IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/tvecsg/v97y2006i1p26-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bifurcated Labour: The Unequal Incorporation Of Transmigrants In Singapore

Author

Listed:
  • BRENDA S.A. YEOH

Abstract

Following a brief background on Singapore's development from a product of overlapping diasporas to a multiracial nation, this paper gives attention to the dynamics of renewed streams of transnational labour flows in the current decade in the shaping of the global city. It examines the bifurcated nature of Singapore's foreign labour policies and how the transience/permanence divide is predicated on ‘skill’. On the one hand, structural (non)incorporation of contract workers as they are inscribed into (and simultaneously proscribed by) the host society results in vulnerability among what are already heavily marginalised and ‘flexibilised’ workers with little job security and no opportunities for social advancement within the host society. On the other hand, building a nation in the image of globalisation also requires selectively inclusionist projects to entice foreign talent – highly skilled professional workers, technopreneurs, entrepreneurs and investors – in order to keep Singapore in the global race. These differential politics of inclusion and exclusion lock transmigrants into two structurally determined sectors of society and the economy, with, currently, no possibility of interpenetration.

Suggested Citation

  • Brenda S.A. Yeoh, 2006. "Bifurcated Labour: The Unequal Incorporation Of Transmigrants In Singapore," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 97(1), pages 26-37, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:97:y:2006:i:1:p:26-37
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9663.2006.00493.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2006.00493.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2006.00493.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nick Lombardo, 2016. "Controlling Mobility and Regulation in Urban Space: Muslim Pilgrims to Mecca in Colonial Bombay, 1880–1914," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(5), pages 983-999, September.
    2. Po-Fen Tai, 2013. "Gender Matters in Social Polarisation: Comparing Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 1148-1164, May.
    3. Po‐Fen Tai, 2010. "Beyond ‘Social Polarization’? A Test for Asian World Cities in Developmental States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 743-761, December.
    4. Weiqiang Lin & Brenda SA Yeoh, 2016. "Moving in relations to Asia: The politics and practices of mobility," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1004-1011, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:97:y:2006:i:1:p:26-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0040-747X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.