Abstract
Return migration literature over the years has developed a strand of work that focuses on the reintegration of migrants in their home countries. In labor migration, this scholarship has largely centered on the long-term and sustainable return and reintegration of migrant workers, and their potential contributions to local development. In comparison, the question of temporary reintegration has received far less attention, yet is an important avenue for extending current understandings of the complex processes of return and reintegration in international labor migration. This article contributes to this inquiry by considering how temporary reintegration unfolds at the intersection of involuntary return and immobility in the lives of migrant workers. Drawing on the narratives of 45 Filipino cruise workers who were repatriated to the Philippines and were unable to sail during the COVID-19 pandemic, I suggest that temporary reintegration can be understood as a grey window of return—a liminal process in which labor migrants re-work the temporality of their involuntary return and immobility in their home countries as they pursue opportunities for re-migration. I analyze how the landlocked seafarers temporarily re-embedded themselves in the home country by creating provisional, in-the-meantime lives to cope with the pandemic, while positioning themselves in “active waiting” in order to accelerate possibilities for re-migration. The analysis shows the different ways migrants exercise agency and resource mobilization in confronting their involuntary return, negotiating their immobility and re-working their aspirations and intentions to leave amid the structural constraints of a global crisis.
Introduction
Return migration, once the “unwritten chapter” in migration history (King 2000), has become an established area of scholarship that investigates what happens when migrants move back to their countries of origin (King and Christou 2011; King and Kuschminder 2022). Within this field is a developing body of work on reintegration, which is often “the story of what happens next” after a migrant's return (Kuschminder 2017, 2) and points to a returnee's “re-inclusion” or “re-incorporation into the country of origin” (International Organization for Migration [IOM] 2011). Cassarino (2014) notably defines the term as a process in which return migrants “take part in the social, economic, cultural and political life of their countries of origin” (164). Migration scholarship on reintegration has grown to include the study of definitions, institutional and policy discourses, and the individual and structural conditions that shape this form of return (Battistella 2018; Cassarino 2008; Hagan and Wassink 2021). Yet, reintegration research has largely leaned toward the long-term or permanent return of migrants to origin countries and their potential contributions to local development (Ruben, van Houte, and Davids 2009; Vathi, King, and Kalir 2023). There has been relatively less consideration for how reintegration can also become a short-term or momentary stage in migration journeys. Just as research has shown that diverse trajectories of return can emerge across migrant categories (e.g., Kleist 2020)—it is also important to examine how reintegration can unfold in different ways across space and time. In particular, the temporariness of reintegration merits consideration given that return is not always the final stage in a migrant's journey, and can be one point in a “continuing itinerary with further movements ahead” (Ley and Kobayashi 2005, 113).
This article examines temporary reintegration in the context of international labor migration, in which many migrant workers take on contractual, short-term labor in various host countries. It considers how reintegration can also be understood as a momentary, temporary phase in migration journeys, drawing inspiration from recent discourses on the temporariness of return (Kuschminder 2022; Triandafyllidou 2022). In temporary labor migration, scholars have written about reintegration in relation to migrants who return to their home countries following completed contracts or migration projects; or in cases of distress and discontinued or terminated contracts, precipitating deportation or repatriation (such as in the case of migrant domestic workers, e.g., Parreñas 2020; Spitzer and Piper 2014). Despite these developments, there has been insufficient, focused attention toward the temporariness of reintegration as it unfolds the lived experiences of return migrant workers. Moreover, there has been limited scholarship on how reintegration happens in overlapping situations of involuntary return (with some exceptions; see Mensah 2016) and involuntary immobility (Martin and Bergmann 2021; see Carling 2002). Crises that have impacted migrant workers, such as political conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies, have led to forced and unintended returns, discontinued migration projects and uncertain prospects for mobility (Liao 2020), raising important questions on how involuntary return during disruptions also shapes the reintegration process. What happens when migrant workers are ensnared in an immobilizing net, caught in between their involuntary, unintended return and their ongoing life as workers on the move? As migrants simultaneously confront their immobility and their aspirations to move, how might such situations shape the temporariness of their return and reintegration back home, and the possibilities of re-migration?
Drawing from 45 interviews with Filipino cruise workers who were repatriated or were unable to sail during the COVID-19 pandemic, the article examines migrant workers’ lived experiences of temporary reintegration against the backdrop of a migration disruption (Bylander 2018). I consider temporary reintegration as a “grey window of return”—a liminal process in which migrant returnees confront, negotiate or re-work their circumstances in periods of involuntary return and immobility. While recognizing the structural impacts of the pandemic, the article focuses on migrant narratives to analyze how the cruise workers temporarily re-embedded themselves in the home country by creating provisional, in-the-meantime lives to cope with the crisis, while positioning themselves in active waiting in order to accelerate possibilities for re-migration. The micro-level analysis foregrounds the different ways migrants exercised agency and resource mobilization in responding to their involuntary return, in negotiating their immobility and in re-working their aspirations and intentions to leave amid the structural constraints of a global crisis. The study complements research on the institutional and structural dimensions of reintegration, by drawing upon migrants’ reintegration experiences in shifting and uncertain mobilities, in ways that may not always reflect dominant discourses of return migration policies and sustainable development (Ruben, van Houte, and Davids 2009; Vathi, King, and Kalir 2023), but can also speak back to them.
