Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Singaporean and British transmigrants in China and the cultural politics of ‘contact zones’

The international migration of professional workers has increased in scope over the past 20 years as skilled workers are needed when companies’ activities cross national borders. While this trend has been recognised from an economic perspective, much less has been researched from a social and cultural angle. Using case studies of British and Singaporean migration to China, this paper employs a comparative frame to examine the effect of cultural differences—both in terms of business culture as well as social norms regarding ethnicity and gender—on the dynamics of the ‘contact zones’ emerging in various cities in China, including the cosmopolitan cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong, the Chinese capital city of Beijing, as well as the industrial townships of Suzhou, Wuxi and Guangzhou. As sites which invoke the spatial and temporal copresence of subjects previously separated by geographic and historical disjunctures, and whose trajectories now intersect, ‘contact zones’ (as defined by Mary Pratt in the context of colonial encounters) are frontiers where ‘difference’ is constantly encountered and negotiated. Given very different ethno-historical linkages traced by Singaporeans and Britons to China and as a result a divergence of cultural imaginings about ‘China’, it is not unexpected that the two groups of transmigrants enact different ways of encountering life in China. The paper explores the differential politics of the Singaporean and British presences in China around three stereotypical images of the foreigner in China—the culturalist, the colonialist and the imperialist.

Migrant female domestic workers: debating the economic, social and political impacts in Singapore.

As a small labor-short city-state with over 100,000 migrant domestic workers mainly from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka and amounting to one foreign maid to every eight households, Singapore provides a case study of a country where foreign maids are seen as an economic necessity but not without important social consequences and political ramifications. Beginning with a brief examination of state policy on transnational labor migration relating to female domestic workers, this article goes on to explore the debates within public discourse as well as private accounts on the impact of foreign maids on a range of issues, including female participation in the workforce; the social reproduction of everyday life including the delegation of the domestic burden and the upbringing of the young; the presence of “enclaves” of foreign nationals in public space; and bilateral relations between host and sending countries. It concludes that the transnational labor migration is a multifaceted phenomenon with important repercussions on all spheres of life, hence requiring dynamic policy intervention on the part of the authorities concerned.

Remaking local heritage for tourism

Abstract The paper outlines the development of Haw Par Villa as a philanthropic gift for leisure among locals to its revisioning by private enterprise and by the national tourism board as a commercial venture. Against this background, a survey was conducted among the local population to ascertain their reactions to the remaking of local heritage and among tourists to determine their perceptions of the “new” attraction. While locals cling to the personal and valued memories of the old villa, tourists consume the theme park in terms of a commodity package. The dichotomous reaction underscores the importance that must be given to local landscapes in the planning of cultural and/or historical attractions.

Home, work and community: skilled international migration and expatriate women in Singapore.

This study illustrates different immigration strategies, by country of origin, in establishing oneself in the destination country. Western expatriates tend to rely on strong institutional support. Asian expatriates must navigate much finer sociocultural differences. This study examined how women define gender identities in their strategies for adjusting to home, work, and community. Singapore defines expatriates as those with a professional degree and a high salary. Economic policies in Singapore have enhanced the growth of expatriates. The estimated expatriate population in Singapore amounts to about 80,000 persons, of whom 6000-8000 are long-term migrants from the US. The largest single minority migrant population are Japanese (20,000). Data were obtained from interviews among 116 women and 78 men from Holland Enclave, various foreign schools, and charitable and social organizations. In-depth interviews were conducted among 10 Western female migrants and 10 Asian female migrants aged 27-47 years. 77% moved due to their spouses employment. 81% had paid work in their own country, but only 44.8% were employed in Singapore. Women experienced barriers to part-time work in Singapore, child care options, and linkages to Singapore society. 67.3% of Asians and 26.6% of Westerners had paid work. 84.5% were responsible for housework. 75% of Westerners and 33% of Asians adopted new roles as homemakers, regardless of their educational level. Social networks revolved around schools and nationality based social clubs. The authors suggest that global cities must also provide an inclusive environment for both men and women of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

“Home” and “away”: Foreign domestic workers and negotiations of diasporic identity in singapore

Abstract World cities produced by the processes of globalization and international migration increasingly take on shifting kaleidoscopic ethnoscapes constituted by gathering subjects of diaspora ranging from highly skilled international “denizens” to low-skilled guest workers. In this context, we focus on migrant women from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka who enter Singapore to work as domestic workers and examine the ways these women (re)configure their social identities under conditions of diaspora. More specifically, we consider the strategies employed in navigating the space between “home” and “host,” including the ways in which these women try to maintain or strengthen ties (social, emotional, financial, and imagined) to “homeland” as well as their attempts to (re)create a “home away from home” in literal and metaphorical ways. The paper argues that notions of gender differences clearly underlie migrant womens (re)negotiations of self vis-a-vis the construction imposed by others as they seek to occupy and challenge the sociocultural spaces in which they are inserted in their host country.

