Family: homeland connections and family futures

Aiming to achieve a better future for oneself and one’s family members is one of the main drivers of transnational migration among migrant Filipinos. In dealing with the physical separation brought upon by cross-border mobility and temporary or permanent settlement, migrants use digital communication technologies. In this chapter, I deploy social futures as a mode of inquiry to unpack how sustaining homeland connections through mobile device use among 12 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Melbourne, Australia, indicates ways of working on the family’s plausible future or a future that is likely to happen based on current events. Through data collected via in-depth interviews, I approach the migrants’ connective practices and imagined family futures as tied to the Philippine government’s imagined hierarchical future. By paying close attention to this relationship, the findings show how digital practices and imaginaries may act as sites for reinforcing domination and marginalization. It is through this analysis that this chapter problematizes imaginaries, mobility and family futures in a digital and transnational era.