In the succeeding sections, I review relevant literature on involuntary return and reintegration and discuss the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with focus on the experiences of Filipino migrant workers in the cruise line industry, one of the hardest-hit sectors especially at the onset of the crisis (Asis 2022). Following an overview of data and methods, I analyze temporary reintegration in relation to the narratives of Filipino cruise workers, focusing on two themes—first, how they crafted provisional, in-the-meantime lives in their home communities to cope with their involuntary return and immobility; and second, how they exercised “active waiting” in their pursuit of their aspirations to re-migrate. A third section considers the costs and losses brought about by the crisis, and how these have also impacted the migrant workers’ migration plans. I conclude with reflections on how the notion of temporary reintegration furthers our understanding of the complex processes of return across space and time and in uncertain im/mobilities.
Involuntary Return, Immobility and Temporary Reintegration
Migration scholars have written about the meanings of “return migration” across historical, social and political contexts (King and Kuschminder 2022), and is often defined as “the process whereby people return to their country or region of origin after a significant period abroad or in another region” (King 2000). Earlier work investigated the individual factors that shape return motivations (Cassarino 2004; Mensah 2016; Van Houte, Siegel, and Davids 2016) and the diversity of migrant returns across the spectrum of in/voluntariness and in periods of temporary or permanent settlement (Erdal and Oeppen 2018; Kuschminder 2017). In particular, researchers have increasingly paid attention to the sub-area of “reintegration,” which broadly points to the adaptation and readjustment of returnees in the home country, often with emphasis on employment, livelihood and psycho-social well-being (Gmelch 1980; Majidi et al. 2023). Contributions cover a range of themes (Vathi, King, and Kalir 2023), including migrant entrepreneurship (Riaño 2023; Spitzer 2016), labor market re-entry (Wassink and Hagan 2022), and return support programs by state and non-state actors (Majidi et al. 2023; Monti and Serrano 2022; Serra-Mingot and Rudolf 2023; Van Houte and Davids 2008).
Reintegration research has largely delved into the structural dimensions that shape migrant return and reintegration. Ruben, van Houte, and Davids (2009), for example, argue that return migration is a process of “mixed embeddedness,” which can only be sustainable when there are opportunities to be socially, economically and psycho-socially “re-embedded” in the home country. Kuschminder's (2017) research suggests that migrants’ reintegration strategies are shaped by cultural orientation, social networks, and access to rights, institutions and the labor market; and more broadly, how structural and cultural conditions of return can “affect the ability of any individual to reintegrate” (11). Kandilige and Adiku (2020) build on Cassarino's (2014) idea of return preparedness to assert that the successful return of migrants is contingent on the home country's “institutional preparedness.” In both academic and policy research, mainstream approaches have focused on reintegration as a long-term process toward permanent settlement, often tied to returnees’ completed migration projects and their potential contributions to sustainable development (Ruben, van Houte, and Davids 2009; Vathi, King, and Kalir 2023).
Yet, reintegration can be experienced differently by migrants (Kuschminder 2017; Monti and Serrano 2022; Riaño 2023; Serra-Mingot and Rudolf 2023; Van Houte and Davids 2008), including in situations of involuntary, unintended or unexpected returns. Kleist's work (2020), for instance, shows how involuntary return can lead to precariousness, re-migration or socio-economic reintegration. Research on migrant workers who returned prematurely due to crises have emphasised their struggles in in reintegrating back home (Kandilige and Adiku 2020; Spitzer and Piper 2014). Mensah (2016) argues that the involuntary return of migrants to Ghana following the 2011 Libyan crisis also led to their involuntary reintegration, marked by unpreparedness and unfavorable local conditions. Second, studies suggest that return for migrant workers can also be temporary, as in the case of migrant domestic workers (e.g., McKay 2005; Parreñas 2020), though often in relation to failed return projects that later push them to re-migrate. Building on these works, this article considers in particular how reintegration can be experienced as a temporary process in contexts of involuntary return (Mensah 2016)
I suggest the idea of “temporary reintegration” as an analytical lens that illuminates the overlooked situations in which reintegration becomes a momentary phase for migrants, rather than an ideal end goal. It can be construed as a “grey window” of return, a liminal phase in which migrants momentarily reintegrate in their home countries for an uncertain period of time in situations of involuntary, unintended return and immobility. Cwerner (2001) suggests that one way of understanding temporality in migration is by considering times of liminality—an ambiguous process, a threshold of transition, or a state of being in-between (Turner 1969)—which also applies to uncertain moments that mark migration experiences. The “grey window” denotes a liminal period in which migrants return to their home country with ambiguous, transitional or uncertain positions, from their socio-economic location as labor subjects to their socio-cultural roles in their home communities.
The emphasis of reintegration's temporariness also follows migration scholars’ heightened attention toward time and temporality (Cwerner 2001; Wang, 2020). In return migration, temporariness can be understood as a policy category that points to the political controls (e.g., citizenship, legal status) that define temporary migration for different groups of migrants; and as a category of practice that emphasizes migrants’ agency in return movement, through decision-making, imaginaries and intentions (Triandafyllidou 2022). While temporary reintegration is broadly speaking a process of post-return, it is explored here as a category of practice (Triandafyllidou 2022) and as a subjective, lived experience in temporality (Wang, 2020). Temporary reintegration is also shaped by migrants’ agency and aspirations (Kuschminder 2022, 2017), including intentions and motivations to leave. While recognizing the importance of institutional and structural dimensions to reintegration (Kandilige and Adiku 2020), a micro-level approach that focuses on migrant perspectives illuminates returnees’ agency, lived experiences and reflections as they confront their involuntary return and the uncertain timings and durations of their immobility at home (Van Houte, Siegel, and Davids 2016). Migrant agency attends how migrants negotiate forms of migration control and state governance (Mainwaring 2016)—in the context of involuntary return and immobility, this can also manifest in the different actions and strategies through which migrants negotiate their uncertain positions in spaces of return and navigate possibilities to move again.
