Managing the non-integration of transient migrant workers: Urban strategies of enclavisation and enclosure in Singapore

Brenda SA Yeoh and Theodora Lam
Additional contact information
Brenda SA Yeoh: National University of Singapore, Singapore
Theodora Lam: National University of Singapore, Singapore

Urban Studies, 2022, vol. 59, issue 16, 3292-3311

Abstract: Research on migration in arrival cities, particularly in the west, has traditionally focused on spatial formations such as ‘ethnic enclaves’ or ‘immigrant neighbourhoods’ in order to investigate questions around assimilation, integration and settlement issues relating to more permanent forms of migration. By shifting attention to the cities of migration in Asia that operate largely under a regime of temporary migration, we foreground the twin concepts of enclavisation and enclosure not as fixed entities but as ongoing spatial-temporal strategies of disciplinary power with uneven consequences for migrant life and labour in the city. Set within the context of Singapore, we draw on qualitative interviews with two groups of transient migrant workers – male construction workers and female domestic workers – to examine two sets of conjoined processes underpinning their spatial containment in the city-state: ground-driven enclavisation or the formation of ‘weekend enclaves’ /gathering grounds as co-national social spaces of support and comfort zones of co-ethnic belonging; and state-driven enclosure in dormitories or home-workspaces as a set of containment measures in response to gender-differentiated concerns about enclavisation. As spatial–temporal processes that shape the migrant’s place in, and mobility through, the city in highly gendered and disciplined ways, enclavisation and enclosure work in tandem to reinforce the non-integration of low-waged transient migrants in the city.

Keywords: domestic workers; enclavisation; enclosures; low-waged migrants; Singapore; 家政工人; 飞地; 圈地; 低工资移民; æ–°åŠ å ¡ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980221114316 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:16:p:3292-3311

DOI: 10.1177/00420980221114316

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().