Making freelance labor visible.

Our published works and ongoing research projects trace the moral economy, methods, and lived experience of Filipino freelance and creative work.

Advocating for Malayang Hanapbuhay

We bring empirical, ground-level accounts of Filipino freelance media and entertainment work to academic, institutional, and policy audiences

Academic Paper in Development

Utang na Loob, Delicadeza, at Tiwala: Social Contracts and the Moral Economy of Field-Based Embodied Freelance Work

"Ang May Kwentang Podcast": Theorizing Podcast Analysis as Qualitative Method in Philippine Sociology

This study examines the social contracts underlying field-based embodied freelance work in the Philippines.

To be presented for the Philippine Sociological Society in October 2026, this research explores a new methodology rooted in pakikipagkwentuhan as a decolonizing epistemological frame.

Published Paper

Kalayaan (Freedom), Hanapbuhay (Livelihood), and Pagsisibat (Persisting): A Conceptual Unpacking of Freelance Work in the Philippines

Using sibat as a metaphor for movement and survival, this paper builds a conceptual model of freedom through three movements: the freedom to enter, persist in, and exit freelance work.

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Conference Paper in Development

Tracing the moral economy, methodological grounding, and the daily performance of Filipino freelance and creative work.

Academic Paper in Development

Hanapbuhay: Life-Seeking and Self-Presentation in Philippine Freelance Work

This paper explores the spectrum between trabaho and hanapbuhay as different orientations of freelance work, with precarity as ambient condition.

Conference Paper in Development

Black Clothes, Invisible Bodies: The Politics of (In)visibility in Media Production Sets

Using autoethnography and visual ethnography, this paper examines the black production uniform as a social code structuring invisibility and hierarchy in Philippine media production.

Rellamas T., David, and Hernandez

Rellamas T. and Sarmiento

Rellamas T., Rellamas, M., Jolloso, and Del Rosario

Rellamas T., and Rellamas, M.

Rellamas T., Geronimo, and Lao (2025)

Ongoing Undergraduate Research Initiatives

Our ongoing initiatives isolate key structural pain points to establish baseline metrics for informal labor.

Urban Livelihoods & Tondo Studies

Hanapbuhay sa Lansangan: A Socio-Visual Glimpse of Informal Livelihood Practices in the Streets of Tondo

Ronald D. Maginit

Informal Creative Audiovisual Labor

Raket Dito, Raket Doon: Understanding Raket Through the Lived Experiences of Audiovisual Freelance Workers

Netanya Sarmiento

Creative Labor & Philippine Cinema

Surviving on Screen: Exploring the Constructions of Creative Labor in Pursuit of Ginhawa in Philippine Films

Aleah Rose P. Lajara

Hip-Hop Culture & Migrant Studies

Malayang Tunog: Ang Pagsisiyasat sa Paglalarawan ng Hip-Hop sa Danas sa Paghahanap-Buhay sa Ibang Ibayo

Dwight Chester Layson