Focusing on migrant narratives also sheds light on how returnees re-work their aspirations for re-migration in the process, even as they are in a state of liminality and uncertainty at home. In reintegration literature, the socio-economic inclusion of migrant returnees is predominantly foregrounded. In this article, I analyze temporary reintegration by drawing upon the narratives of Filipino cruise workers who were repatriated or were unable to sail during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the socio-economic aspects of their return, particularly their employment, livelihoods, and resource strategies. International labor migration features contractual labor cycles in which foreign workers take on temporary jobs in host countries under guest worker regimes that accord them limited rights to stay (Piper 2022), suggesting a degree of permanent temporariness (Triandafyllidou 2022). Temporary migrant workers also include seafarers and maritime laborers, who spend months at sea on cruise ships and cargo vessels according to industry rules that regulate their work periods at sea. The COVID-19 pandemic is an ideal case for analysis, as it presents a context of crisis-induced immobilization in which temporary migrant workers who were forced to return home or remain in place amid border closures and industry shutdowns, with limited access to assistance (Martin and Bergmann 2021; Triandafyllidou and Yeoh 2023).
I particularly highlight two aspects of temporary reintegration. First, I consider how migrants responded to their involuntary return and immobility. Cassarino (2008, 2014) developed the idea of resource mobilization in relation to return preparedness, which refers to migrants’ willingness and readiness to return, and whether they have the capacity and resources (e.g., financial capital, knowledge and skills, social networks) to do so. Migrants, however, also go through incomplete and interrupted migration cycles (Cassarino 2014) and those forced to return can be less prepared for reintegration. In this article, I consider how pandemic-affected migrants mobilized their resources to temporarily re-establish themselves back home, and to craft provisional lives in a liminal situation. Second, I also consider how temporary reintegration involves a form of “active waiting.” Researchers have developed conceptualisations of waiting in the study of im/mobility as a process that is not static, stagnant, or only structurally controlled, but can also be potentially intentional and strategic (Conlon 2011). Waiting can be an active process and practice, in which actions, strategies, and routines are enacted in place to create a sense of predictability despite conditions of uncertainty (Gil Everaert 2021). In the case of migrant workers, I consider how waiting also takes place as they confront their involuntary return and immobility against their migration aspirations and intentions.
Pandemic-Induced Returns in the Philippines
The Philippines has become a prominent case for studying migrant-sending states and the production of migrant workers for overseas labor. Thousands of Filipino migrant workers—also called overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)—are deployed annually abroad, many of them driven by the search for a better life and to provide for their families back home. Temporary labor migrants from the Philippines take on a series of contractual jobs overseas, a pattern indicative of the lack of economic opportunities at home and relatively lower wages and fewer benefits in the home country (Asis 2017; Parreñas 2020). OFWs include diverse groups of laborers across different skill categories—from nurses and other health care workers, to seafarers, engineers, scientists and teachers, to domestic workers and manual laborers in construction and manufacturing. The Philippines as a labor-brokerage state has approached migrant labor export as a development strategy for channeling remittances and other capital and resource transfers back home (Rodriguez 2010). Since the introduction of the state's labor export program in the 1970s, the government has introduced over the years a series of structural and policy changes that has led to the institutionalization of labor migration in the country. The labor export system has grown to include multiple migration-related state agencies, recruitment and manning agencies, and other actors which facilitate the large outflows of temporary migrant workers to various destinations, especially in Asia and the Middle East. Through state actors and the involvement of non-state actors, the Philippines has for a long time governed the migration process for migrant workers at all key stages, from recruitment to pre-departure training up to the deployment and eventual return and reintegration of the migrant. As the deployment of Filipino migrant workers grew over the years, so did several cases of abuse and exploitation that revealed the precarious conditions many low-wage OFWs face abroad. Over time, the Philippines’ labor migration system increasingly incorporated protection and welfare policies for migrant workers, including return and reintegration programs (Liao 2023, 2024). These reintegration programs aimed to provide livelihood support, skills training, and other opportunities to encourage migrant returnees to stay in the Philippines. However, these reintegration policies remain the weakest link in an export-oriented migration system, fraught with challenges and limitations (Go 2012; Saguin 2020). Researchers have also critiqued state discourses of returnees as entrepreneurial actors and have argued that reintegration is challenged by socio-economic conditions and the limited effectiveness of government reintegration programs (Kandilige and Adiku 2020; Spitzer 2016; Spitzer and Piper 2015).
