Disrupted Mobilities

Since Japan reported its earliest case of COVID-19 on 16 January 2020, foreign residents in Japan had to grapple with the challenges brought about by the pandemic when it imposed travel bans and placed the country under state of emergencies (and quasi emergencies) in 2020 to 2021. Meanwhile, the Philippines during these times underwent one of the harshest lockdowns in the world, with the mobility of much of the population being curtailed, when it imposed its first lockdown order on 17 March 2020. Vaccines began to be administered in mid-2021 in both these countries, with most of the populations receiving vaccines, twice or thrice (some even four times). International travel resumed despite precautionary border and quarantine measures in late-2021, and in mid-2022, both countries eased quarantine measures. Currently, it is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, although some quarters remain vigilant as another one might occur again soon, especially with the emergence of new virus strains.

On the micro-level, families and individuals of both countries had to adjust their everyday lives as they were faced with numerous challenges such as lay-offs, business downturns, reduced economic and financial resources, as well as transformations in their daily routines and lifestyles spurred by the sudden shift to remote work and online schooling, where boundaries between work/school and home, public and private have been blurred. Of notable concern is also the pandemic’s effects on the migrants and non-citizens residing in both Japan and the Philippines. This volume examines the experiences and challenges of Filipinos in Japan and Japanese in the Philippines as they navigated through the impacts of the pandemic in their professional and personal lives. Utilizing various methodologies, such as ethnographies, autoethnographies, netnographies, interviews, and document analyses, the chapters in this volume offer a deeper comprehension of the transformation of migrant lives in a crisis such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of Filipinos residing in Japan falling under the category of mid to long-term residents and permanent residency status were ranked fourth among all foreign nationals. At the end of 2019, the Immigration Services of Japan identified 282,798 Filipino residents. This comprises 9.6% of the total foreign resident population and shows an increase of 4.2% the previous year.

Unlike the earlier wave of migrant workers, who started by working in the entertainment industry, the majority of these residents are represented in different sectors of the Japanese labor market. With years of experience, established networks and an enlarged circle of friends and families, the Filipino residents of Japan are firmly rooted in Japanese society. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged that stability.

This paper intends to provide a general picture of policies adopted by the Japanese government as measures to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affected its population of foreign residents. In response, how did the Filipino residents manage their respective situations? What had changed in their practices and behaviors? What were their coping mechanisms, and where did they find the help they needed?

In this chapter, I investigate the experiences of Filipino temporary migrants in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the concepts of absence, presence, and belonging. I examine how digital communication technologies mediate these migrants’ sense of social and political belonging in both their home country, the Philippines, and their host country, Japan. Drawing on Abdelmalek Sayad’s concept of “double absence,” I analyze how the pandemic redefined their physical and virtual presence. Through semi-structured interviews with 24 temporary Filipino migrants, I explore their perceptions of displacement, isolation, and connectivity during the crisis. My findings suggest that while digital platforms mitigate the trauma of absence by fostering a virtual presence, they also reveal the limitations of these technologies in fully replicating the emotional and social intimacy of face-to-face interactions. Moreover, the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing challenges related to language barriers, cultural integration, and mobility restrictions, further complicating their sense of belonging in Japan. Ultimately, I contribute to the growing body of literature on migration and the pandemic, offering insights into how the digital age reshapes migrants’ experiences of absence, presence, and transnational belonging.

The community quarantines against COVID-19 in the Philippines, which began in March 2020, are considered some of the most stringent pandemic restrictions in the world. They have severely affected the Japanese community in the country, with the population of Japanese expatriates in the Philippines decreasing from 17,753 in 2019 to 15,728 in 2021, as per residency reports to the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines. During this period, what happened to the Japanese community and how were the Japanese nationals affected under the hard lockdowns? This is the research question that this paper attempts to find answers to. This simple question has hardly been answered in the existing studies in the field of social sciences, which renders this descriptive study valuable. Also, this study sheds light on the vulnerability of an overseas Japanese community through the description of their problems that emerged during the crisis, thereby providing fundamental information for the examination of policy challenges that both the Japanese and Philippine governments face.

