive Arc as hermeneutic route 46 3.3 Liminality and the diasporic situation 49 3.3.1 Defining liminality 50 3.3.2 Liminality in a post-industrial setting 51 3.3.3 Diaspora, transnationalism, and binary nationalism 52 3.4 Identity and Discourse 56 3.4.1 Contrasting positions in understanding identity 56 iii 3.4.2 Identity, discourse, and timescales 58 3.5 New media and textuality 61 3.5.1 Ricoeur and the text 62 3.5.2 New media as liminoid practice 65 3.6 Critical discourses and power in sign-making 67 3.6.1 People as sign-makers 67 3.6.2 Power and agency in making signs and meanings 68 3.7 Conclusion 71 4 METHODOLOGY The ethnographic and the discursive in online research 72 4.1 Introduction 72 4.2 Online identity and Discourse-Centred Online Ethnography 73 4.3 Between breadth and depth: Deciding on the cases for the study 76 4.3.1 A blog and a Facebook account: Filipinos in New Zealand online 79 4.3.2 Social media as personal media: Making the private public 82 4.4 Acquiring the data 84 4.4.1 Online Environment Mapping 84 4.4.2 Contact with Internet actors 85 4.4.3 The thesis blog 87 4.4.4 Data triangulation 88 4.5 Mode of analysis: Multimodality and CDA 89 4.5.1 Social media as a multimodal site of analysis 90 4.5.2 Textualisation of experience, recontextualisation of social practice 93 4.6 Ethics: Kapwa as ethical framework and conviction in Internet research 96 4.7 Conclusion 100 5 DESIGNING A DIASPORA Official texts, dominant discourse, and legitimate identity 101 5.1 Introduction 101 5.2 Export-quality national goodness: Representing the OFW in official reports 102 5.2.1 Imagining the future, imaging the now: The OFW as economic object 103 5.2.2 Nationally/naturally made: The Filipino as ideal labour migrant 105 5.3 The ‘I’ aspora: Characterising overseas Filipinos in official presentations 109 5.3.1 Feeling/thinking migration: Power and agency in representations 110 of the Filipino migrant 110 5.3.2 The ‘I’ in leaving: De-articulating participants in migration process 113 5.4. The lawn is always greener: Romanticising the family in New Zealand 120 5.4.1 Making the scene: Ideal migrant identities and the politics of place 122 5.4.2 Obscure objects of desire: 131 Symbolising ideal Filipino migrant life in New Zealand 131 5.5 Owning the new home: Legitimising the liminal in diaspora 137 5.6 Conclusion 142 iv 6 REGULATING MIGRANT LIFE ON FACEBOOK Performing and asserting identities in social media 145 6.1 Introduction 145 6.2 Amy and Facebook: Plotting personal history in social media 147 6.2.1 Timeline: The face of Facebook 148 6.2.2 Navigating the Timeline environment 149 6.2.3 The place of Facebook in Amy’s immigrant journey 151 6.3 Presenting everyday life on Facebook: Goffman and identity performance 154 6.3.1 Fronting a self: The Timeline as stage 155 6.3.2 Managing a character: Identity performance on Facebook 156 6.4 Growing Kiwis: Digital portraits of a sense of becoming 158 6.4.1 To see/read is to believe: Portraying Kiwi identity 159 6.4.2 Invisible symbols: Asserting an essential Kiwi self 165 6.4.3 Digging for the roots: Displaying the Filipino in New Zealand 167 6.5 Out of the mouths of babes: The body as circumscription of identity 170 6.6 Conclusion 179 7 BIG EVENTS IN A SMALL WORLD Extraordinary days and migrant belonging on Facebook 181 7.1 Introduction 181 7.2 Crossing the gain line: National belonging in sports and social media 183 7.2.1 A small nation making big claims 183 7.2.2 Facebook, sports, and liminality 186 7.2.3 The migrant as passenger: Positioning the self within the collective 190 7.2.4 Playing the part: Belonging as discursive performance 195 7.3 Imperfect strangers: Picturing place, family, and identity in diaspora 202 7.3.1 Defining the good life: Framing images through words 204 7.3.2 What you hear is what you get: Music and discursive foregrounding 207 7.3.3 Photographing the good life: Embedding