Remittances for marriage: quality of life changes among seasonal worker households in Timor-Leste

IF 1.8 2区社会学 Q2 GEOGRAPHY

Australian Geographer Pub Date : 2023-02-18 DOI:10.1080/00049182.2023.2174597

A. Wu, A. McWilliam

{"title":"Remittances for marriage: quality of life changes among seasonal worker households in Timor-Leste","authors":"A. Wu, A. McWilliam","doi":"10.1080/00049182.2023.2174597","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Australian Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) has offered opportunities for Timorese citizens to engage in farm labour and hospitality jobs in rural Australia for periods of six months. Savings and remittance from this work offers a powerful and self-directing development tool that could improve living standards for participating households. In this paper, we argue that remittances invested in social relationships through ceremonies and customary exchange are beneficial for building enhanced social and financial capital in Timorese society. Cash contributions to support household consumption, purchase domestic appliances, education costs of siblings, house construction, ceremony costs and bridewealth (barlake) demands, are all important aspects of contemporary social life in Timor-Leste that are sustained by labour migration remittances. Social networking is thus crucial for enabling access to better resources and opportunities in Timor-Leste and remittances that focus on social relationship maintenance are therefore highly significant. Potentially they provide the ability for some return workers to afford higher bridewealth demands and in the process facilitate social mobility for seasonal workers while advancing a broader quality of life.","PeriodicalId":47337,"journal":{"name":"Australian Geographer","volume":"54 1","pages":"193 - 212"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Australian Geographer","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2023.2174597","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Australian Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) has offered opportunities for Timorese citizens to engage in farm labour and hospitality jobs in rural Australia for periods of six months. Savings and remittance from this work offers a powerful and self-directing development tool that could improve living standards for participating households. In this paper, we argue that remittances invested in social relationships through ceremonies and customary exchange are beneficial for building enhanced social and financial capital in Timorese society. Cash contributions to support household consumption, purchase domestic appliances, education costs of siblings, house construction, ceremony costs and bridewealth (barlake) demands, are all important aspects of contemporary social life in Timor-Leste that are sustained by labour migration remittances. Social networking is thus crucial for enabling access to better resources and opportunities in Timor-Leste and remittances that focus on social relationship maintenance are therefore highly significant. Potentially they provide the ability for some return workers to afford higher bridewealth demands and in the process facilitate social mobility for seasonal workers while advancing a broader quality of life.

查看原文本刊更多论文

婚姻汇款：东帝汶季节性工人家庭的生活质量变化

摘要澳大利亚季节性工人计划（SWP）为帝汶公民提供了在澳大利亚农村从事农场劳动和酒店工作的机会，为期六个月。这项工作的储蓄和汇款提供了一个强大的、自我指导的发展工具，可以提高参与家庭的生活水平。在本文中，我们认为，通过仪式和习俗交换投资于社会关系的汇款有利于在东帝汶社会中建立更强大的社会和金融资本。支持家庭消费的现金捐助、购买家用电器、兄弟姐妹的教育费用、房屋建设、仪式费用和bridewealth（barlake）需求，都是东帝汶当代社会生活的重要方面，这些都是由劳动力移民汇款维持的。因此，社交网络对于在东帝汶获得更好的资源和机会至关重要，因此，注重维护社会关系的汇款意义重大。它们有可能为一些返乡工人提供能力，以满足更高的Bridewearth需求，并在这个过程中促进季节性工人的社会流动，同时提高更广泛的生活质量。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Australian Geographer GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Australian Geographer was founded in 1928 and is the nation"s oldest geographical journal. It is a high standard, refereed general geography journal covering all aspects of the discipline, both human and physical. While papers concerning any aspect of geography are considered for publication, the journal focuses primarily on two areas of research: •Australia and its world region, including developments, issues and policies in Australia, the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, Asia and Antarctica. •Environmental studies, particularly the biophysical environment and human interaction with it.