The scope of this study is limited to the Japanese community in the Philippines. This paper describes the primary difficulties that Japanese nationals have confronted during the pandemic in qualitative and quantitative ways. In particular, this paper focuses on four kinds of difficulties: (1) the inability of Japanese students to return to Japan or to re-enter the Philippines after temporarily leaving, (2) the hardships of new employees at Japanese-affiliated companies in the Philippines in entering the country, (3) the financial difficulties and bankruptcy of Japanese-affiliated enterprises, and (4) the lack of access to Japanese-approved COVID-19 vaccines for Japanese residents.

During the coronavirus pandemic, physical mobility and the location of people in relation to others were extremely scrutinized and regulated. As well, pre-existing conditions of physical dispersion intensified; leaving family members with feelings of disorientation, disconnection and, in some cases, despair. Consequently, several questions regarding the sustainability of relationships maintained across geographical spaces become necessary. Under conditions of continual travel restrictions, lockdowns and other strict public management of physical mobility, how can Filipino transnational families recapture and sustain a semblance of normality and connected co-presence? Are online platforms and various other communication media enough to keep family connections active and thriving across time and space?

Based on findings from an ongoing ethnographic study, in this paper, I elaborate how these families craft and utilize sophisticated ways of exchanging care through ICTs, notwithstanding the arduous emotional and technical labour family members perform. This paper engages with issues regarding the virtual (re)construction of temporal and spatial intimacy and the attendant challenges involved. The paper also examines how Filipino transnational family life is embedded in complex systems of migration, mobilities and socially-constructed demands. By interrogating these issues, I hope to further the discourse surrounding whether and how ICTs facilitate new and potent forms of intimacy, affection and virtual kinship, even in turbulent times.

This chapter examines the experiences of Japanese husbands of Filipino nationals residing in the Philippines to understand how their educational beliefs are constructed. Studying educational beliefs allows us to reveal the framework of identity transformation across generations. Past studies, however, have predominantly focused on the mothers’ perspectives and left fathers’ stories unstudied, especially in intermarriages. In this chapter, the researcher interviewed Japanese marriage migrants between 2017–2021 to understand how educational beliefs are re/constructed through the complicated process of migration to and settlement in the Philippines amid the pandemic.

In initial interviews in 2017, the following aspects of the paternal practice were identified: (1) fathers are in constant conflict between traditional gender roles and modern parenting discourses; (2) parenting includes being responsible for teaching Japanese to their children; (3) sending children to the Japanese school in Manila was recognized as raising them as Japanese, while choosing local (private) schools or international schools was understood as preparing them to function on a global stage through education in English with the possibility of further migration to a third country; and (4) most fathers show tolerance towards deviation from Filipino or Japanese standard education models as if their migration and intermarriage experiences were stepping stones to becoming more accepting and flexible about education.

The results of the second interview in 2021 revealed that while children’s education remains one of the most critical issues, they are asked whether their lives are financially sustainable and feel safe in the community in the Philippines; neither question was considered seriously before the pandemic. Either way, they are in a position to choose the place to live, and they see it as their advantage. Financial instability and changing business environment amid the pandemic made them think about priorities in their lives. Parents were still struggling to determine the best strategy for their children. Some are affluent enough to maintain life and delay the decision to change. They save money by relocating and changing schools for lesser tuition and endure the difficulty. Their preference to live in the Philippines was motivated by the idea of using the Philippines as a gateway for gaining global experience for themselves and their children. In contrast, others were forced to leave the country and migrate to Japan because their business “dried out.” Sex differences were not observed in this respect. The Japanese mothers were in the same situation. They were the primary parents in terms of family income and suffered as much.

This qualitative research examines the experiences of Filipino immigrant women in Tokyo dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and accessing social protection during the pandemic. It illustrates the dualistic, transnational tendency of their social citizenship: “denizen here, full citizen there”. As denizens, Filipinas benefit from and contribute to Japan’s social protection through sustaining familial support, engaging with residential communities, and relying on one’s livelihood to limit reliance on state support. At the same time, fulfilling social obligations during crisis has kept them bound to homeland Philippines.

