Counter-Producing National Narratives: Filipina Diasporic Artists Challenge the Global Health Care System

• Main Author: Plank, Christina Ayson
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2021
• Subjects: care worker; diaspora; Filipino contemporary art; global capitalism; overseas Filipino workers
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/socialtransformations/vol9/iss2/3; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/socialtransformations/article/1133/viewcontent/ST_209.2_203_20Article_20__20Plank.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

The Philippine nation-state relies on the production and circulation of hegemonic narratives that represent overseas Filipino workers as flexible laborers to generate profit through remittances. In this article, I analyze Lizza May David and Claudia Liebelt’s documentary Cycles of Care (2011) and Jenifer Wofford’s paintings and illustrations Point of Departure (2007) and Flor 1973-78 (2008) to demonstrate that these works of art counter national narratives by portraying Filipinos in non-capitalizable, non-laboring moments, thereby disrupting the mechanisms of global capitalism. I argue that Filipino artists employ what I call counter-production, an artistic practice that represents the fragmented experiences of displacement, critiques official nationalisms, and reconstructs care worker subjectivities that cannot be incorporated into the national project.