The Balikbayan Researcher

Abstract

This article examines the power dynamics of doing fieldwork in a politicized and contentious setting of the Philippines’ labor recruitment industry as a Balikbayan, a returning migrant whose privileged position creates a source of vulnerability in the field. I describe and problematize the acceptable positions I negotiated with labor brokers as a sympathetic “outsider-within” and a culturally competent Filipina American. I argue that doing research in communities of individuals with whom researchers share a common racial or ethnic identity intensifies the nature of such vulnerability because field membership is tied to notions of cultural loyalty and allegiance.