Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Local Production of Global Labor

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University of Arizona graduate student, Megan Prescott, supervised by Dr. Mark A. Nichter, will undertake research on the political economy of the reproduction of labor in globalized markets. She will focus her research on the reproduction of Filipino nurse labor. The Republic of the Philippines is an appropriate site for this study because it is known for overproducing and exporting nurses, which, when the nurses remit wages home, benefits both the national economy and the nurses' families. Prescott will investigate the processes by which Filipino nurse labor is commodified; the role of culture in the production of nurse labor; the international flows of nurses and remittances; and the role of the state in promoting, sustaining, and managing the Filipino nurse commodity chain. The researcher will gather data at multiple sites and using multiple methods. She will employ open-ended interviews, key informant interviews with multiple stakeholders, semi-structured interviews with nursing students and nurses in the process of migrating as well as their families, surveys with nursing students at 12 colleges or universities, focus groups on perceptions of migrant nurses and the effect of their migration on families, and participant observation at public events and functions. Text data (field notes, interview transcripts, life histories, narratives, and archival material) will be analyzed thematically using text analysis software and narrative analysis techniques. The proposed research contributes to social science theory by broadening the scope of global commodity chain analysis to incorporate both women's skilled labor migration and the local contexts and communities within which migration becomes normalized. By focusing on the nurse care commodity chain, in particular, the proposed research will provide a new perspective on the complex processes and impacts of nurse migration that is relevant to nurses, families, and health planners and policymakers. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.