Ghosts of Futures Present: Photographs in the Filipino Migrant Archive

Abstract

This article explores the role of photographs in shaping the social selves of Filipino temporary labor migrants. Examining the production of photographic self-images by Filipino migrants in Hong Kong and their reception in the Philippines, I show how people deploy photography as a technology to bring into being their desired future selves. By making present ghosts of the future, photographs of the self shape distinctive translocal subjectivities. Show more