Shirlena Huang

• National University of Singapore

Given the growing interest in and prominence of cross-border marriages in the region, this paper focuses on the binational family consisting of a foreign-born mother and Singapore-born father. In particular, this paper attends to the low-income binational family, showing how certain families in Singapore are more likely to be in structurally vulner...

This special issue examines how older adults anticipate and manage their futures through migration. Although ageing is often associated with decline towards the end-of-life, it is still a life stage where (the lack of) planning for the future can profoundly impact the life outcomes of older adults and their caregivers. This collection illustrates d...

Dyadic interviewing is a research method that focuses on the interdependent relationship between two people (known as a dyad). Alongside the rise of relational approaches in geography, researchers have taken greater interest in understanding the shared lives of specifically paired individuals. Although paired interviewing presents a way to elicit t...

International migration has meant that many transnational families develop transnational circuits of care to maintain collective family welfare. Although the emotional toll of geographical separation on the family has been recognized, the perspectives of elderly family members have remained relatively under-explored. Our paper seeks to plug this ga...

While there has been considerable academic interest in the topics of encounters and conviviality, including within the migration literature, little is known about how non-migrant and migrant older adults interact with one another in shared spaces, forming micro-publics that inflect the experiences of ageing for both groups. Using Qualitative Geogra...

As Singapore confronts escalating demands for eldercare labour in the face of rapid ageing, families are increasingly resorting to market-based, gender-normative options predicated on the care-chain migration of women to resolve familial care deficits. At the same time, given the prevalence of discourses of Asian familialism, the abdication of elde...

The connections between time and space have been studied considerably in quantitative and qualitative research on the geographies of care; however, researchers tend to prioritize one approach over the other. Our article integrates analyses of activity spaces and space–time paths with conceptualizations of care developed in qualitative studies to de...

This paper adopts a care ethics lens to examine multicultural encounters in the institutional care space of nursing homes in Singapore. We focus on the interactions between foreign and local care workers of different nationalities and ethnicities in their interactions as they work alongside one another to take care of elderly residents, as well as...

The literature on care relations and eldercare has directed attention towards recognising the interdependence between ‘carer’ (familial caregiver or home support worker) and the ‘cared for’ (the older person). Such an approach gives attention to the contingencies and entanglements that shape the relationships among differently positioned members of...

While geographers’ work in Southeast Asia has yet to engage substantively with theoretical developments in gender/feminist studies generated by Anglo-American academic centers, we argue that Singapore has proven to be somewhat of an exception. Focusing on the National University of Singapore, this article discusses how the development of gender and...

In examining the development of the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) Commission on Gender and Geography over the last three decades, we first highlight the advances made to establish visibility for gender studies within the IGU and create structures for more inclusive feminist geographies across national, disciplinary and other borders. Giv...

Care work refers to any face-to-face service that contributes to the affective and physical maintenance and development of those receiving the care. Because care is socially constructed as a “natural” attribute of women, care work when paid is seen as a feminized occupation. Feminists have contributed significantly to research on the geographies of...

Foreign domestic workers are a conspicuous presence in Singapore. A stroll through any residential neighbourhood any day of the week will reveal these women accompanying their young charges to childcare or school, taking a slow stroll with an elderly charge for the latter's daily exercise, hanging out the laundry, washing their employers' cars, sho...

Scholars have recently argued that globalisation processes have significantly altered not just the productive but reproductive sphere. ‘Reproduction’ is formulated to include both biological and social reproduction, and which at the individual level requires ‘care’ throughout the life-cycle – that is, from cradle to grave – in sustaining the body i...

In recent times, the increasing scholarly interest in the contested place of the migrant in the cities of the North and South has drawn mainly on frameworks of integration, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Much of the literature pays little heed to gender dynamics and accords little value in particular to the roles that female migrants play in...

The experience economy refers to a collection of industries dealing with “experiences” as their core service. Such industries include cultural, retail, entertainment, food/beverage, and tourism sectors. Although enshrined as a management concept, the experience economy has striking geographical implications. This chapter clarifies the connections b...

There is dominance of Anglo-American knowledge production in women's/gender/feminist studies in setting research agendas for theoretical approaches, epistemology, methodologies, and even topics investigated. In this paper, I argue that scholars in non-Anglo-American contexts, such as Asia, need to engage more in international academic debates, so a...

In this paper we suggest that the exchange of communication in a mediatized environment is transforming the nature of transactions in the religious marketplace. In this economy of religious informational exchanges, digitalization facilitates a process of mediatization that converts religious performance into forms suitable for commodification and c...

Migration into, out of, and within East Asia (comprising Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia) will undoubtedly increase as we continue into the twenty-first century. We need sustained research to provide fresh insights into transnational migrants' changing subjective positions and power as they move in/out of East Asia, constructing complex social lo...

This special issue on ‘Transnational mobilities for care: rethinking the dynamics of care in Asia’ examines the intersections between transnational mobilities for care and the practices of care through the lens of transnational migration for work and marriage. In this editorial introduction, we highlight three key themes explored by the articles th...

