New Media, Migration and the City: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Chinese, Filipino and German Professionals in Singapore

In the past 15 years, influential concepts from geography, social, cultural and communication studies have been proposed that conceptualize (everyday) space in the digital age – such as the concepts of 'code/space', 'datafied space', 'atmospheres' and 'hybrid spaces'. These deliver important contributions to theorizing the active role of data, codes, and algorithms, as well as bodies, embodiment, and affects in producing space. Yet, they consider less the role of practices, social intra-actions and difference, as well as more-than-human actants and contexts beyond technologies. In this article, the authors develop the cON/FFlating spaces concept as a link between relational, more-than-human, more-than-representational, posthumanist, and (post-)feminist conceptualizations of (everyday) space. Using Karen Barad's 'diffractive methodology', data and findings from three research projects are read through different theoretical-conceptual approaches – among others Barad's concepts of 'entanglements', 'intra-actions' and 'diffraction' as well as Doreen Massey's 'multiple historicities'. Building on this, we propose 8 theses on cON/FFlating spaces. These discuss the role of practices, power, technologies, non-linear, open and multiple historicities, entangled presences, more-than-human actants and contexts, bodies and affects, and difference/'diffraction' for space and collectivity.

p>For the last decade there has been a lively debate on urban arrival spaces. Saunders’ (2011) widely received book Arrival Cities can be seen as catalyst of this debate. Taking a hitherto largely unexplored comparative approach, based on two empirical research studies on migrant workers and highly-skilled migrants in Singapore, this study debates the notion of arrival cities and spaces and argues for a differentiated perspective on the complex and interdependent processes of spatially and socially arriving. By comparing how the politics of mobilities, migration management and differential inclusion influence the migration trajectories of workers and professionals we argue that the concept of transient spaces might be a more fruitful approach for understanding the differentiated processes of arriving and (not) becoming socio-spatially embedded. In order to educe the relevance of a processual perspective, and for a systematic comparison, we apply four analytical dimensions that shed light on the process of migrating, arriving, and passing through. These four dimensions comprise (1) arriving, (2) settling, (3) mingling locally and translocally, and (4) planning ahead for future mobilities. We argue that the scholarship on politics of mobilities needs to take note of the combined effects of states’ and companies’ neoliberal politics of mobility throughout the migration process, and of the increasing relevance of socio-technological orderings, which imprint migrants’ socio-spatial embedding.</p

Many recent, newly planned cities in Asia follow models such as the 'smart city' or the 'eco city'. These developments are driven by rapid urbanisation processes and the urge for post-colonial modernisation, national identity building or economic prosperity. While the replication of successful and sustainable city models can be an important cornerstone of the urban transformation, current models are often too much in the service of a neoliberal economy.

Research on highly skilled migrants, transnational elites, and expatriates has often portrayed these groups as displaying an exceptional readiness for mobility, moving through a frictionless world, and belonging to an elite or privileged class in their host countries. Also, it has mostly focused on the migration of professionals from the West to low- or middle-income countries elsewhere. This article challenges and amends existing research through an analysis of the variability and temporality of the mobility intentions of professionals, including their aspirations to fixity, stay, and settlement. It seeks to fill a few lacunas in the literature, among them professionals' aspirations to stay and settlement, the various constraints that they face in remaining stationary or pursuing an envisaged onward mobility, medium- and long-term-oriented mobility intentions in addition to more short-term ones and the recognition that professionals occupy various class positions in their migration destination. The argument is based on a qualitative and cross-cultural study on Filipino, German, and People’s Republic of China professionals in Singapore. It sheds light on the impact of socioeconomic, social, and sociocultural factors, and of the biopolitics of space, identity, and belonging on mobility intentions. Special attention is paid to the influence of recent changes to the immigration and residency law in Singapore, referred to as the “Singaporeans First” measures.

In 2014 Singapore announced its “Smart Nation” vision, which shifts the focus of previous ICT campaigns from hard to five soft domains: mobility, living and environment, health, public services and economic productivity. Promises to improve urban quality of life compete with the struggle for a leading position in the global city system and rankings. It will aggravate socioeconomic polarisation and includes unprecedented methods to monitor the population.// Im Jahr 2014 hat Singapurs Premierminister Lee Hsien Loong die „Smart-Nation“-Strategie angekündigt. „Smartness“ definiert, wie gut die singapurische Gesellschaft Technologien zur Lösung ihrer Kernprobleme und -herausforderungen nutzt (SNPO 2016). Der Beitrag analysiert die Rolle des Staates und die Folgen der neuen Technologien für die Bevölkerung. Das kontinuierliche Streben nach der „Modell-City“, die potenzielle Überwachung der Bevölkerung durch eine neue Sensortechnik und die Gefahr einer weiteren gesellschaftlichen Polarisierung und Fragmentierung werden diskutiert.

This article explores the effects of people's digital coexistence on the construction of difference and feelings of aversion to or recognition of “others”. It seeks to make a theoretical contribution to works on the geographies of difference and encounter, Internet or digital geography, as well as on migration and digital media, by highlighting the relevance of indirect and fleeting digital encounters and the dialectical process in which Encounters play out in intertwined, specific and multiple digital and physical spaces that we define as “cON/FFlating situational places of encounter”. Based on a qualitative study with Chinese, Filipino and German migrant professionals in Singapore, it shows how fleeting digital encounters take an ambivalent role through challenging but also producing new “temporary fixings of difference”. As such they can engender new sensibilities for and openness toward the host society but also breed new, or aggravate existing, cultural stereotypes and prejudices. The findings show that inherited and instituted classificatory practices that people use to structure and make sense of their fleeting interactions with others in offline space are, where possible, transferred and imposed on encounters in digital space. At the same time, they are inflected or replaced with new markers of difference where ingrained sorting mechanisms applied in offline space did not help them make sense of encounters in digital space. Until 8 November free Access via this link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718517302464

This article examines the differences that digital media (Internet and mobile communications) and mobility create for sense of place. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 German professionals in Singapore, it analyses digital media choices and use during the relocation and settlement process in the destination of migration and the effect of these practices on migrants’ perception of place. It demonstrates how the primary reason to use digital media conversed from individual interests and needs in relation to the relocation and/or initial exploration of the city to the social and emotional ramifications of their use the longer the interviewees stayed in Singapore. It makes a theoretical contribution to the understanding of how digital and offline places combine in the construction of sense of place, how the digital sphere affects engagements with place, attachment to it and sensuous experiences of it.