Maalwang Buhay: Family, Overseas Migration, and Cultures of Relatedness in Barangay Paraiso
by Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. with John Estanley Z. Peñalosa, Tania Belen T. Liwanag, Resto S. Cruz I, and Jimmy M. Melendrez

The book is based on intensive ethnographic research in an upland village in Batangas Province, identified in the book as Barangay Paraiso. It brings to light a wide range of aspects of the everyday life of the migrants in the village, their families and their community, and gives a nuanced perspective of the migration phenomenon.

From interviews, discussions and research, the book presents and reflects on the respondents’ views and experiences regarding courtship and marriage, conjugal togetherness, transnational parenting, house construction, investments, and caregiving and education of children, all from the perspective of kinship as cultures of relatedness. The book shows, according to Professor Daniel Miller, “how such an anthropological focus upon kinship can become integrated with a development perspective providing a far more satisfactory and scholarly understanding of these events.”

About the Author

Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. is professor in the Department of History, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University, and editor of Philippine Studies. A member of the Philippine Migration Research Network, he was president of the International Association of Historians of Asia (2005–2006) and chair of the Philippine Social Science Council (2006–2008). He studied at the Ateneo de Naga High School, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Wales, and Cornell University. For a total of ten years he taught at James Cook University in Australia and at the National University of Singapore before repatriating to the Philippines in 2003. He is the author of Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (1998) and editor of Filipinos in Global Migrations: At Home in the World? (2002).