Earvin Cabalquinto

Dr

  • Senior Research Fellow, Media

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Apply here: https://www.monash.edu/arts/graduate_research

20142024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Dr Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto is an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. He is also an Honorary Visiting Fellow (2023 - 2026) in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare) at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

He is an affiliate member of the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre. He is also the co-convenor of the Migration and Mobilities Research Network (MMRN).

He was a Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare) at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland in 2021. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom in 2019. In 2024, he was a Global Exchange Fellow in the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada.

He has held leadership roles across various scholarly organisations. He sits in the editorial board of a peer-reviewed and international academic journals, including the International Journal of Cultural Studies,  Convergence, and the Journal of Global Ageing. He was the Book Review Editor (2023-2025) of Mobile Media & Communication. 

His research expertise lies at the intersections of digital media, (im)mobilities and migration. More specifically, he is interested in examining the role of mobile devices and networked communication platforms in engendering and undermining transnational relationships, mediated intimacies, caregiving at a distance, crisis communication, and homeland linkages. His research agenda is driven by critically exploring the dynamics and impacts of digital inclusion and exclusion among migrants and their networks who navigate an increasingly digital and global society. 

His research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including Mobile Media & Communication, Media Culture & Society, International Journal of Communication, Convergence, Information Communication & Society, and ​Communication, Culture and Critique, as well as in specialised edited book collections.

His first sole-authored book, "(Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media", was published under the Studies in Mobile Communication series of Oxford University Press (OUP). His book has created impact beyond the academic community. Jasmin Werner, a Filipina German artist, has created a series of exhibitions based on Dr Cabalquinto's book. The exhibitions: Remote Control (2024) and Caught in the Landslide (2025). He is also the author of a collaborative book "Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube", published under the Asian Visual Cultures series of Amsterdam University Press.

Dr Cabalquinto is a reviewer of project proposals submitted to the Australian Research Council (ARC), The Dutch Research Council (NWO), and The European Research Council (ERC). He also reviewed book proposal submitted to Intellect Books, Routledge, New York University Press, and University of Illinois Press. 

Dr Cabalquinto is open to supervise PhD projects relating to the following:

  1. Digitalisation of transnational family life
  2. The lives of ageing migrants in a digital era
  3. The digitalisation of migration brokerage
  4. The digital lives of temporary migrants – skilled workers and international students
  5. Digitalisation of Care at a distance
  6. Diasporic/ Migrant Influencers/Content Creators
  7. Emerging technologies in the migrant's personal home
  8. Gendered dimension of digital migration
  9. Digital intimacy in a migration context
  10. The mediation of interracial relationships
  11. The digital divide in a migration and global context
  12. Digital media use in the context of a global crisis

He is working on the following projects:

(1) His ARC DECRA project explores the digital divide in a transnational and digital context. More specifically, he centres the ageing migrant's home as a critical site to examine the production and negotiation of digital exclusion in a rapidly changing global and networked world. His work deploys multi-sited and visual ethnography to identify digital inequalities in a migration context and utilise insights into fostering culturally tailored digital inclusion interventions. Overall, the project is design to interrogate digital inclusion and exclusion as experienced and navigated by (im)mobile subjects in an increasingly digitised world.

Access the project website to stay updated with the project's progress and outputs.

(2) Interrogating the roots and causes of digital inclusion in the context of migration brokering, he is currently examining the ways interconnected migration social actors use modern communication technologies, online channels and mobile applications to inform, reproduce and manufacture aspirations and experiences of mobility, settlement and displacement among migrants in Australia. This work draws on his published works on on digital brokering, migrant content creation and precarious global labour as shaped by a neoliberal and postcolonial systems and conditions. The project is funded through the 2023 Special Project Fund in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University. It also received the SEED Funding Scheme (2024), Faculty of Arts, Monash University. To date, Dr Cabalquinto has further developed the project by collaborating with internationally renowned scholars, including Professor Ly Tran, Dr George Tan, Dr Luzhou Li, and Associate Professor Zala Volcic. You can read the op-ed on problematising migration brokering in a digital age. The collaboration has been funded through the Faculty of Arts Emerging Strength Seed grant (2025).

(3) He is working on the first Handbook of Filipino Diaspora with Dr Kristine Aquino of University Technology Sydney and Associate Professor Valerie Francisco-Mechavez of San Francisco State University. The book pools together scholars examining the Filipino diasporic experiences in a range of contexts. It is under contract as part of the Asian Migration series of Routledge. 

Dr Cabalquinto is a collaborator for Translocal lives, a collaborative space for critically engaging with the crucial role of technologies in shaping migration.

Feel free to connect for possible engagements and collaborations.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Teaching and Learning, Graduate Certificate of Higher Education, Deakin University

Award Date: 20 Nov 2021

Communications and Media Studies, Doctorate, MONASH UNIVERSITY

Award Date: 5 Oct 2016

Research area keywords

  • Migration
  • Digital inclusion
  • mobilities
  • Intimacy
  • Care
  • belonging
  • digital media research methods
  • Transnational Communication
  • Affect
  • Ageing
  • Visual methods
  • Ethnography
  • Digital ethnography
  • Asia and the Pacific
  • Philippines
  • Digital labour
  • Digital Media
  • Digital divide

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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