What happened to migrants when they were encouraged to seek opportunities across borders but then suddenly couldn't live a transnational life at will? Yasmin Ortiga's new book, Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration (Stanford University Press, 2025), examines how the Philippine state and its aspiring migrants negotiated the meaning of immobility amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ortiga's book compares the experiences of two groups of Filipino workers: nurses banned from leaving the country and cruise workers who returned home after COVID-19 shut down the cruise industry. She emphasizes the high stakes in telling the "right" story of immobility to a nation built around emigration—one that provides a compelling rationale for who deserves to move and who can be forced to stay.
In this online book forum hosted by IMISCOE's Standing Committee on Families, Welfare, Care and the Life Course, four migration scholars gather to discuss this important book. Yasmin Ortiga (Singapore Management University) will provide a brief overview of her pioneering work. Anju Paul (NYU Abu Dhabi), Kerilyn Schewel (UNC-Chapel Hill), and Ken Chih-Yan Sun (Villanova University) will discuss the book's contribution to migration studies and how to think about immobility and its implications for migrants and students of migration.
Date and time: 4 February, 15:00–16:30 Central European Time
Venue: Online via Zoom (see link below)
To attend, you must register in advance.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event on Zoom.