The Philippines has seen a history of large-scale disruptions that have impacted the deployment of OFWs and triggered their involuntary returns (Liao 2020). COVID-19, in particular, unveiled challenges in Philippine migration governance, especially in the repatriation of migrant workers (Asis 2020). In March 2020, the World Health Organization officially announced the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting border closures and travel restrictions as infections spread worldwide. The global shutdown led to the displacement and strandedness of migrant workers, many of whom lost their jobs and were forced to return home. Others remained in host countries, stranded as they awaited repatriation or while they lived on their savings, hoping they would be able to resume their jobs or find alternative employment. In the Philippines, the mass repatriation of OFWs called attention not only to the sending country's reliance on labor export, but also the limits of the state's institutional preparedness (Kandilige and Adiku 2020) as it faced challenges in bringing migrant workers home in a pandemic (Asis 2020; Liao 2020). In 2020 alone, the Philippines repatriated an estimated 327,000 Filipino migrant workers, many of whom were seafarers working on cruise ships that sailed along the waters of Europe, North America, and Asia (The Philippine Star, 4 January 2021). The government's migration and health-related agencies, as well as manning and recruitment agencies which are mandated by state procedures to bring the migrant workers home, facilitated procedures for return and arrival, as well as quarantine and testing. State emergency funds covered the flights of irregular or undocumented migrant workers and other Filipino nationals. The government also enforced a pandemic response at home, which also controlled the mobility of returnees, who were required to undergo quarantine upon their arrival in Metro Manila. 1 However, the repatriation effort was also tested by the volume of returns, the congestion of travelers upon arrival and during quarantine, and the question of reintegration assistance for returnees (Liao 2020).
The world has already lived with COVID-19 for some years now. Borders have re-opened, travel restrictions have eased and labor migration cycles have resumed. Yet, the pandemic remains a relevant case for further investigating the impact of crises on migrant workers, apart from cases like conflict and global economic crises (Liao 2020). It serves as a backdrop for understanding how return and reintegration can turn out in different ways (Monti and Serrano 2022), and as this article shows, in the case of crisis-affected migrants forced to return to and stay in the home country.
Methods
This article is based on a larger research study that investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the Philippines’ labor export system (
The 45 Filipino cruise workers (20 female, 25 male) interviewed for this study were mostly in their late 20s or 30s—the youngest was aged 23, and the two oldest participants were in their 50s. Almost half of the participants were married or partnered, and two others were separated; several were single, while others left their civil status unstated. About 17 of the participants had one or two children, except for two participants who had five and three, respectively; the other participants did not have children, or did not state if they had any. The participants come from various locations in the Philippines, many of them from Metro Manila or in nearby provinces in Northern Luzon, and a few from other provinces. During the pandemic, many of them lived at home with their parents and siblings, or with their spouses or partners and children.
Of the total, 31 were repatriated to the Philippines by their respective companies and manning agencies and 14 were unable to sail during the early months of the pandemic. Before the crisis, they worked for major cruise lines in Europe, North America and Asia, and in different departments—in bars, restaurants and the kitchens, in housekeeping, galley and hotel cabins, in the casinos, entertainment and youth activities, and in photography services. Their positions ranged from bartenders to waiters, to personnel in housekeeping and kitchens, to performing artists and entertainment staff, and to those working in photography services and youth-oriented activities. Of the total, around 30 had college degrees (including two with master's degrees), mostly in hotel and restaurant management, and some in commerce or business, the arts, and in marine transportation. Others had completed high school and/or obtained diplomas and certifications in culinary training and vocational skills. In terms of job contracts, the cruise workers have worked overseas in different durations, though many of them have been in the cruise industry since the 2000s. Together, the average number of years they worked in the industry was seven—the shortest periods were a year or less, and the longest period was 28 years. Of the total, 12 have worked in the industry for at least 10 years, and about 23 have worked for two to five years.
Provisional Lives at Home
The pandemic's hit on the cruise industry forced tens and thousands of workers to return home especially in the first year of the global crisis (Liao 2020). Many of the interviewees endured a long, tense and tiring journey, witnessing changing conditions and social distancing measures on cruise ships as the pandemic unfolded. Some were able to disembark from the ship and fly home shortly; others waited longer for their repatriation by flight, or by sea. Many of them shared how the pandemic triggered their anxiety over their future, while others opened up about the loss of loved ones. Eli, a performing artist, had been at sea when his father died of COVID-19, and he dealt with his grief alone within the confines of his cabin. By the time he was able to return home, his father had already been cremated. In the Philippines, the pandemic precipitated nationwide lockdowns, in which the government controlled people's mobility across internal borders and access to health infrastructure. The repatriated cruise workers underwent quarantine and returned home, where they reunited with their families and established daily routines to somehow reintegrate, by creating a sense of predictability despite the uncertainty (Gil Everaert 2021). 3
The global crisis had disrupted the Filipino cruise workers’ ongoing migration projects. They chose seafaring for similar reasons—the higher pay, the opportunity to travel, and to chance to fulfill financial goals.
4
Their job loss and involuntary return brought feelings of disappointment and worry over the future. As one cruise worker shares: “I really loved working [on] the cruise ship… Then it suddenly stopped… It's like, ‘Okay, what happened? What do I have to do now?’ It's the first time in my life that I would say I did not have a fallback.”
The cruise workers thought about their families’ health and economic stability, as most of them were either contributing to their parents’ household finances, or had they had spouses or partners and children to support. Rufino, for instance, worried that he did not have a source of income after being repatriated, as he was supporting both his family in the province and relatives in Manila.
