“I think you got a role in this society not to expose”: Enacting techno-moral sociality among older Filipina Australians

This paper investigates how a moral lens informs the ways 15 older Filipina Australians use Facebook and Facebook Messenger to forge and sustain transnational ties among their distant kins and peers. Based on analysing the data drawn from in-depth interviews and visual methods, I coin the term ‘techno-moral sociality’ to capture the ways the participants constantly negotiate their visibility and affective connectivity in online spaces to conform with moral structures in a transnational social field. Additionally, this conception highlights how the normative Filipino sociality ‘pakikipagkapwa’ (interaction as one with others) mediates the scalable and affective connective practices of older Filipina Australians across public and semi-public online platforms. In sum, the provocation centres the crucial role of a moral framework in reproducing networked, transnational and negotiated connectivity. It therefore advances our critical understanding of the impacts of digital technologies on the transnational lives of migrants in their later years.