A. ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
Ph.D. in Philippine Studies, 2009 (University of the Philippines - I
Diliman; major in anthropology and minor in sociology, and with research interest in the anthropology of migration)
Master of Arts in Political Science, 1992 (College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines - Diliman;
areas of concentration: Political theory and methodology, international relations, and comparative politics)
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History (double major), 1986 (College of Arts and Sciences, University of the
Philippines - Visayas)
DISSERTATION (2009)
"Boxes, Selves and Households: The transnational traffic in goods and the everyday politics of self-making among llonggo OFWs in
Hong Kong"
Note: This was a multi-site ethnographic analysis of the Filipino practice of regularly sending home consumer goods, usually through so-called
"balikbayan" boxes. The study explored the emotional economy and the politics of self-making within contemporary transnational Filipino households. It formed part of a research strand exploring transnational householding processes as sites of contestation, ambivalence and contradiction. In showing how the traffic in goods reflects the struggle of migrant women to achieve biographical coherence, the study was a contribution to the growing anthropological literature on the way the world of everyday objects frames and constitutes relationships.