Their involuntary return grew even more worrisome as they confronted their involuntary immobility at home. The global crisis compounded their immobilization, in which they could not leave even if they wanted to. The cruise workers found themselves stuck in joblessness and in “limbo.” For the most part, cruise companies and manning agencies worked to repatriate Filipino workers according to guidelines from the Philippine government (Asis 2020; Liao 2020). However, with matters of compensation and assistance, there were some differences with how cruise companies responded to the crisis. Some cruise workers were told they would receive their basic pay but with no commissions; for others, they either received reduced or severance pay. Meanwhile, others were grateful that they received one-time financial assistance. One interviewee spoke about his company's “hardship fund,” in which each worker received USD500 (a second round of distribution followed later). However, others did not have the same experience—one participant had issues with their manning agency because of conflicting announcements regarding their compensation and which cruise workers would be prioritized for re-deployment.
The cruise workers also sought assistance from what turned out to be limited, slow-moving government support. As repatriated Filipino migrant workers increasingly arrived in the Philippines, the government announced the disbursement of PHP10,000 (about USD200) for each returnee (Patinio 2021). But for many of the interviewees, the cash assistance was far from “immediate.” Some waited for three to five months, even nearly a year, before they received the cash assistance, and a few were told at one point that they would have to wait longer as the government had run out of funds. One cruise worker only received his cash assistance some nine months later—by then, he had already spent months jobless. A few participants mentioned receiving money from the state's social security system upon applying for unemployment benefits, but not all were successful, and were told their contributions were not yet enough to meet the required criteria. The government announced reintegration programs, such as entrepreneurial loan and livelihood support schemes (Baclig 2021). But many of the returnees viewed these application procedures as time-consuming and tedious with the documentary requirements, with little assurance of success. They needed fast-moving support services and low-risk sources of income.
The cruise workers thus relied on their own resources to create provisional lives at home. “We can’t just… just [be] sitting around and waiting for the blessing to fall into our hands,” Joyce says. “I am already at an age that I can support myself. Having to ask for money from [my parents] again is something I don’t want to do.” Losing one's job abroad was not a reason to stay idle in a state of immobility, and Joyce's reflection suggests a desire to negotiate her “limbo status.” This meant redefining the terms of one's involuntary return and immobility, from being immobile and unemployed, to becoming a self-sufficient, stable returnee in a period of ambiguity and uncertainty.
Most of the cruise workers explored economic ventures in order to negotiate their positions as immobile returnees. As the pandemic had also impacted internal mobility, they explored online-based strategies to search for work or to initiate businesses. Some secured jobs in call centers, which were more open to taking new workers, as well as in online teaching, administrative work, and fast-food and massage services. Shayne, a cruise restaurant worker, had no experience as a call center agent, but applied for the post anyway as she had already been jobless for months. Reintegrating in involuntary return and immobility entailed the compromise of not performing jobs that met their credentials, interests and skills; and the sacrifice of time being spent on jobs unrelated to their career goals. Others, however, could not secure employment even after submitting multiple job applications. Cruise performers said they struggled to find in the art and entertainment industry, which were not considered “essential work.”
Resource mobilization in Cassarino's work (2008) refers to the tangible (e.g., financial) and intangible (e.g., knowledge, skills, social networks) resources that support migrants’ return preparedness, or their willingness and readiness to return. The case of the Filipino cruise workers, meanwhile, illustrates how resource mobilization can also take place “Of course, because we were still paying for a house. Then our savings, of course they ran out, so my parents are really the ones helping me. Without my parents and my sister, we wouldn’t be able to afford a second-hand car for the business.”
As the quote suggests, families were also a safety net for returnees and those who were unable to sail. Studies have shown the role of the family in return migration (Mensah 2016), often related to the pressures on the migrant to send remittances home; but in this case, family members were also a source of support in their provisional life-making. The cruise workers also took on household roles. Klint worked in the family business and took on care responsibilities, like watching over his sister's children. Rogelio took over household duties to help his spouse as she managed her business outside during the day. Provisional life-making is also thus tied to the family and the home space, where gendered household roles can shift in a time of forced return and immobility.
These narratives echo stories in news media about other immobilized migrant workers, who explored alternative sources of income (Dass 2020) to establish some degree of self-sufficiency. Aldren, a bartender, tried farming vegetables at his sister's place. “There's eggplant, chili, okra… Because the space is also big.” In this case, he was able to rely on his intangible resources—the sister (family connections)—and her own tangible resources (the space of the home). However, for Jonas, starting a small agricultural project was a risk. “I gambled on farming, maybe I’ll get lucky, I’m having onions farmed in the province… that's what I was told,” he says. “Why not try it out, to gamble the last of my money. Actually, I also borrowed that money.” These examples illustrate how Filipino cruise workers mobilized their resources to create a sense of provisional life back home—yet, there are also risks of loss and failure.
Active Waiting and Re-Migration Intentions
Apart from provisional life-making, the Filipino cruise workers’ temporary reintegration also exhibited “active waiting,” in which they sought strategies to heighten the possibilities of their re-deployment and to prepare for re-migration. Migration scholars have notably conceptualized waiting as an active process. Wang's work (2020) suggests the idea of “positive waiting” in which Chinese return scholars relied on temporary labor in the home country to cope with precarity while searching for stable jobs. Ramachandran and Vathi (2022) found that waiting can be an active process for asylum seekers and refugees as they engage in meaningful activities and relationships while stuck in unfamiliar environments. For Cangià, Devoine, and Tashtish (2021), immobility becomes an experience of waiting in which migrants reflect on their aspirations and find new ways of being active in place. Gil Everaert's work (2021) studied how asylum seekers in the Mexico–Guatemala border created some level of predictability through place-making and routines, to deal with conditions of prolonged immobility.
