I am an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Bachelor of Media Communication 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).
My research interests include 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 in the context of ageing in a digital age as well as content creation in a postcolonial dimension.
My PhD research investigated the ways in which 21 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Melbourne, Australia, and their left-behind family members in the Philippines used mobile devices and networked communications platforms to forge ties and sustain long-distance relationships. I closely examined how mobile device use facilitated an array of communicative opportunities and challenges for the transnational Filipino family. The research study also located 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, it unpacked the different tactics deployed by dispersed family members to organise, embody and experience family life at a distance.
One of the major contributions of the study 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. I specifically pay 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.
I am currently investigating in 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.
Membership
(1) Honorary Visiting Fellow (2022 - 2025), Humanities Research Centre (HRC), Australian National University,
(2) Member, International Communication Association
(3) Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Cultural Studies.
(4) Editorial Board Member, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.
(5) Book Review Editor, Mobile Media and Communication
(6) Country Representative (Australia) (2022 - 2024), Asian Media Information and Communication Centre.
(7) Research affiliate, Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare), University of Jyväskylä, Finland
(8) Social Media Editor, Asian Journal of Communication. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
(9) Internal Member, Asian Media and Cultural Studies Network, Deakin University.
(10) Associate Editor, Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media and Society.
(11) Member, International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe (IMISCOE)
(12) Member, Global Mobilities Network.
(13) Editorial Board Member, Makiling Review
You can reach me via earvin.cabalquinto@monash.edu or ecabalquinto@gmail.com
Photo taken by Daniel Reeders during the AoIR 2019 Conference held in QUT, Brisbane.