
Care Worker Activism with Professor Ethel Tungohan
11/06/23 • 25 min
Perspectives Journal chats with Broadbent Institute Policy Fellow Ethel Tungohan; Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism, and Professor of Politics at York University.
Her new book released late this summer is called Care Activism: Migrant Domestic Workers, Movement-Building and Communities of Care, published by University of Illinois Press.
Care Activism is about workers empowerment, and not in the traditional sense that most would think of through things like a labour union.
Care Activism challenges the stereotype of a downtrodden migrant caregivers by showing that care workers have distinct ways of caring for themselves, for each other, and for the larger transnational community of care workers and their families.
Professor Tungohan illuminates how the goals and desires of migrant care worker activists goes beyond political considerations like policy changes and overturning power structures.
From the militant activist marches in protest of policy change, to beauty pageants that challenges stereotypes with unique Filipino cultural camp and humour, while emboldening a sense of community, to the use of the Catholic church as an organizing and value-informing institution, Care Activism is a very rare look into an otherwise hidden part of the working-class.
You can read an excerpt of Care Activism at perspectivesjournal.ca
Other works referenced in this episode:
Beauty Regimes: A History of Power and Modern Empire in the Philippines, 1898–1941, by Genevieve Alva Clutario (Duke University Press, 2023), available here.
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, by Benedict Anderson (Verso, originally published 1983), available here.
If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, by Vincent Bevins (Public Affairs, 2023), available here.
Perspectives Journal chats with Broadbent Institute Policy Fellow Ethel Tungohan; Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism, and Professor of Politics at York University.
Her new book released late this summer is called Care Activism: Migrant Domestic Workers, Movement-Building and Communities of Care, published by University of Illinois Press.
Care Activism is about workers empowerment, and not in the traditional sense that most would think of through things like a labour union.
Care Activism challenges the stereotype of a downtrodden migrant caregivers by showing that care workers have distinct ways of caring for themselves, for each other, and for the larger transnational community of care workers and their families.
Professor Tungohan illuminates how the goals and desires of migrant care worker activists goes beyond political considerations like policy changes and overturning power structures.
From the militant activist marches in protest of policy change, to beauty pageants that challenges stereotypes with unique Filipino cultural camp and humour, while emboldening a sense of community, to the use of the Catholic church as an organizing and value-informing institution, Care Activism is a very rare look into an otherwise hidden part of the working-class.
You can read an excerpt of Care Activism at perspectivesjournal.ca
Other works referenced in this episode:
Beauty Regimes: A History of Power and Modern Empire in the Philippines, 1898–1941, by Genevieve Alva Clutario (Duke University Press, 2023), available here.
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, by Benedict Anderson (Verso, originally published 1983), available here.
If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, by Vincent Bevins (Public Affairs, 2023), available here.
Previous Episode

Pharmacare Showdown with MP Don Davies
At the federal New Democratic Party’s 2023 convention held October 13-15 in Hamilton, Ontario, party membership voted unanimously for the NDP to withdraw support of the Liberal government’s Confidence and Supply Agreement, holding the minority Parliament together, if they do not deliver on a universal, comprehensive public national Pharmacare program.
Pharmacare was one of the terms and conditions of the agreement, and would help to enable the further decommodification of healthcare in Canada, pushing back against privatization while eliminating major costs to Canada’s healthcare systems.
So after the vote, what’s next?
To dive deeper into what this means for Parliament, social democratic commentator and columnist Tom Parkin spoke to Don Davies, Member of Parliament for Vancouver–Kingsway and federal NDP health critic, for Perspectives Journal.
Next Episode

Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality with Ed Broadbent, Frances Abele, Jonathan Sas and Luke Savage
In this episode, we’ll take you to the book launch event of Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality, held on October 22nd, 2023 at the Toronto Reference Library featuring co-authors Ed Broadbent, Frances Abele, Jonathan Sas, and Luke Savage.
The quartet of authors take you behind the scenes of the book, explaining the impetus and political philosophies and principles that shape the chapters of Seeking Social Democracy that make it an unconventional take on the political biography.
Their discussion is then followed by a Q&A from the attendees of the event, where Ed elaborates on his ideas and principles that have defined his political life, and responds to today’s political questions on housing, human rights, internationalism under neoliberalism and the social democratic tradition.
You can watch the full event on the Broadbent Institute's YouTube Channel.
Order your copy of the book at seekingsocialdemocracy.ca
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