The chapter underscores that Japan’s social protection in the recent pandemic should frame migrant women beyond being passive dependents. While the global crisis has deepened prevailing inequalities among migrant women, it has also created opportunities for some of them to become active social citizens. This study imparts insights into the significance of transnational social protection in negotiating the limits of host and home states’ welfare systems and ensuring Filipinas’ wellbeing beyond the pandemic times.

This chapter investigates the everyday lives and experiences of Filipino students in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on findings from a survey questionnaire administered in late October 2020 and two focus group discussions done in November 2020, this study examines how the early stages of the pandemic affected these students as they navigated disruptions that occurred as consequence of travel bans, lockdowns, and states of emergency, among others. This chapter focuses on Filipino students’ lives during the time the pandemic affected Japan in February 2020 up to the end of 2020.

This chapter also explores how thinking in terms of mobilities and immobilities can shed light on the everyday lives of migrants and non-citizens in a time of a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It looks at how the interplay of mobility and immobility is linked and how other forms of mobility play a role in understanding human lives affected by this global health crisis. This chapter situates these students’ everyday lives and practices during the pandemic in the context of national and global processes that have been largely affected by the new realities that emerged out of it.

This chapter explores how Filipino migrant entrepreneurs in Japan who were affected by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic appropriated social and technological resources to mitigate its effects. We observed how these migrants utilized Facebook’s technological features to sell various products to Filipinos in Japan, the Philippines, and abroad as an alternative source of income before and during the pandemic. Using data from in-depth interviews with six Filipino migrant entrepreneurs based in Japan, this study shows how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as social media, have influenced the establishment and maintenance of Filipino migrant businesses in Japan. In this chapter , we argue that (1) the socio-historical background of Filipino migrants in Japan has influenced their entrepreneurial aspirations, the nature of their businesses, and how they have capitalized on their ethnic and cultural identity; (2) the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both offline and online businesses, pushing entrepreneurs to increase their social media presence, and lastly; (3) the technological affordances of social media has allowed Filipino migrant entrepreneurs not only to mitigate but take advantage of the situation caused by the pandemic. Their innovative practices accentuate the role of ICTs in breaking spatial, social, and temporal boundaries—illustrating how migrants utilize such technology to create alternative spaces, opportunities, and identities. Our study indicates that by becoming social media entrepreneurs, migrants can break free from their traditional migrant identities. Therefore, Japan must work towards lessening institutional and social barriers to encourage more migrant businesses.

This chapter aims to revisit the crucial issues related to the implementation of the Japan—Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) which since 2009, has facilitated the deployment of 15 batches of nurses and careworkers. This chapter reviews JPEPA from both the policy side and the narratives of Filipino careworkers in Japan, particularly: (1) the JPEPA provisions and its actual implementation - from recruitment, pre-departure training, to actual deployment and training/residence in Japan-, and, (2) the issues and concerns related to the welfare, health, safety, and protection of Filipino careworkers. Ultimately, the paper highlights the emerging challenges in the context of the pandemic and post-pandemic environment. One important concern is the question of migrant protection, not only in terms of their work conditions and environment but also the contingencies during health crisis, sickness, accidents, or repatriation.

Recent scholarly works on Filipino English language teachers in Japan range from topics on Assistant Language Teachers or ALTs, an organization supporting Filipino English language teachers, Filipino female English teachers in the tertiary level, being an outsider teacher, with recurring themes on native speakerism. However, to date, there is only one study on ALTs’ well-being during COVID-19-related school closures. This chapter aims to contribute to this literature by introducing several themes from broader research on the professional identities of two Filipino migrants teaching English in Japan. It reveals their migrant experiences during the pandemic, relating to issues of gender, race, and identity. Through a duoethnographic research approach, this study highlights how positionality leads to multiple experiences and perspectives of the pandemic. The authors, who do not have linguistic educational backgrounds, engage in a dialogue by revealing their professional experiences as researchers and English language teachers. Through an intersectional lens, this chapter delves into the authors’ reflections during COVID-19; it shows how their migration pathways intersect or are parallel with the trajectories of other teachers in Japan.