Discussion 9 (This question was supposed to be last week but I unknowingly skipped it and did week 9 oops)
How does Kwon’s exploration of “the work of waiting” impact the way that we think about immigration policy in a specific country? What kind of map of global migration patterns would be adequate to express the range of labors that people engage in to support one migrant worker?
The concept of “the work of waiting” in the context of immigration transpires into at least two scenarios. The first has to do with “waiting for love” which is obvious, the yearning feeling of wanting your spouse to return home or send money because it is a sign of love. The second is perhaps the more impactful which is the financial stability of “waiting for money”. While the notion was coded to be “out of love” for the intimate couples, the initial “waiting” was for the money in hopes to have better quality and stability of life.
A different way to see this would be through the dependency and the sense of obligated duty as the working half of the intimate transactional relationship. Those remaining at home depend on their spouses abroad to send money over for “self-making” or improvement. Those abroad, if they remain faithful to the relationship, have the duty as the devoted individual to send what is called “remittances” for their loved ones.
The impact of this perspective has little effect on the way I, at least, think about immigration policies. Having been the offspring of a parent who has immigrated to another country and sending money over to a relative abroad was seen as an “obligation of love and duty” to the family, still loyal to this transaction until both parents eventually were together in the same country where both were able to find work to further support their offspring.
If this was on a map, it is possible to see clusters of markers that indicate the population fluctuation of one location over the years. Arrows indicate where the clusters originated as well as the pattern of transactions made during that year.
