Weaving Emotions, Transforming Families: Gendered Power Relations in Filipino Migrant Family Reunification Experiences


This essay discusses the transformations of family relations, dynamics and structures after reunification of Filipino migrant families in Barcelona, Spain. Ethnographic data were drawn from the narratives of eight Filipino reunited families in Barcelona. The study is anchored on a framework intertwining theories of transnationalism, gender, and family through an emotions lens in migration studies. The results bring to the fore the significance of emotions, and how emotions stem from gendered and cultural ideas. More specifically, as emotions shape migrant behaviour and decision-making in relation to reunification, so they are implicated in the transformation of power relations, roles, hierarchies and values within the family. This essay provides a typology of emotions, practices and processes in transnational family reunification that goes beyond emotional discourse in migration framed as the ‘pursuit of happiness’. Data analysis provides three sets of typology: euphoria and guilt; dependency; indebtedness and helplessness; and resentment and gratitude.