「共同在場」下的跨國母職實作：東南亞籍移工的情感聯繫和身分管理

Transnational Mothering in“Co-Presence”: Emotional Connections and Impression Management among Southeast Asian Migrant Workers

女性移工遠赴海外支撐家計，也肩負著來自母國家庭對子女教養的性別角色期待。透過田野工作和深度訪談，本文討論東南亞籍移工媽媽如何運用通訊科技實作跨國母職，並反思科技對遠距關係的影響。延續先前學者指出移工的母職實作核心為「製造共同在場」，即經由訊息、通話、視訊等管道協助，將存在感投射回母國家庭中，鬆綁距離對情感的限制。基於此，本研究進一步概念化出「掌握性的共在」及「陪伴性的共在」兩種互動模式，並指出母親職業類別與子女的年齡是影響母職實作的重要因素，母親對教養的期望也會進一步塑造其策略。
然而，研究者若一味按照移工媽媽的說法來描述跨國母職，容易把跨國交流本身，簡化為家庭關係穩定和美滿的象徵。除了「做媽媽」，移工們也將社群媒體變為展演母職的前／後臺，選擇性地隱瞞或呈現特定資訊，以表達自己的承擔與犧牲，藉以獲得從事個人休閒娛樂的彈性。本文也以移工媽媽在臺建立親密關係的案例，探討她們在多重身分之間的協商與平衡。本文強調，在理解跨國母職不同的實作策略之餘，也需拆解傳統母親身分的框架，才能理解移工所面對的複雜性，以及通訊科技為跨國情感聯繫帶來的多重面向。

Ever since the Taiwan government initiated the recruitment of Southeast Asian migrant workers in the early 1990s, their numbers have increased greatly. While the literature has primarily focused on their working conditions, I instead argue that workers’migratory experience encompasses multiple roles and positions shaped by transnationalism. Indeed, the influence and expectations from their home countries should not be overlooked. Female migrant workers, as gendered subjects, work abroad to support their families while bearing the gendered expectations of child-rearing. Their experiences reveal the paradox and dynamics of negotiating the dual roles of breadwinner and caregiver across borders.
With the advanced development of information and communication technology (ICT), migrant mothers maintain emotional and communicative ties with their left-behind children. ICT has thereby shaped new forms of transnational motherhood and maternal performance. As everyday life becomes increasingly mediated and visible, migrant mothers must engage in ongoing identity management, navigating between frontstage and backstage performances of motherhood.
This paper presents how Southeast Asian migrant mothers utilize ICT to perform transnational motherhood, sustain long-distance family relationships, and navigate diverse parenting goals. I discuss how migrant mothers balance their pursuit of personal life with the moral expectations associated with being physically separated from their families. This especially arises in cases where they have formed new intimate relationships in Taiwan.
To examine how ICT mediates transnational motherhood, I conducted three years of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews to investigate migrant mothers’mothering practices. I regularly visited a migrant nongovernment organization (NGO) that has promoted migrant workers’labor rights for years, as well as its affiliated shelter. Migrant workers gather at this NGO every Sunday, and some have temporarily settled in the shelter. During the fieldwork, I spent most of my time observing migrant mothers’interactions with their children. They sometimes even allowed me to join their video calls and shared their opinions, providing insights into how migrant mothers interpret these cross-border interactions. After nearly a year of fieldwork, I then interviewed ten migrant mothers: six Filipinas and four Indonesians. The proportion of factory workers to caregivers is approximately one to three. To reduce language barriers, the interviews were conducted in the languages most comfortable to the participants, including their native tongues. I responded in Chinese, English, or Indonesian, depending on the context.
As previous scholars have pointed out, migrant mothers’practices primarily relate to creating co-presence, through which ICT helps project a sense of presence back into the family. Building on this, I conceptualize two forms of co-presence: participatory co-presence and accompanying copresence. I further argue that the strategies mothers adopt are influenced by both their occupational roles and their children’s ages.
At the core of participatory co-presence is staying informed about their children’s schedules and giving appropriate advice. As some left-behind children enter adolescence, migrant mothers focus on ensuring their children behave appropriately and successfully pursue higher education. Although they may not always have time to be online simultaneously, they rely on messages to exchange information and express care. This form of text-based communication is more flexible, allowing both sides to reply later at their convenience. It is often supplemented with brief phone calls, about ten minutes each, for maintaining daily connections. After keeping track of their children’s daily lives, migrant mothers take on the role of guiding and offering advice. Through these interactions, they project their maternal presence into significant moments of their children’s growth.
While accompanying co-presence aims to cultivate a sense of being together, migrant mothers use video calls or live streaming instead of texts or brief phone calls. These video calls usually last for at least 30 minutes. Since some children are too young to focus on extended conversations or articulate their emotions clearly, migrant mothers initiate video calls during routine moments, such as breakfast or dinner. The focus is not on verbal sharing, but on maintaining a sense of connection through virtual companionship. Migrant mothers attempt to compensate for their physical absence, creating a feeling of closeness as if they are still present in their children’s daily lives.
The strategies for creating co-presence vary according to migrant mothers’occupations. Factory workers, for instance, are subject to strict time regulations on the production line and can only reply to messages or return calls after work. As a result, they tend to adopt participatory co-presence. In contrast, I find that caregivers, contrary to common assumptions, negotiate with their employers and gain permission to use their phones while their patients are resting. This allows them to manage time more flexibly. Most caregivers adopt accompanying co-presence, but in cases where migrant mothers cannot access their phones during work, they continue to rely on participatory co-presence.
While the previous section notes how migrant mothers use ICT to maintain emotional bonds, the second section explores a different yet related dimension: how they manage moral expectations and maternal identity through self-presentation on digital platforms. Migrant mothers gain flexibility for personal leisure activities by selectively managing their self-presentation on social media. They may conceal aspects of their personal lives that could challenge their maternal image or conversely explicitly display their sacrifices in response to expectations as responsible mothers. During their free time, rather than frequently texting or calling, migrant mothers post selected moments on social media. These posts serve to inform their children of their whereabouts and routines.
Migrant mothers’fundamental economic contribution, particularly through remittances, has reshaped and broadened the meaning of being a good mother. For instance, one interviewee shared how she emphasized her hard work in response to her daughter’s doubts about her intimate relationship in Taiwan. She justified her choices by pointing to the improved material conditions of her family back home, using it as evidence of her ongoing commitment to her maternal role. These practices of concealing and displaying selected aspects of their lives demonstrate how ICT enables migrant mothers to perform and negotiate their maternal roles across distances.
This paper highlights that the understanding of transnational motherhood should not be confined to traditional gendered expectations. Through the strategic use of ICT, migrant mothers not only sustain emotional connections and provide care across borders, but also negotiate their moral identities and claim personal space. These practices both challenge and expand the meaning of motherhood, revealing a more heterogeneous and dynamic form of maternal subjectivity shaped by migration, labor, and technology.