Labor migrants’ self-empowerment via participation in a diasporic magazine: Filipinos at Manila-Tel Aviv

Abstract

This study delves into the motivations, symbolic rewards, and experiences of Filipinos involved in the creation of a magazine catering to the Filipino migrant workers’ community in Israel. Although practices of resistance are the prevailing framework within research about diasporic media, this paper offers another perspective of the construction of a subjugated minority’s sphericule. Power (or lack thereof) is not necessarily a basic force of motivation. Participation in cultural production is not perceived as a journalistic endeavor by Filipinos, but a rare and crucial opportunity to be heard, to have a voice, to win over coerced living circumstances of alienation, solitude, and hard work. In this context they are not ‘just the caregiver,’ but accomplished writers, winners of competitions, and recipients of respect. Empowerment is derived from pleasure; it is grounded in recreational gratifications and a sense of mission that have no political dimensions.