Under one roof? Left‐behind children's perspectives in negotiating relationships with absent and return‐migrant parents

Abstract

Children—whether left behind or as migrants—have remained largely invisible in Southeast Asian migration scholarship. Their experiences and perspectives on migration, as well as how they demonstrate agency within the limits of culturally/socially constructed childhoods influenced by a “hybridisation” of global and local conditions, are often overlooked in favour of adults'. This article addresses this research lacuna by focusing attention on how left‐behind Indonesian and Filipino children between 9 and 11 years of age engage and react to the changes in their everyday lives brought about by both parental migration and parental return. Using both quantitative and qualitative data collected from a larger study on child health and migrant parents in Southeast Asia with return‐migrants, left‐behind carers, and children, this article highlights the experiences of left‐behind children by revealing their agency and creativity in managing changes in their daily lives due to the frequent and transient comings and goings of one or both parents.

Editorial introduction: Situated agency in the context of research on children, migration, and family in Asia

“…In this light, important concepts such as circular migration—which draw attention to the constant comings and goings of migrants across space and place—and transnationalism and transnational families—which foreground how immigrants live their lives across borders and maintain multiple ties and allegiance to different locations—have brought to the forefront the agency of migrants in capitalising on the increased permeability of physical borders and conducting family life through time–space compression facilitated by advances in telecommunication (Glick Schiller, Basch, & Blanc‐Szanton, ; Vertovec, ; Yeoh, Huang, & Lam, ). In tandem with this focus, our concept of situated agency rethinks children not as “baggage” but as “effective migration agents” (Lam & Yeoh, ) playing a role in shaping their own lives and those of their fellow family members in the context of migration. It sensitises researchers to actions and influences of less visible parties who are nonetheless significant actors in migration processes and deepens our understanding of intrahousehold negotiations configuring different patterns of mobility.…”

“…Under often challenging and uncertain circumstances, they express their agency through their capacity to perceive, aspire, process information, recognise differences, compare and evaluate alternatives, calculate costs and benefits, prioritise, make decisions, allocate resources, devise strategies to circumvent obstacles and realise set goals, translate plans into concrete actions, and narrate and rationalise thoughts and actions. For example, despite having little say in their parents' migration decisions, left‐behind children of labour migrants in the Philippines and Indonesia adjusted to their parents' migration by gaining varying degrees of autonomy in incorporating long‐distance telecommunication with migrant parents into their daily routines (Lam & Yeoh, ). On their parents' return, children were often instrumental in synchronising the return‐migrant parent into family rhythms and helping family members rekindle their affection towards each other, although distancing themselves from returning parents was also used as a strategy of managing strained relationships in some cases.…”

“…To understand the tension and gaps between the aspirations of children and their parents and their often limited success in accomplishing their goals, we need to situate their agency within often crippling structures related to regional economic inequalities, skewed social‐economic stratification outcomes, patriarchal conditions, state control and policy failures, and sociocultural ideals of respectability and obligations that govern family togetherness. For example, the responses and reactions of the Filipino and Indonesian children studied by Lam and Yeoh () can only be adequately comprehended if we situate these expressions of agency within regional economic inequalities and national economic stagnation that have compelled a large number of families in these countries to rely on circular labour migration as a livelihood strategy. The temporary nature of labour migration based on short contracts in the Southeast Asian region means that children in migrant families have to cope with the transient goings and comings of one or both parents over their life course.…”

“…Despite their success in capitalising on advances in transportation that made geographical borders more permeable over time, the cross border strategies these mothers mobilised were embedded in existing power structures that divided those who belonged from those who did not and were therefore prone to being reactive and regressive (Chiu & Choi, ). Although the left‐behind children in the Philippines and Indonesia were adept in using telecommunication technology to maintain long‐distance contacts with migrant parents across international borders, the effectiveness of their actions to maintain a sense of familyhood across borders were nonetheless constrained by many factors ranging from inadequate telecommunication infrastructure to the cumulative emotional strain of prolonged parental absence (Lam & Yeoh, ). The productive and disruptive aspects of border crossings on children and their families are inextricably entwined.…”

Becoming mobile and growing up: A “generationed” perspective on borderland mobilities, youth, and the household

“…Understanding young people's lives from their own perspective is central to the childhood and youth studies literature (see also Lam & Yeoh, ). This standpoint grants children and youth the status of subjects, something that was denied in the socialisation and development psychology approaches that long dominated knowledge production about young people.…”