Filipino Musicians in Australia: Labour Migration and Music
摘要
This chapter presents and analyses the labour migration experiences of Filipino musicians who consider themselves part of the Australian music ecosystem. In this chapter, I highlight the financial, social and cultural value of cover performances by Filipino musicians in entertainment spaces and events. I argue that such aspects of music performance are critical in determining how migrant musicians perceive music as either part of their labour migration, a passion/leisure, or a socio-cultural contribution to the migrant community. The focus of this chapter is on the participation, or more specifically, the juxtaposition of (dis)place(ment), of Filipino musicians and creatives in the Australian music industry and the labour market. This section elaborates on how musicians, and creatives in general, are systematically invisible and misrepresented in the Australian labour market and statistics—which is mainly because of the various positionalities that Filipino musicians occupy in Australia. Despite the precarity of the music industry, Filipino musicians participate through performances in various venues, albeit limited. This precarity is discussed in this chapter, including the typology of performance spaces and cover performance participation of Filipino migrant musicians.