Research on transnational care work has tended to focus on the migration of women for either domestic work or nursing, and the two bodies of work have remained largely separate. In developed countries such as Singapore, however, the high level of female labour force participation alongside a rapidly ageing population has led to the deployment of bo...

In light of expanding epistemic resources online, the mediatization of religion poses questions about the possible changes, decline and reconstruction of clergy authority. Distinct from virtual Buddhism or cybersangha research which relies primarily on online observational data, this paper examines Buddhist clergy communication within the context o...

The mediation of communication has raised questions of authority shifts in key social institutions. This article examines how traditional sources of epistemic power that govern social relations in religious authority are being amplified or delegitimized by Internet use, drawing from in-depth interviews with protestant pastors in Singapore. Competit...

In its quest to be a world city, many of Singapore's urban spaces have been subjected to constant redevelopment. Derelict waterfronts and ageing neighbourhoods have been given new life, enjoying their reincarnation as landscapes of economy and leisure. A prevalent theme in Singapore's transformation has been the reclamation of landscapes to cater t...

This paper demonstrates the value of child-centred migration studies which highlight children’s role in shaping the migration journeys of their families, as well as their own projected journeyings. It examines the case of children from China who move to Singapore, an aspiring global education hub, expressly for the purpose of an overseas education...

In this introduction to the special issue of JEMS on The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in Asia, we note the movement in the academic literature from a narrow focus on the economic rationalities and corporate logics of transnational mobility among professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites, to a greater interest in these elite trans...

With global economic restructuring, one of the most striking migration flows within Asia has been that of women migrating to work as paid domestic workers in the region’s higher growth economies. Drawing on in‐depth interviews, we focus on the negotiation of mobility and work practices between employers in Singapore and their ‘foreign maids’ within...

A review of the shifts in human geographical research on Southeast Asia in the post-war years (Savage et al., 1993: 237) noted the scant attention in the literature given to the gender dimensions of economic development and social life. This is despite the rapidity and depth of change in the region, described in such terms as the 'new affluence' or...

As with other developed nations where rapid population aging has led to increasing health care and social care burdens, Singapore has searched for ways of paying for and providing long-term care for its increasing numbers of elders. The Singapore state, faced with the prospect of one-fifth of the population aged 65 or older by 2030, has reinforced...

We examine “religion-online,” an underrepresented area of research in new media, communication, and geography, with a multilevel study of the online representation and (re)presentation of Protestant Christian organizations in Singapore, which has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world and also believers affiliated with all the m...

In going beyond the general observation in the geographical literature that migrant women are often rendered ‘out of place’ in both globalisation discourses and the material spaces of the global city, we draw on a comparative frame in order to tease out more specific insights. The paper compares the sexualised moral discourses generated by the pres...

World cities are often distinguished by amenities and attractions which rival the best of what other cities have to offer. The quest to be 'best in the world', however, often militates against cities being 'unique in the world'. Our study of Singapore's waterfront offers a cautionary tale of how a 'geography of everywhere', encapsulating what other...

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This paper demonstrates how the emotional disruptions and disconnections associated with transnational mobility and moving are aggravated when abuse is perpetrated on transnational domestic workers who provide emotional labour in the homes of their employers. While research on the home as a cage or prison has focused on domestic violence against wo...

In the context of Southeast Asia (with the exception of Singapore), the incorporation of women's and gender issues into academic geography has been generally weak. Until the 1990s, not only were women's/gender issues generally ignored in the geography curricula offered in Southeast Asian universities, but geography texts/textbooks on Southeast Asia...

As a small city-state scarce in natural resources and aspiring to become a major player in a globalised world, Singapore exemplifies an urban node criss-crossed by transnational practices and networks of capital, labour, business and commodity markets, and cultural flows. The social, cultural and economic fabric of this city-state is thus not only...

This paper reviews the articles published on human geography in the Journal since its inception, and focuses on the contributions made in the major fields of research. In the earlier years of the Journal, the themes of tropical agriculture, population and settlement geography, and historical geography were particularly strong, as was a concern with...

As a small city-state scarce in natural resources and aspiring to become a major player in a globalised world, Singapore exemplifies an urban node criss-crossed by transnational practices and networks of capital, labour, business and commodity markets, and cultural flows. The social, cultural and economic fabric of this city-state is thus not only...

 The transformation of urban landscapes is as much a physical process as it is a symbolic one. Material changes in the form of demolition and redevelopment are often accompanied by changes in the image and identity of places, as well as the personal and collective memories associated with these places. Focusing on the Singapore River, we explore ho...

Abstract In this introductory article, we emphasize the significance of considering the politics and practices of transnationalism as they impinge on the social morphology of transnational ‘Asian’ families. Three strands of work in this arena are discussed. First, transnational families draw on ideologically laden imaginaries to give coherence to n...

Abstract For many middle-income Asian families from the region's less developed countries, the education of children in a more developed country has become a major ‘project’ requiring the transnational relocation of one or more members of the family. As an aspiring global education hub, Singapore has been a recipient of many international students....

