Women ‘like parched earth in need of rain’ and who relax by working: gossip and the surveillance of Filipino seafarer wives’ morality and mobility

What is it about?

Research on the impact of male emigration on stay-behind wives shows that gossip, which transnational migration intensi es, surveils the women’s morality and constricts their mobility. Based on semi-structured interviews supplemented by eld observations, this article examines the impact of gossip on the lives and experiences of stay-behind Filipino seafarer wives. First, it looks into how the women negotiated an environment in which their morality became dominated by the need to keep their reputation as faithful wives intact. As women whose husbands were away for long periods of time, they were seen as being ‘like parched earth in need of rain’ and therefore susceptible to temptation and seduction. Second, it examines how through dibersyon – activities that translated work into recreation – they counteracted the constricting e ects of gossip on their mobility without compromising their perceived morality. The article concludes with a re ection on the contradiction the women’s negotiation of gossip creates: they inadvertently help to maintain gendered conceptions of morality and mobility while simultaneously working around the gender ideological and normative boundaries gossip enforces.

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