selves in a new place 209 7.4 Conclusion 228 8 ‘I BLOG THEREFORE I AM’ De/constructing the self and nation in social media 229 8.1 Introduction 229 8.2 Mga Kuro-kuro: Of beginnings and meanings 231 8.3 How to be Filipino online: The blogging of identity 239 8.4 A perfect fit: Ideal place, ideal people, and ideal immigrants 242 8.4.1 Meeting ideal people 243 8.4.2 Being the ideal immigrant 247 8.5 Half empty, half fish: Hybridity, binarism, and ambivalence 251 8.5.1 Identity as crisis: Resolving the conflicts of diasporic identification 252 8.5.2 ‘Split’ personality: Balancing national identifications 258 8.6 Starting from scratch: Ideal migrants and ideal nation through social media 264 v 8.6.1 Emotions and the regulation of diasporic subjects 265 8.6.2 Building a proper Filipino nation 270 8.7 Conclusion 272 9 CONCLUSION New media texts, new media selves, new media lives 274 9.1 Everywhere stories 276 9.2 Between recording and performing: Making life in social media 278 9.3 Writing on a networked platform: What is a new media text? 281 9.3.1 The ‘archive is alive’: Revisiting the autonomy of the text 282 9.3.2 Defamiliarising the self: Necessities of new media writing 286 9.4 Identity on the fly: Remembrances, departures, and confrontations 290 REFERENCES 294 APPENDIX A Online Environment Mapping Guide 318 APPENDIX B Template of introductory letter and information sheet for participants 319 APPENDIX C Semi-structured Interview Guide 324 APPENDIX D Philippine Overseas Employment Agency 2010 annual report inside cover image 326 APPENDIX E Commission on Filipinos Overseas audio-visual brief 2012 transcript 327 APPENDIX F Screen shot of Commission on Filipinos Overseas Homepage 344 APPENDIX G Transcript of John Evangelista video testimonial with topic of talk identified 345 APPENDIX H Representation and Viewer Network/Visual Social Actor Network/ Connotation (Second-level signification) Analysis of three albums about Ben and Sarah 349 APPENDIX I Video Log/Representation and Viewer Network Analysis/Spatial Network Analysis of Amy’s audio-visual presentation commemorating their two years in New Zealand 353 APPENDIX J Ka Uro’s categorisation of his blog entries with main topic identified 367 vi FIGURES 5.1 Philippine Overseas Employment Agency 2009 annual report cover image with different layers highlighted 104 5.2 Screen grab of John Evangelista testimonial where he introduces himself 125 5.3 Screen grab of John Evangelista testimonial where he introduces his family and shows their home in Auckland for the first time in the video 125 5.4 Screen grab of John Evangelista testimonial showing an exterior shot of the Evangelista residence 128 5.5 Screen grab of John Evangelista testimonial where exterior is shown in the background of an interior shot 128 5.6 Screen grab of ‘Felicia and Nico’ scenes with the trampoline 134 5.7 Screen grab at 7:06 of the image of Philippines as ‘home’ from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas audio-visual brief 139 5.8 Screen grab at 3:45 of the ‘D2D’ initiative logo from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas audio-visual brief 140 6.1 9 The Facebook ‘Timeline’ environment (as of data gathering) 150 6.210 An outline rendition of a photo of Ben, from the Facebook album My Ben Through the Years 165 6.311 A photograph of Ben and Sarah wearing traditional Filipino costume from the Facebook album filipiniana pix 167 6.412 A ‘vignetted’ and sepia photograph of Ben and Sarah wearing traditional Filipino costume from the Facebook album filipiniana pix 168 7.113 Image accompanying status post (excerpt 9) on 23 October 194 7.214 Progression of discourses of belonging and attachment as reflected in Amy’s Facebook posts for the period 197 7.315 Screenshot of Amy’s Facebook post with the All Blacks emblem as profile picture 199 7.416 Screen capture of the audio-visual presentation at 00:02:40.