Words, images, narratives: Filipino Youth Migrants' social representations of migratory experiences and multi-dimensional identities

Informed by the social representation theory, this research explored the Filipino youth migrants’ social representations of migratory experiences and multi-dimensional identities. The specific research questions were: a. What are the contents of the Filipino youth migrants’ representations of their multi-dimensional identities? b. How do the Filipino youth migrants represent their migratory experiences? c. What are the contexts in which the Filipino youth migrants construct their identities? Using the modelling approach as a research framework, data was collected from 89 research participants who were students at the Philippine School in Italy. The data was generated by utilizing the associative network (to detect multi-dimensional identities), figurative technique integrated with storytelling (to evoke graphical representations of the migratory experiences from country of origin to host country) and contextual interviews (to capture the contexts of their over-all migration experience). Data from the associative network was analyzed using the SPAD software and results revealed that on the semantic representational field, the indices of polarity for the stimulus words “Filipino”, “European” and “self” were detected to be more positive; while the index of polarity for “Italian” was less positive. The associated words for “Filipino” were inclined towards comprehensive social representations of the country and socio-cultural representations of the people; the content of representation for the evocations of “Italian” was characterized by an emphasis on the social practices of Italian as a people; evoked words for “European” were orientated on socio-cultural representations; and representations of the “self” were anchored on the conceptual self and the interpersonal self. Representations of the migratory experiences were accessed through the memories of the life ‘there’ and the reflections of their current position ‘here’. The figurative and imaginative images contained elements that were predominantly linked to people (their personal and social networks in the Philippines and in Italy) and to symbolic place-identity (house, school, iconic places, nature elements, functional places and food). All these were detected using a grid designed ad hoc. Data from the contextual interviews were analyzed using frequency counts and percentages for the close-ended responses and thematic analysis for the open-ended responses. It was found out that the research participants’ migration was facilitated by their parents with relatively stable migrant status in Italy. Most of them were new arrivals at the time of the study and were coping with acculturation. They have cited learning the Italian language as the most challenging part, while they also recognized reuniting with their families as the biggest benefit of being in Italy. Notions of identity and belongingness were closely tied to the country of origin; while their active engagement with Filipino socio-cultural practices as well as their strong presence online have helped them maintain transnational relationships in both countries. The physical space of the school and the online space provided by social media have enabled these young migrants to manage the Filipino identity, and whether or not this has implications to their acculturation or assimilation to the Italian society and culture is yet to be explored.