Breadwinning Wives and “Left-Behind” Husbands Men and Masculinities in the Vietnamese Transnational Family

This article explores an aspect of women’s transnational labor migration that has been understudied in many labor-sending countries: how men experience shifts in the household labor division triggered by women’s migration. In so doing, we shed light on the diverse ways notions of masculinity and gender identities are being reworked and renegotiated in the transnational family. Drawing on qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with carers of left-behind children in Northern Vietnam, we show how men are confronted with the need to take on child care duties, which have traditionally been ascribed to women, while at the same time being under considerable pressure to live up to locally accepted masculinity ideals. We provide interesting insights into the changing family structures and dynamics in Vietnamese society where patriarchal norms continue to exert significant influence on different facets of life.

The construction of national identity through the production of ritual and spectacle: An analysis of National Day parades in Singapore

Abstract In this paper, we adopt the view that ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’ are social constructions, created to serve ideological ends. We discuss this in the specific empirical context of Singapores National Day parades. By drawing on officially produced souvenir programmes and magazines, newspaper reports, and interviews with participants and spectators, we analyse the parades between 1965 and 1994, showing how, as an annual ritual and landscape spectacle, the parades succeed to a large extent in creating a sense of awe, wonderment and admiration. Discussion focuses on four aspects of the celebrations: the site of the parades, their display and theatricality, the composition and involvement of parade participants, and parade themes. We also discuss some examples of alternative readings of parade meanings, illustrating how ideological hegemony is not total.

Opening the Black Box of Migration : Brokers, the Organization of Transnational Mobility and the Changing Political Economy in Asia

This special issue takes the migrant broker as a starting point for investigating contemporary regimes of transnational migration across Asia. The articles, which span large parts of Asia—including China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, as well as New Zealand—show that marriage migration, student migration, and various forms of unskilled labour migration, including predominantly male plantation and construction work and female domestic, entertainment, and sex work, are all mediated by brokers. Although much is known about why migrants leave home and what happens to them upon arrival, considerably less is known about the forms of infrastructure that condition their mobility. A focus on brokers is one productive way of opening this “black box” of migration research. The articles in this issue are thus not primarily concerned with the experiences of migrants or in mapping migrant networks per se, but rather in considering how mobility is made possible and organized by brokers, most notably in the process of recruitment and documentation. Drawing from this evidence, we argue that in contrast to the social network approach, a focus on the migrant broker offers a critical methodological vantage point from which to consider the shifting logic of contemporary migration across Asia. In particular, paying ethnographic attention to brokers illuminates the broader infrastructure that makes mobility possible while revealing that distinctions between state and market, between formal and informal, and between altruistic and profit-oriented networks are impossible to sustain in practice.

Ties that bind: State policy and migrant female domestic helpers in Singapore

The introduction to this paper reviews the global economic restructuring that has led to theories of a new international division of labor (NIDL) marked by a global feminization of labor that exploits traditional feminine qualities. The argument is made that the NIDL theory fails to cover international labor migration such as that undertaken by female domestic servants in East and Southeast Asia. After summarizing recent research on international waged domestic labor, it is noted that policies of labor-sending countries have, until recently, reflected concerns with enhancing the flow of remittances home to relieve international debt rather than with the well-being of the workers. The paper goes on to focus on the effect of Singapores state policies on incoming labor migration. After examining the conditions that created the demand for foreign maids, the paper investigates how state policy facilitated the exploitation of these women and perpetuated the social ideology of housework both as womens work and as non-work. It is shown that the official view that paid or unpaid productive labor belongs to the private domain beyond the purview of the state has detrimental repercussions for foreign domestic helpers. These arguments are bolstered with data from secondary sources and from field work conducted in 1995 involving a survey of 162 matched pairs of foreign domestic helpers and employers and in-depth interviews with 15 workers and 15 employers (13 matched pairs).

Spaces at the Margins: Migrant Domestic Workers and the Development of Civil Society in Singapore

It has been argued in the feminist literature that the state often contributes to patriarchal constructions of womens subordinate positions by providing political space for womens incorporation into civil society not as individuals and citizens but as members of a family belonging to the private sphere. In this paper the authors explore this question in the broad context of international labour migration in the Asia Pacific region, where migrant women are moving as paid reproductive labour in large numbers from less-developed countries to rapidly industrialising urban nodes in the region. The authors ground the ensuing issues in the specific case of Singapore, a country currently engaged in constructing a sense of nationhood among its people. Even as there is now some debate on the emergence of civil society as part of the nation-building project and possibly a larger role for social agencies which lie outside the rubric of state parameters, there are groups of women who are excluded from this embryonic discourse. One such group is the more than 100 000 female migrant domestic workers (from the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and a number of other South and Southeast Asian countries) who, as women, domestics, and noncitizens, are identified with the confines of the private sphere and proscribed from public space in the dominant (and emerging) discourses. With use of a questionnaire survey, as well as in-depth interviews with foreign domestic workers, their employers, and a number of social organisations, the authors examine the politics of exclusion at the margins of society. The aims are to explore the types of social organisations which have opened up some ‘space’ within their structures for foreign domestic workers, as well as interest groups which have certain claims to represent these women, and to clarify the roles these marginal spaces play. This helps illumine the way these women interact with mainstream Singaporean society beyond the confines of the domestic sphere and broadens the understanding of the boundaries of civil society in Singapore and the politics of being ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.