The Deconstruction and Reconstitution of the Intimate within the

Context of Mobilities and Migration

Co-coordinators: A/P Tracey Skelton, Ms Kamalini Ramdas and Ms Monica Smith, Department of Geography

Project Scope

  • To explore the constructions of intimacy in mobilities and migration literatures
  • To critically engage with debates within mobilities and migration studies and examine the exclusions (children, young people, 'non-nuclear' family constructions) in existing research.
  • To engage with literature on migration and mobilities situated outside Asia
  • To compile an annotated bibliography of selected readings for dissemination (e.g. The International Critical Geography Forum)

 

Selected Reading List and Scheduled Meetings

Session 1: Sem 2 AY 08/09 (January to March 2009)

  • Group to meet in Week 2, Week 4, Week 7, Week 10 and Week 12 (5 meetings)
  • Address by Professor Geraldine Pratt (UBC, Canada) in Week 10

Key reading:
  • Pratt, G. and Rosner, V. (2006) “Global and the Intimate” Women’s Studies Quarterly Volume 34 Numbers 1&2 NY: Feminist
  • Press (Double issue produced as a paperback book)

Session 2: Sem 1 AY 09/10 (August – December 2009)

Theme 1: Marriage, Parenting, Family and Households

  • Group to meet in Weeks 2, 4 and 6.

Key Proposed Readings (to be confirmed by all participants):
  • Chatterjee, P. (1989), “Nationalism and colonised women: the contest in India”, American Ethnologist 16(4): 622-633.
  • Constable, N. (2003), Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography and Mail-Order Marriages, Berkeley: University of California Press (Chapters 4 and 5)
  • Hirsch, J. (1999), “En el Norte la Mujer Manda: gender, generation, and geography in a Mexican transnational community”, American Behavioral Scientist 42(9): 1332-1349
  • Hung Cam Thai (2008) For Better or For Worse: Vietnamese International Marriages in the New Global Economy, Chapel Hill: Rutgers University Press
  • Luibeid , E. (ed.), (2005), Queer Migrations: Sexuality, US Citizenship and Border Crossing, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Parrenas, R. (2008), “Transnational fathering: gendered conflicts, distant disciplining and emotional gaps”, Journal of Ethnic And Migration Studies 34(7): 1057-1072.
  • Pessar, P. R. and Mahler, S. J. (2003), “Transnational migration: bringing gender in”, International Migration Review 37(3): 812 – 846
  • Reynolds, T. (2001) “Caribbean fathers in family lives in Britain” in Goulbourne, H. and Chamberlain, M. (eds) Caribbean Families in Britain and the Trans-Atlantic World, London: Macmillan
  • Robinson, K. (2007), “Marriage migration, gender transformations, and family values in the ‘Global Ecumene’”, Gender Place and Culture 14(4): 483-497.
  • Ross, E. and Rapp, R. (1981), “Sex and society: a research note from social history and anthropology”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 23(1): 51-72.
  • Stoler, A. (1989), “Making empire respectable: the politics of race and sexual morality in 20th-century colonial cultures”, American Ethnologist 16(4): 634-660.
  • Taylor, V. et al (2008), Feminist Frontiers, McGraw-Hill College, chapters 24-27.

Theme 2: Children and Young People

  • Group to meet in Weeks 7, 9, 11.
  • Address by suggested visiting speaker in Week 12 or 13: Dr. Heaven Crawley (Swansea University, UK) or Dr. Hung Cam Thai, Pomona College, USA)

Key reading:

  • Crawley, H. (2006), Child First, Migrant Second: Ensuring Every Child Matters, London: Immigration Law Practitioner Association (this is available as a downloadable PDF)
  • Bhabha, J. (2004), “Seeking asylum alone: treatment of separated and trafficked children in need of refugee protection”, International Migration 42 (1): 141- 181
  • Faulstich Orellana, M., Thorne, B., Chee, A. and Wan Shun, E. L. (2001), “Transnational childhoods: the participation of children in processes of family migration”, Social Problems, 48(4): 572-591
  • Ho, C. G. T. (2002) “Caribbean transnationalism as a gendered process” in Abbassi, J. and Lutjens, S. (eds) Rereading Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Political Economy of Gender, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield
  • Kohli, R. (2006), “The sound of silence: listening to what unaccompanied asylum-seeking children say and do not say”, British Journal of Social Work 36: 707-721
  • McGregor, J. (2008), “Children and ‘African values’: Zimbabwean professionals in Britain reconfiguring family life”, Environment and Planning A 40(3): 596-614
  • Parrenas, R. (2005), “Long distance intimacy: class, gender and intergenerational relations between mothers and children in Filipino transnational families”, Global Networks 5(4): 317-336.

List of Participants

  • A/P Tracey Skelton (geost@nus.edu.sg)
  • Kamalini Ramdas (geokr@nus.edu.sg)
  • Monica Smith (m.a.smith68@nus.edu.sg)
  • Prof. Brenda Yeoh (Department of Southeast Asian Studies)
  • A/P. Shirlena Huang (Department of Geography)
  • Dr. Carl Grundy-Warr (Department of Geography)
  • Dr. Jayashree Mohanty (Department of Social Work)
  • Dr. Noorashikin Abdulrahman (Department of Geography)
  • Dr. Rajesh Rai (Department of South Asian Studies)
  • Dr. Xiang Biao (Asia Research Institute)
  • Ms. Alice Nah (PhD candidate, Department of Sociology)
  • Mr. Masao Imamura (PhD candidate, Department of Geography)