Feature Article

Collective Occupations Among Filipina Migrant Workers: Bridging Disrupted Identities

Terry Peralta-Catipon, PhD, OTR/L

  • OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health
  • Spring 2012 - Volume 32 · Issue 2: 14-21
  • DOI: 10.3928/15394492-20110805-01
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Abstract

This article exemplifies how social and cultural contexts influenced identity-formation among individuals of a collectivistic community. Specifically, ethnographic data on Filipina workers in Hong Kong showed that disruptions caused by migration and foreign employment resulted in participants feeling conflicted about their sense of selves. Further, while still in the host country, participants’ engagement in occupations with their peers also enabled the workers to embody new identities through recreation of familiar sociocultural contexts. Using the concept of “interdependent self construal,” the study shows how participants’ identities shifted with changes in sociocultural contexts. Also, collective engagement in occupations proved instrumental in alleviating feelings of conflicted sense of selves. As such, this article may contribute to the body of knowledge about the interrelationships of occupation, culture, and identity-formation that, in turn, may enhance cultural competence among occupational therapy practitioners.

AUTHORS

Terry Peralta-Catipon, PhD, OTR/L, is Associate Professor and Director, MS in Occupational Therapy Program, and Chair, Department of Occupational Therapy, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California.

The author has no financial or proprietary interest in the materials presented herein.

This manuscript was accepted under the editorship of Jane Case-Smith, EdD, OTR/L, FAOTA.

Address correspondence to Terry Peralta-Catipon at tperalta@csudh.edu

Submitted: September 14, 2010
Accepted: June 21, 2011
Posted online: August 12, 2011

doi: 10.3928/15394492-20110805-01

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