Bodies-in-waiting as infrastructure: Assembling the Philippine Government's disciplinary quarantine response to COVID-19.

The purpose of this article is to advance the concept of bodies-in-waiting as an everyday infrastructure to explain the shifting nature of 'pandemic cities' in response to the changing dynamics of infection control in urban spaces. While previous literatures have been 'sanitized' to emphasize the importance of managing optimal physiological health and safety, we would like to argue that keener attention is needed to rethink the constitutive role of bodies in co-producing a city's sociopolitical ecologies at this time of crisis. The main body is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the political dimensions of pandemic response by various governments with an emphasis to experiences of middle to low income countries. Our intention is to show how these studies bring into light the role of local politics of pandemic response within countries, and that actual governance mechanisms in cities are shaped and contested by shifting power blocs and emergent affinities. The second section forwards an embodied urban political approach that conceptualizes bodies-in-waiting as infrastructure. In this view, bodies-in-waiting is produced and reproduced by complex social-material flows and transformation rooted in variegated matrices of power through which urban spaces are (re)assembled. The last section demonstrates a sample case that shows how bodies-in-waiting as infrastructure are understood using Twitter-sourced data associated with the Philippine government's disciplinary quarantine measures which started March 12, 2020 in the NCR. At its core, bodies-in-waiting as infrastructures populate a politically affirmative urban imaginary of bodies living on despite the existence of an accelerated and mutating virus in slower moving cities.

"how shall I say love ": Reimagining a non-relational geopolitics of love in the time of COVID-19.

The pandemic as a portal has deeply changed life as we know it, including our homes. While countries continue to strengthen their health systems and policies, marginalized groups in local communities are absorbed, reassembled, and transformed in everyday 'portals' which generate mutually entangled and composite forces of unification and healing as well as forces of division and wounding. In this commentary, I argue that these forces can be taken as embodying a geopolitics of love already subsumed by intimate, proximal, and mediated relations, therefore leaving out aspects of love that are populated by voids, hollows, and liminalities. Here, I reflect upon Massey's spatial politics vis-a-vis Harrison's notion of non-relationality in order to puncture the representational limits of the geopolitical as a way to transform 'bad' love (i.e. love that eclipses pains, sufferings, and otherness) while simultaneously not succumbing to a desire for sameness underpinning 'good' love (i.e. love that promotes unification and healing). Specifically, I suggest that the nonrelationality of place making and its geographies of nowhereness may lead us back home to love as always already there.

Narrative inquiry on early-career teachers' stories of Pagdadala in caring for students in low-resource urban public schools.

PURPOSE: In low-resource public schools, these costs may be amplified for early career teachers who help students bear increasingly complex burdens despite lack of resources and specialized support. However, there are limited studies on how care work and its costs are experienced by early-career Filipino public school teachers in low-resource contexts. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine teachers' stories of caring for burdened students using an integrative and critical narrative inquiry based on Clandinin's narrative framework and Decenteceo's cultural story-model of Pagdadala(i.e. burden-bearing). METHODS: Field texts were collected through in-depth interviews with ten (10) female teacher advisers over two months. Participants came from eight (8) different public schools catering to students from low-resource communities in Marikina City, Navotas City and Quezon City. RESULTS: Findings showed four narrative pathways ofpagdadalaof caring that teachers lived and told across the caring landscape: shared, overextended, asserted, and curtailed. These non-linear pathways reflect how teachers' experience of care work is shaped by the overlapping sphere of influence of homes, schools and communities in student care. CONCLUSIONS: Complimenting literature on care work in education using Clandinin's narrative inquiry framework that integrated Decenteceo'sPagdadalamodel, this study has offered a storied map of co-burden-bearing that was shaped by the social, spatial and temporal contexts in low-resource urban public schools. Theoretical and practical implications highlight the dynamics of bigat-gaanin care work and the potential advantage of leveraging on sharedpagdadalaand spaces of pagpapahingain supporting teacher wellbeing.

Unpacking the post-Haiyan disaster resettlement narratives of young Filipino women informal settlers in Tacloban City, Philippines.

Post-disaster resettlement narratives encapsulate the complex mobile-spatial processes that are embedded in a post-disaster context. The existing literature on disaster relocation and resettlement accords primacy to the logistical, practical, structural, and physical dimensions of residential transitioning. Building on this knowledge, this study conducted a spatial narrative inquiry to generate a link to mobile-spatial realities interspersed in diverse temporal trajectories. It did so by tracking the embodied rhythms of people and objects evoked through the retelling of post-disaster resettlement stories by 12 young Filipino women informal settlers. The key findings are organised in three spatial narratives: 'house near the sea'; 'there at the bunkhouse'; and 'here in Ridgeview'. These narratives are anchored in the overarching dimensions that underpin Filipino informal settlers' experiences of (not) moving in and out of disaster resettlement areas. Lastly, the findings are explained in the light of the theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of disaster resettlement specific to informal settlers.

Culture-embedded drivers and barriers to (non) condom use among Filipino MSM: a critical realist inquiry.

