Hello! I am a PhD candidate at the Dept. of Politics at York University, based out of Toronto, Canada. My research is situated at the junctures where labour & migration, Canadian studies, and the emergent field of Filipino Studies in Canada intersect.
My masters research is in the field of urban planning, at the University of Toronto’s Dept. of Geography and Planning. For my research, I asked questions about how migrant foreign workers employed in Canadian homes through the Live-In Caregiver Program (1992-2013) navigated expectations and realities of un/safety in the privacy of the domestic sphere. This work was published in the book Knowledge, Power, and Migration: Contesting the North/South Divide (Abu-Laban, Paquet, Tungohan, 2025) as Chapter 5, The Unmet Expectations of Love and Labour: Migrant Care Workers as Part of the Family; the book was named one of The Hill Times’ Top 100 Best Books in 2025.
My doctoral research focuses on the generational experiences of integration that is experienced by the Filipino diaspora in Canada. Anchoring the journey of the outmigration of Filipinos in a political understanding of citizenship from presidential SONAs, I then follow the stories of the Filipino migrant and their families to their new homes in Canada, and finally, examine how diaspora literary culture serves as a point of re/introduction for the migrants and their home nation(s). In my dissertation, I explore the processes of becoming in diaspora populations: how are Filipino citizens becoming citizen-migrants? what then are the ongoing processes by which the Filipino population become Canadian, and simultaneously, how do they become Filipino? For this ongoing work, I was awarded the Canada Graduate Scholarship-Doctoral by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
As a child of the Filipina labour diaspora, who was also one of the wave of Filipino nursing graduates in the 2010s, my research is close to my heart and is embodied in the life I have lived. The relationships I have with my families, both kin and found, are at the heart of my scholarly endeavours. My research focus is therefore deeply informed by my own relations of care and kinship with the Filipino community in Canada and beyond.
On the social internet, you can find me on Instagram @danimagsumbol. If you want to talk about fiction, my adventures are documented over @pagesonthetrain! I also post longer reflections about the stories I’m reading a few clicks away at Pages on the Train.
Dani Magsumbol 