The narratives of Filipino cruise workers likewise suggest a sense of “active waiting” that reflects the desire and intentions to leave. Active waiting is partly driven by enduring migration aspirations—personal visions of future possibilities—by which migrant returnees determine or change the timings of their plans and the extent to which they want to stay or leave, depending on the circumstances. Aspirations point to migrants’ “imagined constructions” and personal visions of future possibilities (Boccagni 2017, 1), which build on past and present experiences and positions (Carling and Collins 2018). For most of the participants, their aspirations for overseas work directly related to life goals and future plans. They pursued cruise work to earn higher incomes and to save more money in a shorter period of time, compared to working in the Philippines where the salaries are lower. Interviewees, for example, planned to complete seafaring contracts in order to save enough money to buy a house and invest in properties. “My target at first was to be able to buy a house,” one participant shares. However, the pandemic not only disrupted their jobs but also barricaded their aspirations to migrate, situating them in involuntary immobility (Carling 2002) in which they wished to leave for overseas work but were unable to do so.
The cruise workers dealt with their immobility in “active waiting” by re-working their aspirations and future plans according to the “reality checks” (Boccagni 2017) of present, uncertain circumstances. Many of them remained hopeful that the industry would restart soon so they could work abroad again, and kept this possibility a priority even as they searched for alternative jobs and sources of income. For example, several cruise workers limited their employment options, often hesitating when job offers included some expectation that the employee would stay for a longer period. They narrowed their options to ensure job mobility—they want employment, but not the kind that would risk their ability to leave once they received their re-sail date. “It's quite hard, also a challenge for us because anytime the cruise ship [industry] reopens, we will return if there's a chance to, especially when now there's a lot to pay for,” one cruise worker said. Aldren stopped applying for jobs when he heard that their cruise company might start to redeploy workers. “I was going to look[for] any work, hopefully. But when I heard that, I put my applications on hold. Because they might call us and we have jobs…” Alvin, a cruise waiter, already found a job in Manila, but he was still set on resigning once he received a sail date. “My priority is still working on the ship.” The quotes suggest that the cruise workers’ enduring aspirations to migrate also shape the way they view the temporality of their return—they are actively re-working their immobility toward a sense of reintegration, but their actions and decisions in reintegrating themselves remain attuned to their intentions to re-migrate. They thus re-positioned themselves not as return migrants set to reintegrate long-term, but as in-the-meantime returnees who intend to leave as soon as the opportunity arises.
The cruise workers also actively waited by maintaining communication with cruise companies, crew members and other cruise workers for industry updates, to stay informed on opportunities for returning to sea. Some of them followed online chat groups for seafarers. Cruise companies and manning agencies provided updates via e-mail, social media groups, or messaging applications, sending schedules for re-sail, updates on which groups of cruise workers would be re-deployed first, and reminders on what preparations are needed for their re-sail. “They don’t leave us hoping but they do text us from time to time,” Jaiya says about her cruise employer. “They send a survey and they always check up on us.” Even as they were momentarily reintegrating at home, many interviewees ensured to keep in touch with their company's human resources departments. Joyce shares: “Because even if there is no operation, they need people to be on board as part of the maritime regulations… So, I am keeping in touch with her to make sure that I get updated… Apart from that, I am still taking freelance jobs. Anything that will help me sustain my living, my cost of living…”
Joyce's approach above exemplifies how temporary reintegration involves a form of active waiting that prepares for possible re-migration. Active waiting for the cruise workers also meant re-working their immobility as a window for “re-migration preparedness,” renewing their work and travel documents (passports, seaman's books and other travel documents) and completing refresher training courses, as advised by their cruise companies. Whereas Cassarino's (2004) idea of resource mobilization related to return preparedness, the case of the cruise workers shows how they mobilized their time and resources to prepare themselves for re-migration. Jan, for example, helped out at his brother's eatery while dealing with his expired documents, which needed to be renewed before he could report to his agency again. “Since last year, I already knew my documents were about to expire, so I managed that.” Jan actively re-worked his immobility by using the time for preparing his re-migration documents, so he would be ready to leave as soon as the industry reopens and the opportunity arises.
Active waiting, however, also came with anxiety and frustrations. The possibilities for re-sail depended on an international industry that was adjusting to the pandemic. Joyce tried sending her resume to other cruise companies, but generally, most of them did not need any more applicants, and some were reducing operations to avoid bankruptcy. Updates within their cruise networks stirred anxiety as they heard stories about new safety measures in which seafarers had to go through swab tests, quarantine and vaccination. As Joyce shares: “There were ships that were already sailing, [but] after two weeks, someone [tested] COVID-positive, quarantine again! So those who were about to leave, didn’t get to push through because deep sanitation is needed again, the protocol needs to be fixed… It's really uncertain when the cruise industry will return into full operation.”
Additionally worrisome were the uncertain changes in re-sail dates, especially between 2020 and 2021. Chona was repatriated in March 2020, and her re-sail date was initially set for November, later cancelled and re-postponed to December, then later cancelled again—she was told there were no slots left. “It's frustrating,” she said. “Like that, [my deployment] was cancelled a number of times and it's stressful to think about.”
