Lenore Lyons

Transcending the Border: Transnational Imperatives in Singapore's Migrant Worker Rights Movement

In the last five years, interest among civil society actors in the issues migrant domestic workers face in Singapore has exploded. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), informal networks, and faith-based groups have all formed to address the needs and interests of these workers. Most of these organizations are welfare-oriented, providing support services, training programs, and social networking opportunities. Some engage in advocacy and research activities. This latter group has lobbied successfully for important changes in how female migrant workers are recruited into and deployed within the domestic labor market. To date, their activities have been focused at the local level through their engagements with the Singaporean government, employment agencies, and employers. This orientation, however, has recently begun to change as they seek to develop transnational networks and support regional and international campaigns. This article examines the reasons behind this interest in cross-border organizing through detailed case studies of two advocacy-oriented NGOs, Transient Workers Count Too and the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics. The article explains that although a “transnational imperative” has begun to shape the activities of these two NGOs, they have different motivations for engaging beyond the border. By revealing a diversity of forms and meanings associated with the processes of “scaling up,” this article contributes to the broader scholarly understanding of the complex nature of transnational organizing and challenges earlier studies that assert that transnational activism is a necessary and natural outcome of migrant worker organizing.

Love, sex and the spaces in-between: Kepri wives and their cross-border husbands

In the Riau Islands of Indonesia significant numbers of women have entered into marriages with men from the nearby countries of Singapore and Malaysia. In many cases, neither spouse migrates after marriage: instead, husband and wife continue to reside in their country of origin. Their close geographical proximity means that the couples can see each other regularly while at the same time taking advantage of the economic opportunities presented by living on different sides of the border. These cross-border marriages challenge the normative model of the nuclear cohabiting couple/family. Our research into the motivations and desires of these cross-border couples living in the Riau borderlands reveals that space and mobility mediate their interactions with the Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian states, thus producing localized accounts of citizenship in which class mobility (rather than physical mobility) becomes the dominant frame through which they view state regulation of marriage and migration. This research challenges the state-centric tendencies in some of the scholarly literature on international and transnational marriage which places overwhelming emphasis on the ability of states to regulate access to citizenship rights. In presenting a view of inconsistent and sometimes incoherent states, we highlight the significant differences between perceptions of state influence and actual state practices in relation to the regulation of international marriages.

It’s about Bang for Your Buck, Bro: Singaporean Men’s Online Conversations about Sex in Batam, Indonesia

Questions pertaining to heterosexual mens consumption of sex tourism have only recently come into focus in a literature that engages primarily with the narratives and experiences of Western male s...

A politics of accommodation: Women and the People’s Action Party in Singapore

For the first time since achieving Independence in 1965, women now make up more than 10 per cent of parliamentary representatives in Singapore. While this figure still lags behind international benchmarks, it is a significant improvement on the last election in which women made up less than 5 per cent of MPs. This article explores the factors that led to the increase in womens parliamentary representation. I examine the attitudes of senior leaders within the ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP), as well as recent constitutional reforms, including the introduction of the Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) scheme and the creation of a Group Representative Constituency (GRC) system. I argue that while these reforms provide improved opportunities for women to participate in politics, it is the PAP that largely determines womens electoral chances. Despite party protestations to the contrary, women do not enter a level playing field, but one in which the terms of engagement are largely PAP defined. It is a political environment in which women are always primarily identified with the family. While both culture and politics are important factors in determining womens political representation, the manipulation of ‘culture’ for political purposes by a male-dominated party elite is more significant. Until the issue of gender inequality is directly addressed, womens opportunities to participate in politics will thus remain limited.

