by Dr. Roderick Galam, Visiting Professor EASt/MSH & Senior Lecturer - Oxford Brookes University

In collaboration with AspirE (Asian Prospects in re/migration to/within the EU) research team at LAMC

Scholarship on Filipino seafaring labour migration has predominantly drawn on the experiences of those who have worked in international seafaring. This chapter shifts perspective by focusing on prospective ones whose experiences further clarify issues on the entry and integration of Filipino seafaring labour into the global maritime industry. It adopts a multi-scalar framework to examine the dynamics and relations that have enabled, and are shaping, Philippine seafaring labour migration, focusing on developments, decisions, and actions occurring at the global, regional, and national scales. Specifically, it explicates the links and intersections of these developments and actors and highlights how prospective seafarers are linked to, and shaped by, decisions and actions taken by actors located at other and different scales. This multi-scalar analysis reveals how prospective seafarers’ navigation of their environment, with the help of their social networks and family, enables their mobility both in terms of international migration and life-course transitions.

Roderick Galam is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law and Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University. His research interests are seafaring labour migration, migration and subjectification, migration and transitions to adulthood, and literature and social memory of the Marcos dictatorship. His current research deals with undocumented domestic migrant workers in the UK and the Netherlands, which is part of an international collaborative project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. His book "Women Who Stay: Seafaring and Subjectification in an Ilocos Town" (2018) was nominated for the 2019 Philippine National Book Awards (Social Sciences) while his "The Promise of the Nation: Gender, History, and Nationalism in Contemporary Ilokano Literature" (2008) was shortlisted for the Literary Criticism category of the same award in 2009. He has held visiting research scholar posts at University of Oxford, University of Bath, University of Sheffield, University of Hawaii Manoa, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin).

Tuesday 7 May 2024, from 12:00pm until 13:30pm.

Salle des Commissions
Université libre de Bruxelles - MSH - Building DE1 - Level 4
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1050 Brussels

Registration via QR code or here

Contact : asuncion.fresnoza@ulb.be