In 2021, I conducted follow-up interviews with some of the cruise workers, majority of whom had already left, or were preparing to leave as they received re-deployment dates. Relief came slow—some waited for more than a year before they could leave again. One cruise worker was repatriated in June 2020, and only got to re-sail in September 2021. Many of them intend to re-migrate and complete more job contracts at sea to fulfill their financial targets and other goals. Some felt they were still too young to leave the industry, and one felt it was risky to change careers at this point, because she had a child. Others were certain they wanted to re-migrate but were open to land-based jobs or working in the cargo shipping industry instead. In the case of one performing artist, he was able to secure a land-based job in Europe. Only a small number of respondents have chosen to stay in the Philippines, either because of the desire to be with family (or to start one), or because they wanted more permanent jobs. One participant realized he wanted to be with his family, even if it meant changing his occupation. Another stayed behind as she was pregnant, and her husband, also a cruise worker, ended up going abroad instead. Temporary reintegration can be a turning point for migrant workers to pursue other pathways of immobility. Whereas much of the analysis in this article focused on involuntary immobility as produced by a crisis, temporary reintegration can also become pivotal to immobility as a choice to stay (Schewel 2020), whether for the family, for one's career, or other reasons. However, as the next section suggests, the limited opportunities at home, and the consequences of their involuntary return and immobility, also became tipping points for the migrant workers’ continued intentions to leave.
Counting the Costs and Losses of Return, and Re-Working Migration Plans
In their involuntary return and immobility, the Filipino cruise workers made the most out of being on standby, but apart from losing their jobs, they also suffered other costs and losses. Many of them were forced to prematurely mobilize resources that were intended future goals, dipping into hard-earned savings or selling existing assets to get by with everyday needs. “Some of my colleagues had to sell their cars. Others had run out of savings. The others were even just on their first contract,” one cruise worker said. Others worried over their unpaid loans. “I sold my car because of the pandemic,” said Lianne. “To pay for the condo, for the lease of the year. So I need[ed] to choose between the car and the place…” The returnees worried about household bills, expenses for children's schooling, the upkeep of assets and properties, and payments for insurance packages. One participant had to move his children from private to public school. Eduardo needed to meet the monthly payments for his motorbike. “Every month I have to work hard because now I don’t have a decent income, not like when I was on the ship and I could pay properly.” Rheynalyn planned to invest in properties. “Recently I was thinking, okay, invest in land, and then here… here we are again, I don’t know how to pay,” she says.
Several returnees took on jobs, such as call center positions, that earned relatively less compared to their cruise jobs and required training at the workplace. Returnees who started small businesses faced various challenges. “There are a lot of competitors in our area,” Chona lamented. “It's hard to do business here.” It was difficult to meet sales targets, as people were also limiting their spending to basic necessities. Shayne and Alejandro had set up a milk tea business which initially sold enough to break even with their initial capital. But months later, profits dipped as more people started selling similar products. They later stopped the business and looked for other jobs instead. The few who were able to maintain their businesses eventually stopped them when they received new deployment dates from their respective cruise companies.
The challenges of business ventures during the pandemic, suggest the limitations of migrant entrepreneurship as a path for reintegration, which is often highlighted in migration policy and return migration discourses in the Philippines (Spitzer 2016). Yet, studies have shown that many entrepreneurial ventures by returnees do not always succeed, and not all migrants are interested in starting up businesses. Returnees also face a number of social and structural challenges including financial obligations for the family, the broader economic climate in the home country and the institutional structures that make it difficult to run businesses (Majidi et al. 2023; Riaño 2023; Spitzer 2016). Research has shown cases of migrant domestic workers who returned home and started small business that failed, and chose to re-migrate. (Parreñas 2020; Spitzer 2016). Riaño's (2023) work on Colombian migrant reintegration resonates with the prevalent discourse on return migration in the Philippines that views migrants as “agents of development.” Yet, such discourses tend to overlook the struggles of returnees to reintegrate, even despite having particular kinds of capital. On the government's loan programs for entrepreneurial ventures, Philip comments: “Okay, let's say I got a loan of (PHP)10,000 for a business. What business will guarantee me that I will profit and I will pay for it monthly? I might end up getting buried in more [debt]. Right? Okay. You do business at this time when it's all lockdowns with only limited people who are able to go outside. How do you do business?”
By the end of 2021, most of the cruise workers I interviewed had already sailed or were about to sail and were just awaiting confirmation of deployment dates and completing their paperwork. The cruise industry gradually adjusted their operations as borders and ports re-opened, and companies began contacting cruise workers for their sail dates. Few had been offered shorter job contracts and pay cuts, others with basic pay but no commissions. Because of the limited job opportunities and low salaries in the Philippines, many of them still preferred to work abroad to meet their financial targets. The preference to leave resonates recent survey findings that re-migration is still the preference of many pandemic-affected Filipino migrant workers—some felt they were still too young and unprepared to return and settle in the Philippines long-term, while others felt there were more opportunities elsewhere (Garabiles and Asis 2022).