This qualitative study examines the drivers and barriers of condom use among Filipino men who have sex with men (MSM) using a critical realist inquiry (i.e., shared meanings, norms, and practices related to condom use). Thematic analysis was used to analyze interviews of 105 MSM participants across 21 cities in the Philippines. Key findings showed three social structures that shape how participants view sexual partners as safe (linked to non-condom use) or unsafe (linked to condom use). First, classism is linked to relative economic social position of sexual partner (lower socio-economic class as unsafe; higher socio-economic class as safe). Second, heteronormativity is linked to relationship arrangements (multiple partner as unsafe; exclusive partner as safe) and identity categories (bisexuals as unsafe; straight men are safe). Third, body-ism is linked with notions of health (looks sick as unsafe; looks healthy as safe) and appearance (not good looking as unsafe). Sexual partners perceived as good looking can be construed as either safe or unsafe. Discussion points highlight importance of understanding the cultural and material contexts of looking and sounding educated, looking healthy, looking physically attractive vis-à-vis promoting condom use.

The lived experiences of recovering Filipino persons who use drugs (PWUDs) without family support.

The Philippines's war on drugs brought about an influx or people of who use drugs (PWUDs) availing of community-based drug rehabilitation services for treatment. Programs have been created to develop skills to avoid relapse and improve family relations and support throughout the recovery process. However, not all Filipino PWUDs have the immediate presence or active participation of their families. While family support is construed as critical to sustained drug recovery in most existing studies, very few studies looked into this subset of PWUDs. In a Filipino culture wherein one's family is integral to one's personal identity, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted to examine the experiences of Filipino PWUDs in recovery without perceived family support. Results present four main themes on the experiences of (1) loss and longing while in recovery, (2) coping, (3) self-improvement, and (4) rekindling, rejoining and restarting social connections. Insights from this study can be used in understanding the Filipino way of coping in the relative absence of one's kin, reconstructing the role of family support and extending the meaning of family in the recovery of PWUDs, and finding ways to redesign family interventions in the Philippines.

Putting the "where" in HIV care: Unpacking narratives of antiretroviral therapy adherence among HIV-Positive men who have sex with men.

This study explores the spatial constitution of adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) by recasting therapeutic landscapes (Gesler, 1992) and how it structures the exercise of expressive agency (Bowden, 2014). Engagement in antiretroviral therapy among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) is contextualized within the discursive-materiality of emplaced assemblages for HIV Care in the Philippines. Combining qualitative data from field visits and semi-structured interviews, three key spatial narratives were derived illustrating how adherence to ART unfolds in place: (a) an unwelcoming treatment hub, (b) an unsafe and safe home, and (c) a constraining workplace. The results illustrate the spatial, multilayered barriers to ART adherence proposing insights for the theorization of adherence as an emplaced process and the implications of using of place-based interventions in resource-limited countries beyond the discourse of free service and availability.

Healing the hurt amid the drug war: Narratives of young urban poor Filipinos in recovering families with parental drug use.

BACKGROUND: This qualitative study explores the stories of young urban poor Filipino family members living with recovering parental drug users who turn themselves in to local authorities and completed theKatatagan Kontra Droga sa Komunidad (KKDK). This is a community-based rehabilitation program during the Philippine government's anti-illegal drugs campaign. METHODS: Young urban poor family members living with parental drug use were interviewed (n = 13) and asked to narrate their experiences of parental drug use, surrender, and recovery. Their stories were analyzed using an integrated approach to narrative analysis guided by Rhodes' framework (2002) of risk environment. RESULTS: Narrative work of participants focused on the stories of their parents' drug use and recovery after surrendering. These stories show contexts which evoke the salience of prevailing discourse (i.e., cultural organization of Filipino family) and shaming practices in the community, and how these are embodied in the lives of our young participants. In re-telling their stories of parental drug use, our young participants (re) positioned themselves in three different ways: "I am used to it", "I was neglected", "I am angry and hurt". After their parents completed the community-based rehabilitation program, they reconstructed their parents' stories of recovery as a catalyst to improve their situation as a family unit (i.e., "their change is our change"). CONCLUSION: Set against a national anti-illegal drug campaign, our findings contribute to a contextually nuanced perspective on the impact of parental drug use on children and families living in poverty. Policy makers and interventionists (e.g., mental health practitioners, social workers, psychologists) may need to consider young people's stories as a struggle to exercise their agency when tailoring community-based programs to respond to the needs of younger people. Challenges to advocate for psychological, social, and structural 'healing are discussed.

Struggling to care: A discursive-material analysis of negotiating agency among HIV-positive MSM.

A discursive-materialist framework of agency asserts the mutual constitution of agency within cultural discursive, economic, and embodied material structures. Understanding how HIV-positive men who have sex with men in the Philippines negotiate agency vis-a-vis wider social structures, we utilized Foucault's care of the self to locate agency in relationships with the self, others, and the broader world. Using data from narratives of 20 Filipino HIV-positive men who have sex with men, we analyzed the negotiation of agency as HIV-positive as embedded in the unique discursive terrain of Roman Catholicism and the economic materiality of a developing country. Three main processes of negotiating agency are elaborated: (1) questioning the spiritual self and the sexual body in the relationship with the self, (2) navigating interpersonal limits to care giving in the relationship with others, and (3) reclaiming human dignity in health care in the relationship with the broader world. Theoretical insights on the discursive and material constitution of healing in light of discursive and material challenges are discussed.