BtH2 E2 Beyond the headlines … Care Activism with Ethel Tungohan

Dec 14, 2023

Migrant laborers worldwide are engaged in care work, but who provides care for them? And where can they seek care? In this discussion with Ethel Tungohan, the author of 'Care Activism', we go beyond the headlines that portray migrant domestic workers as victims or heroes. By focusing on their daily lives and the experiences of migrant care workers, we explore various sites of everyday resistance, ‘dissident friendships’, and the politics of critical hope and care.

You can access the full transcripts for each episode on the Who do we think we are? website.

In this episode we cover …

• Migrant care workers in Canada and the UK
• Migrant agency and everyday lives
• Resistance and care activism

Active Listening Questions

• What can we learn from looking at the everyday lives of the migrants?
• How does Ethel explain why migrant care workers’ organisations emerged? And what do they offer to migrant care workers that states do not?
• Why might migrant care workers resist the idea of being ‘sisters’? And what alternative ways of understanding the relationships of care between them are discussed in the episode?
• What does care activism make visible about migrant agency?

Read …

Ethel’s book Care Activism and article with Jon Careless on how Canadian news media frames temporary migrant workers

Anja K. Franck’s article Laughable Borders

Listen to …

Academic Aunties

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