I am an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University.
I obtained my doctorate degree in Communications and Media studies from Monash University in 2016. My research expertise lies in the intersections of digital media, (im)mobilities and migration. My research study cuts across different disciplines, including new media, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology.
I have held Visiting Fellowship in the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom (2019) and in the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare) at University of Jyväskylä in Finland (2021). I was a Global Exchange Fellow in the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada (2024).
I have been regularly invited to comment in SBS Radio Filipino on the ways digital technologies and online channels shape the diasporic Filipino community in Australia. I have also been interviewed in CNN Philippines and Rappler to comment on topics relating to Philippine migrationa and digital media. My work has also build upon by creative artists to articulate the paradoxical dimension of digital media use in transnational family life. Furthermore, I have written op-eds in New Mandala, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Philippine Star, and so forth.
RESEARCH EXPERTISE
I consider myself as an interdisciplinary scholar whose expertise lies in the intersecting field of digital media, mobilities, migration, and ageing research. My research work has engaged with themes on transnational communication, mediated intimacies, caregiving at a distance, the digitalisation of public and private spaces, infrastructures of mediated mobilities, and the politics of networked communication. More recently, I have expanded my research work on interrogating digital inclusion and exclusion by examining the everyday digital media use of ageing migrants as well as migrant influencers brokering subjectivity, place, mobility, settlemenent, and the many layers of precarious living.
One of the major contributions of my research work is a critical re-examination of the conduct of transnational family life through mobile device use in the age of smartphones and mobile applications. Extending a critical mobilities lens by the late British Sociologist John Urry in the context of transnational media and communications, I consider my research study as a vantage point in theorising mediated mobilities in a transnational context. In my work, I locate the mobile practices of geographically separated Filipino family members in various contexts, including sustaining everyday interactions, connecting to the homeland, re-staging family celebrations, and addressing crises. Further, I unpack the different tactics deployed by dispersed family members to organise, embody and experience family life at a distance. Significantly, I specifically attention to the different, interconnected and asymmetrical infrastructures that engender and undermine technologically mediated mobilities in a mediated environment. This approach illuminates the paradoxical consequences of mobile device in shaping transnational family life. It has also stirred ways of unraveling the politics of mediated mobilties by emphasising the dimensions of communicative mobilities - access, technical competency, affective experience, rhythms, communicative space, and quality of connectivity. Overall, by critically examining the mobile device of geographically separated family members in reclaiming family life at a distance, I unveil how communicative possibilities and inequalities can be reinforced and negotiated in a networked and mobile society.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Building on this body of work, I have been awarded a highly prestigious Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship to investigate the ways ageing migrants experience and navigate the digital divide by the use and non-use of modern communication technologies, social media and mobile applications in their personal home settings. This project is design to interrogate digital inclusion and exclusion as experienced and navigated by (im)mobile subjects in an increasingly digitised world.
Interrogating the roots and causes of digital inclusion in the context of migration brokering, I am currently examining the ways interconnected migration brokers use modern communication technologies, online channels and mobile applications to inform, reproduce and manufacture aspirations and experiences of mobility, settlement and displacement among migrants in Australia. This work draws on my published work on digital brokering, content creation and precarious global labour as shaped by a neoliberal and postcolonial systems and conditions. Several publications are developed as part of this project. This project is funded through the 2023 Special Project Fund in the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University. The project has recently received funding through the 2024 Faculty of Arts Internal SEED Funding Scheme, Monash University. You can read my collaborative book on digital brokering, "Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube". I have also extended the digital brokering lens in a migration context, as shown in my recently published article Overseas Filipino migrants brokering counter narratives of overseas life on TikToK. You can also read the publication Influencers are just vain, where I engaged with other scholars on scrutinising the role of digital technologies in shaping content creation in a migration context.
I am working on the first Handbook of Filipino Diaspora with Dr Kristine Aquino of University of Technology Sydney and Associate Professor Valerie Francisco-Menchavez of San Francisco State University. This book pools together scholars examining the Filipino diasporic experiences in a range of contexts. It is under contract as part of the Asian Migration series of Routledge.
If you're interested to any of these projects, feel free to contact me at [email protected].
MEMBERSHIP
(1) Co-convenor, Migration and Mobility Research Network (MMRN), Monash University.
(2) Affiliate, Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre (MMIC), Monash University,
(3) Honorary Visiting Fellow (2022 - 2025), Humanities Research Centre (HRC), Australian National University,
(4) Member, Advisory Board Member of the Australian National University, Philippines Institute,
(5) Global Member, TikTok Cultures Research Network
(6) Member, Gender and Media Lab, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University.
(7) Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Cultural Studies.
(8) Editorial Board Member, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.
(9) Book Review Editor (2023 - 2025), Mobile Media and Communication
(10) Editorial Board Member, Journal of Global Ageing
(11) Country Representative (Australia) (2022 - 2024), Asian Media Information and Communication Centre.
(12) Research affiliate, Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare), University of Jyväskylä, Finland
(13) Associate Editor, Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media and Society.
(14) Member, Advisory Board, Philippine Communication Society (PCS) Review (2023- 2026)
(15) Member, Global Mobilities Network.
(16) Editorial Board Member, Makiling Review
You can reach me via [email protected] or [email protected]
Photo taken by Daniel Reeders during the AoIR 2019 Conference held in QUT, Brisbane.