MIGRANT RIGHTS IN SINGAPORE

Replying to an article by Lenore Lyons in Critical Asian Studies (March 2009), the author of this essay argues that the tendency to treat a critique of rights as a rejection of rights betrays a modernist hesitation that refuses to treat rights and the subject imbued by them as ontologically unstable. Unproblematically, liberal prescriptions of rights and a “strong” civil society assume the presence of sovereign individuals with inherent rights that can be guarded by a politically independent civil society. The case study of Singapore, however, reveals the substantive “emptiness” of rights that is both susceptible to colonization by the states instrumental interests and amenable to the humane interventions of civil society groups campaigning for the protection of foreign workers. By framing and reframing the rights of female migrant workers as complementary to the economic interests of the host society, the author illustrates how an awareness of the contingent nature of rights by Transient Workers Count Too and the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics allows them to perform their humanitarian work within an illiberal political terrain. By reconciling the seemingly universalistic nature of inherent rights with its situational usefulness for political practice, the strategic maneuvers both groups made also contribute to a greater self-reflexivity about the unproblematic deployment of rights-based instruments in the political projects of our time. The author also argues that in failing to address the formulation of rights as ontologically unstable, Lyonss misplaced criticisms reflect a broader discomfort about the unsettling nature of postmodern critique that disrupts liberalisms moral foundations.

A curious space 'in-between': The public/private divide and gender-based activism in Singapore

Abstract In Singapore, the state’s role in shaping the space of civil society has been welldocumented. Many scholars argue that civil society in Singapore is largely a statesanctioned sphere of engagement that has emerged in response to middle-class pressure for greater political liberalization. In these accounts, the space of civil society is described as an arena that is shaped by the state, and in which the state constantly intervenes. What is less clear, however, is how the space of civil society is gendered. Through an analysis of women’s activism in Singapore, this article deconstructs the binaries ‘public/private’ and ‘state/civil society’ that dominate discussions of women’s engagement with the state. By posing questions not only about the limitations of state-sponsored social change, but also about the possibilities for feminist intervention in the public and private spheres, I shed light on the relationship between an expanding civil society, an encroaching state, and the possibilities for increased gender equality via democratization.

A State of Ambivalence: Feminism and a Singaporean Women's Organisation

(2000). A state of ambivalence: feminism in a Singaporean womens organisation. Asian Studies Review: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-23.

Where Are Your Victims

The United States has played a key role in international efforts to address trafficking in Indonesia, as elsewhere. In October 2001, the US State Department established an Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which prepares the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, widely known as the TIP Report. In the reports, countries are divided into three tiers according to their efforts to comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Tier One consists of those countries who fully comply with the minimum standards outlined in the US Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA); Tier Two of those who do not fully comply but are making efforts to ensure compliance; and Tier Three of those who do not comply and are not making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance (US Department of State 2000). Countries in Tier Three are subject to sanctions, including the termination of non-humanitarian aid and US opposition to assistance from international financial institutions (Ould 2004: 61). Critics argue that the TIP reports ignore forms of forced labour other than forced sexual labour, gloss over state complicity in trafficking and are vague about numbers of victims, convictions and sentencing rates (Caraway 2006: 298). Concerns have also been expressed about the impact of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) policy regarding the funding of programmes promoting safe sexual practices within brothels, which stipulate that in order to be eligible for US funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the trafficking field must declare their opposition to prostitution (Ditmore 2005; Weitzer 2007). Organizations that do not take a position on prostitution, as well as those that favour decriminalization or legalization are thus ineligible for funding from the US government.

Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Critical Perspectives

friends and build such communities (pp. 101–5). Other important issues are also mentioned only briefly, such as remittances, and relationships between the women whose spouses are living with them in Thailand and their husbands or between the women and their children. And we know almost nothing about their relationships with local Thais. It is fair, however, to say that every work of research has its limitations and that crucial issues will always require further study. And I recommend that anyone with an interest in the study of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand read this book. It will certainly provide him or her with a range of exciting baseline information.

Legal Issues Associated with the Study of Sexual Content on the Internet in Australia

The various legal issues that surround the study of sexual content by computer-mediated communication modes in Australia are analyzed. The various effects of the different regulations that are imposed by the government on the use of the internet in the country are also discussed.