The analysis of the lived experiences of Filipino migrant men, gays and lesbians, as well as children of Filipino migrants, suggests that Filipino migration to France did not occur in a linear fashion. Interview with Prof. Fresnoza-Flot.


Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot is a researcher and senior lecturer at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium, where she serves as a tenured research associate of the Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS). Her research primarily focuses on Filipino migration to France, a field she has been actively engaged in since 2004. Currently, she holds the directorship of the research network “Centre for East Asian Studies” (EASt) at the House of Humanities (MSH) and is the pedagogical coordinator of the Master Erasmus Mundus programme “Transnational migrations” (MITRA) at Université Libre de Bruxelles.


Her ongoing projects explore various dimensions of migration, including the contextual mobility of Belgian-Asian couples, Asian prospects for (re)migration to/within the EU, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Filipino migrant domestic workers in Brussels and Paris.


Asuncion was among the guests of the XI Colloquium on Migrations, that was held on the campus of Praia Vermelha from March 11th to 13 th . She presented her research on the social incorporation of Filipino migrants in France. In her research, Asuncion goes beyond the predominant focus on Filipino women domestic workers and aims at examining the perspectives of other socially invisible Filipino migrants in France.

O Estrangeiro: Your research focuses on highlighting the voices of socially invisible figures within the Filipino migrant community in France. How does this invisibility impacts our understanding of Filipino migrants’ incorporation into French society?

Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot: The invisibility of certain categories of Filipino migrants suggests to us that social incorporation is not a straightforward process for these migrants, who generally do not speak French and whose educational and professional qualifications are not automatically recognized in France.

OE: In your analysis, you emphasize the intersectionality of various factors such as gender, migration status, social class, ethnicity, and racialization. How do these intersecting identities influence the experiences and trajectories of Filipino migrants in the French context?

AF: As my presentation in the Fórum de Migrações demonstrates, the intersecting identities of Filipino migrants influence their incorporation in French society, notably in the labor market. They determine which specific jobs they would take: for example, Filipino gay men work as hairdressers and/or beauticians, whereas Filipino men in irregular situation concentrate on cleaning, gardening or cooking rather than baby-sitting as employers prefer to hire women to do the latter job.

OE: Could you discuss the significance of employing epiphenomenal lenses in your research? How does this framework contribute to a more nuanced understanding of Filipino migrants’ experiences in France?

AF: Adopting an epiphenomenal lens is useful to identify the often overlooked voices, stories and cases as it obliges researchers to fix their regard to the taken-for-granted categories of people, who do not easily attract the scholars’ gaze because of their small number. Such a lens allowed me to present a more heterogenous account of Filipino migration to France, thereby avoiding sweeping generalizations about Filipinos’ experiences of incorporation/exclusion in the aforementioned country.

OE: Your research spans a significant timeframe, from 2004 to 2015. How have you observed the dynamics of social incorporation or exclusion evolve for Filipino migrants in France over this period?

AF: I have observed the evolution of the dynamics of social incorporation/exclusion of Filipino migrants in France through qualitative methodologies involving semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and observations. This is the common point among the three studies I conducted during more than a decade in France. Whereas my first study examined Filipino migrants’ entrepreneurship, the second and third ones focused respectively on Filipino lone migrant mothers employed as domestic workers and on children of Filipino migrants.

OE: How does the analysis of these migrants offer a different perspective on the historical continuity of Filipino migration to France, as discussed in your research?

AF: The analysis of the lived experiences of Filipino migrant men, gays and lesbians, as well as children of Filipino migrants, suggests that Filipino migration to France did not occur in a linear fashion. The usual understanding of its beginning stemmed from the stories of Filipino women domestic workers. The scholarly focus on their perspectives unintentionally overlooked the immigration stories of other Filipinos, who entered France via other channels and who have different viewpoints on the way Filipino migration to the said country unfolds through the years. By including the perspectives of invisible ‘others’ in my analysis, I gained a more complex picture of such migration phenomenon that results from different crisscrossing im/mobilities of people and that moving forward towards distinct but interconnected paths.

OE: By researching on various aspects of Asian migration you have been contributing greatly to academia. How has your background as a researcher and your personal bond with the Philippines influenced your approach to studying migration dynamics, particularly within the context of Filipino migrants?

AF: My academic/research experiences in different social contexts in Asia (Philippines, Japan, Thailand) and Europe (France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium), as well as my emotional connection with the Philippines where I was born and grew up, have influenced strongly my approaches to Asian migration in general and Filipino migration in particular. Aware of the interconnections and inequalities among countries and their people in our globalized world, I tend to adopt in my research transnational, intersectional and mobilities approaches to bring to the fore the unheard voices of minoritized individuals and groups. I have been highlighting in my works the gender and intimate/familial dimensions of migration and more recently the entanglement of different forms of im/mobilities.

Image: Université libre de Bruxelles