Transnational Practices and Migrant Capital: The Case of Filipino Women in Iceland

Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir
Additional contact information
Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir: Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland, Iceland

Social Inclusion, 2019, vol. 7, issue 4, 211-220

Abstract: Filipinos have been moving to Iceland in increasing numbers since the 1990s, primarily for employment opportunities and to reunite with relatives. They are the third largest group of immigrants in Iceland and the largest group from Asia. The majority of them work in low-income jobs in the service and production sectors where they do not utilize their education. Many arrived with the help of relatives already living in Iceland. Based on multi-sited ethnographic research, this article examines the diverse mobilization of migrant capital in Iceland and in the Philippines. The analysis draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and transnational theories to highlight how Filipinos draw on formal and informal resources in Iceland and their transnational social field in mobilizing their capital. Their extended kin groups in Iceland and networks back in the Philippines are important in building migrant capital in Iceland and in the Philippines. The study shows that this mobilization is not only affected by structural factors in Iceland, such as racialization, but also by economic position and cultural capital in the Philippines.

Keywords: Bourdieu; Filipinos; Iceland; migrant capital; social capital; transnationalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/2320 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v7:y:2019:i:4:p:211-220

DOI: 10.17645/si.v7i4.2320

Access Statistics for this article

Social Inclusion is currently edited by Mariana Pires

More articles in Social Inclusion from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().