The reopening ushered a seemingly fresh start—but the pandemic had taken them several steps back. Many of them now have to work more contracts over a longer period of time in order to fulfill their financial goals. In this regard, the temporary reintegration of cruise workers, triggered by involuntary return and immobility, also led to changes in migration plans, including extending their migration projects longer than what they had envisioned. “That's also my plan if I get to sail again, to pay loans first,” an interviewee says. “Then my life insurance too.” Those who intended to buy assets and properties now had to set aside their plans until they financially recovered. For others, derailed plans meant having to postpone plans for a later time—from pursuing career development, to starting a family, or to return to the Philippines for good. Joylyn, an assistant cook, was stuck in the Philippines for about 14 months before she was notified that of her deployment date. Before the pandemic, she planned to complete two more contracts before leaving the cruise industry. But now, she is planning to extend her plans of working at sea. “Ah, I’ve thought about it, to add more [years]. Because I’ve used my savings. That's why I thought I still have to save up, work on a ship, like that.”
Despite these losses, the cruise workers looked forward to sailing again. “We’re positive that everything will go back to normal, That's what we’re hoping for and looking forward to, of course, when we resail,” Abegail says. But the experience of the pandemic had also become a learning experience for the future. Renato says, “Like you can’t be complacent, at all times you have to be ready.” Temporary reintegration unfolds as a liminal phase in the journeys of migrants who are forced to return home, yet whose livelihoods and migration aspirations are tied to international labor migration. In the process, migrants also reflect upon their lived experiences of involuntary return and immobility, drawing out lessons learned and prospects for the future.
Conclusion
By drawing on the narratives of repatriated Filipino cruise workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article shed light on the idea of temporary reintegration as it takes place in crisis-induced involuntary return and immobility. The analysis shows how the cruise workers navigated and re-worked their circumstances through provisional lives and active waiting, which produce a grey window of temporary reintegration. Researchers have pointed out that reintegration can indeed be temporary (Kleist 2020; Kuschminder 2022), but conceptual tools for closely examining this temporariness, especially in labor migrant experiences, remain limited. In the case of the Filipino cruise workers, reintegration was not an end goal, but a liminal phase in which the migrant workers straddled between coping with their forced return and immobility, and their enduring aspirations and intentions to leave. In this sense, reintegration can be an unintended process following involuntary return (Mensah 2016), but can become an intentionally temporary phase while awaiting re-migration. Migration aspirations and intentions, often driven by limited opportunities at home, are also factors that shape reintegration as a temporary phase before leaving again.
Conceptually, temporary reintegration is useful for highlighting liminal phases in which im/mobility can take on overlapping dynamics—in this case, migrant workers re-worked their involuntary immobility by mobilizing resources to survive at home but to also simultaneously prepare themselves for future mobility. Temporary reintegration thus captures a liminal phase of post-return in which re-migration becomes a possible next step. The narratives illustrate the relevance of resource mobilization (Cassarino 2008) not just in return preparedness, but also in ‘re-migration preparedness,' in which reintegration becomes a process of waiting (Conlon 2011; Wang 2020) towards possible re-migration. As suggested in the different ways Filipino returnees readied themselves for re-migration, return is not simply an end stage in migration, but can instead be one point in a migration trajectory (Carling and Erdal 2014; Ley and Kobayashi 2005). While acknowledging the dominant discourse of return and sustainable development (Vathi, King, and Kalir 2023), it is also important to consider how reintegration also takes place in liminal and uncertain situations across space and time and how they fit in changing migration journeys.
Lastly, the analysis of migrant narratives showed how Filipino cruise workers, both the repatriated and those who were unable to re-sail, intended to re-migrate, and thus acted upon the temporariness of their reintegration. Temporariness can therefore be understood in relation to migrant agency, and as a category of practice (Triandafyllidou 2022). Focusing on migrant narratives contributes to a broader structure-agency frame of reference that recognizes the structural forces that shape reintegration, but also how migrant agency and aspirations interact with these forces in contexts of immobility (Carling 2002; Schewel 2020). Simultaneously, these narratives also reveal the struggles and losses that migrant workers face amidst limited resources and safety nets. Despite the efforts of Filipino migrant workers to reintegrate, the broader structural conditions of return—including issues related to the local economic climate, the lack of employment opportunities, and challenges in infrastructures of health and social security, among others—continue to propel migrant workers to seek for better options in order to fulfil their financial, professional and other aspirations (Asis 2006).
Finally, the study of temporary reintegration suggests avenues for future research. The findings in this article, for example, are potentially relevant to other kinds of crises beyond the pandemic—including conflict, natural disasters and economic downturns. Scholars can also investigate how temporary reintegration varies across the intersectional dimensions of age, gender and class in further detail and nuance. Other notable factors shaping reintegration contribute to established work in the literature (e.g., Cassarino 2008; Kandilige and Adiku 2020; Kuschminder 2017). Lastly, crisis situations like COVID-19, are also contexts in which future research can explore further how reintegration policies respond to the disruptions that challenge the sustainability of temporary migration systems (Triandafyllidou and Yeoh 2023).
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and IMR editors for their constructive feedback and insightful comments that helped improve this paper. This article is based on a larger study the author is co-principal investigator of, titled, “Deferred Departures, Unhappy Returns: Pandemic and the Labor-Exporting Nation” (with Yasmin Ortiga, Michael Joseph Dino and Romeo Luis Macabasag). The author is grateful to her collaborators for their encouragement and support as she developed this independent work.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research for this article is supported by the Social Science Research Council's Rapid-Response Grants on COVID-19 and the Social Sciences, with funds provided by the SSRC, the Henry Luce Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
