Dr Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot

Marital break-up and state policies: A case study of Filipino migrant women in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany
January 2016 to December 2017

Who is Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot?

Dr Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot received her PhD in Sociology in 2008 from Paris Diderot University for her thesis on Filipina mothers in France. She was a FNRS postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. At the moment she works as a research associate at Paris Diderot University. At Radboud University she worked with Professor Betty de Hart. The work of Fresnoza-Flot is very close to De Hart’s NWO-funded VIDI-project ‘Transnational Families between Dutch and Islamic Family Law.’

What is her research project about?

A break-up from a partner constitutes a rupture that poses many challenges to the individuals involved. These challenges include property rights, spousal support issues and, when the couple has a child, custody and co-parenting. Little is known about the process of break-ups in the case of binational unions, relationships formed either before or after migration (including marriage, legal co-residence and informal one) between two persons with different nationalities. Given their legal dependency on their partners, migrant spouses appear in a vulnerable situation when their binational union breaks up. This research project illuminates the support sources that migrant women need or rely on to cope with conjugal dissolution. To do so, it focuses on the case of Filipino migrant women, since their global cross-border unions are well documented in the literature on marriage- and family-related migrations. Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands were selected as fieldwork sites because they are among the major destinations of cross-border marriage migrants in Western Europe.

Why was she nominated?

Professor Betty de Hart: ‘Dr. Fresnoza-Fiot is an excellent researcher. Her PhD dissertation is in French and received the highest possible grade. In addition, she has published her research results in high ranking peer-reviewed journals in English and in French. Her teaching activities and her participation to conferences and seminars have certainly contributed to the clarity with which she presents scientific data, whether orally or in her published works. Her training in migration, law and family studies, her competence and her passion for interdisciplinary research and fieldwork make her a complete socio-legal scientist.’

During her Radboud Excellence fellowship

Dr Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot was a Radboud Excellence fellow from January 2016 to December 2017.

Publications with Radboud University affiliation

Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2018). Social Citizenship and Divorce. (extern rapport, Nijmegen Migration Law Working Papers Series, no 2018/01). Nijmegen: Radboud University Nijmegen [repository]
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2018). Beyond migration patterns-understanding family reunion decisions of Filipino labour and Thai marriage migrants in global reproductive systems. Migration Studies, 6 (2), 205-224. doi: 10.1093/migration/mnx038
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). (Un)claiming social rights in times of divorce: Filipino migrant women (re)defining social citizenship in the Netherlands and in Belgium. In European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference, University of Oslo, Norway
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). Transnational divorce. Migrant Filipinas in the Netherlands and the Philippine family law. In Association for Asian Studies 2017 Annual Meeting[repository]
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). Why do some ‘mixed’ couples break up? Unequal power relations in the intimate sphere. In Power, Intimacy and the State: Mixed Families in Europe and Beyond conference, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). International or Transnational? A Conceptual Dilemma in the Study of Divorce in Cross-Border Social Spaces. In Transnational Families and Divorce: Rethinking Marital Break-up in Times of Global (Im)mobilities conference
Fresnoza-Flot, A. & Ricordeau, G. (2017). International Marriages and Marital Citizenship. Southeast Asian Women on the Move. Abingdon: Routledge (204 p.)
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). Navigating Migration Policies in Europe: Insights from the Field. In C.A.F.M. Grütters, S.A. Mantu & P.E. Minderhoud (Eds.), Migration on the Move. Essays on the Dynamics of Migration (pp. 268-285). Leiden: Brill [repository]
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2017). Gender- and social class-based transnationalism of migrant Filipinas in binational unions.Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43 (6), 885-901. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2012.640027
Fresnoza-Flot, A. & Shinozaki, K. (2017). Transnational perspectives on intersecting experiences. Gender, social class and generation among Southeast Asian migrants and their families.Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43 (6), 867-884. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2012.640027
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Migration, familial challenges and scholastic success. Mobilities experiences of the 1.5-generation Filipinos in France. In I. Nagasaka & A. Fresnoza-Flot (Eds.), Mobile childhoods in Filipino transnational families. Migrant children with similar roots in different routes (pp. 59-86). Palgrave Macmillan: New York
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Single or chimeric ethnic identity? Self-identifications of 1.5-generation Filipinos in France. In K. Ulm & S. Gaspar (Eds.), People on the move. Recent perspectives on Southeast Asian migration (pp. 3-66). Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). The bumpy landscape of family reunification. Experiences of first and 1.5-generation Filipinos in France. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41 (7), 1152-1171. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2012.640027
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Un double ancrage. Liens familiaux et insertion sociale des enfants d’immigrés philippins en France. Enfances, Familles, Générations, 2015 (22), 159-181. [repository]
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Evaluation report no. 1. Female volunteers program. Training to enhance skills. S̄Ārs̄Trī.Līlāchīwit (Women’S Newsletter. Lifestyle), 2015, 19-22.
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Evaluation report no. 2. Homecoming. Thai youth cultural program. S̄Ārs̄Trī.Līlāchīwit (Women’S Newsletter. Lifestyle), 2015, 23-29.
Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). [Bespreking van het boek Genre, migrations et emplois domestiques en France et en Italie. Construction de la non qualification et production de l’altérité ethnique]. The European Journal of Women's Studies, 22(2), 260-262.
Nagasaka, I. & Fresnoza-Flot, A. (2015). Conceptualising childhoods in transnational families. The ‘mobile childhoods’ lens. In I. Nagasaka & A. Fresnoza-Flot (Eds.), Mobile childhoods in Filipino transnational families. Migrant children with similar roots in different routes (pp. 23-41). Palgrave Macmillan: New York
Nagasaka, I. & Fresnoza-Flot, A. (Ed.). (2015). Mobile childhoods in Filipino transnational families. Migrant children with similar roots in different routes. Palgrave Macmillan: New York (XVII, 268 p.)

Career after Radboud University

After finishing her fellowship at Radboud University, Dr Fresnoza-Flot has been working as a F.R.S.-FNRS Research Associate and Senior Lecturer for the Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds (LAMC), Institute of Sociology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, Belgium.

Visit her website http://urmis.unice.fr/?Asuncion-Fresnoza-Flot-598&lang=en