This paper explores the concept of sustainable tourism and how it applies to urban destinations such as Singapore. As tourism is an important industry in Singapore, in terms of employment, business activity and an income generator, the Singapore Tourism Board is continuously looking at potential avenues to make Singapore a competitive destination....

The migration of women engaged in transnational domestic work reveals how the uneven impacts of globalisation have intruded into the micro-world of families and households. In this age of globalisation and migration, family membership has become multisited or transnational, with members dispersed in space. The migration of workers and the separatio...

Although many cities aspire to "global-city status," few have been as explicit as Singapore in its quest to create urban landscapes to project its global aspirations. This paper presents the case of the Singapore River development zone as a "hyper-symbol" of Singapore's global urbanism. By creating a world-class riverfront not unlike the acclaimed...

In Singapore, geography emerged as a strongly masculinist university discipline during the interwar years under colonial rule. Localizing staff hires in the postcolonial era did not immediately produce gender‐balanced staff profiles. Instead, a more equitable gender representation was achieved only in the last decade, following the increasing ‘femi...

The increasing numbers of men and women involved in international labor migration at all skill levels have raised crucial policy issues and concerns for both sending and receiving countries, not only in the area of migration and employment legislation, but also in terms of how migrant workers are positioned within the larger society. Using the case...

Following a brief survey of Singapore's urban history, the paper presents an overview of Singapore's largely successful planned urban/national development in the last four decades of the twentieth century and a critical discussion of some key urban planning challenges facing Singapore as it moves into the global age of the twenty-first century.

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 S...

This paper challenges the systematic, though often unacknowledged, gendered nature of much of current globalisation discourse and argues for the need to give attention to the gendered dimensions of the transnational flows of people into global cities and, relatedly, the gendering of metropolitan space in the process. The paper focuses on Singapore,...

It has been argued in the feminist literature that the state often contributes to patriarchal constructions of women's subordinate positions by providing political space for women's 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 ques...

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...

PIP This article analyzes the impact of migrant female domestic workers on the socioeconomic and political context in Singapore. Although Singapore state policy opposes long-term immigration, there is a labor shortage which permits a transient work force of low-skilled foreign workers. In the late 1990s, Singapore had over 100,000 foreign maids, of...

Les migrations internationales des domestiques philippines Contextes et expériences aux Philippines et à Singapour. Richard T. Jackson, Shirlena Huang, Brenda S. A. Yeoh. Bien qu'il ait souvent été avancé que les conditions ayant généré les migrations de travailleuses philippines sous contrat sont ancrées dans des rapports politico-économiques inég...

This paper investigates migrant domestic workers as a marginalised group in Singapore's urban landscape by examining the ways in which their social maps are structured and negotiated in relation to public space. It argues that the phenomenon of the 'divided city' evident in capitalist societies which reflects and reinforces the sexual division of l...

This paper examines the migration of women to work as domestic helpers in a foreign country as part of the global and regional systems of labor movements associated with global economic restructuring. A growing component of labor flows from less developed countries has been that of female migrants seeking work as paid domestic helpers in the househ...

Conservation-redevelopment conflicts are increasingly gaining prominence on the urban agendas of cities in the developing world. This paper examines the role urban conservation plays within the broader framework of national ideology and policies in Singapore, a city which faces intensive redevelopment pressures. It explains how, from the perspectiv...

Conservation-redevelopment conflicts are increasingly gaining prominence on the urban agendas of cities in the developing world. This paper examines the role urban conservation plays within the broader framework of national ideology and policies in Singapore, a city which faces intensive redevelopment pressures. It explains how, from the perspectiv...

This paper examines the sense of place in a high-rise, high-density urban environment. In the past, most of the public housing estates in Singapore had a uniform, monotonous appearance. This is rapidly changing. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is using highly visible designs to add variety to the skyline of the estates and to the facades of...

This paper examines the sense of place in a high-rise, high-density urban environment. In the past, most of the public housing estates in Singapore had a uniform, monotonous appearance. This is rapidly changing. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is using highly visible designs to add variety to the skyline of the estates and to the facades of...

PIP 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...

Using a survey of tourists and locals, this study investigates the success of Singapore's Civic and Cultural District as a conservation project. The survey revealed that tourists were attracted by the facades of old colonial buildings that have been carefully restored. In contrast, Singaporeans attach a great deal more to activities and lifestyles...

Childcare issues lie at the critical nexus where questions relating to the economy, state ideology, culture, and women's roles come together. We explore the childcare strategies of Singapore women in the context of a society which is distinctively “multiracial” with deep cultural tap roots and which is at the same time experiencing rapid economic d...

Childcare issues lie at the critical nexus where questions relating to the economy, state ideology, culture, and women's roles come together. We explore the childcare strategies of Singapore women in the context of a society which is distinctively “multiracial” with deep cultural tap roots and which is at the same time experiencing rapid economic d...

Article discusses gender politics and globalization. Globalization forces are popularly perceived to be remaking the world by sweeping all forms of localism aside, whether economic, social, cultural, or political. The papers in this Special Issue take up the notion of "diaspora" as one such framework for re-examining current flows of migrants, espe...