Events

Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and Canada Excellence Research Chair on Migration and Integration, Ryerson University.

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

PROGRAM

ABSTRACT

The many mobility restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic both between and within cities have deeply affected the lives of migrants. Some saw their livelihood put at risk, while others suffered from the psychological effects of the various disruptions caused by the pandemic. Some had to renounce to their projects and aspirations, while other launched new initiatives to project themselves in the future.

This webinar will feature the projection of 4 short documentaries from the series Migrant Lives in Pandemic Times project produced by CERC Migration & Integration and Migration Matters. These short films portray the experiences of migrants in the pandemic in three cities: a student/young professional and a construction worker/cultural activist in Singapore, a Filipina domestic worker in Palermo, and an Indian returnee driver from Kuwait. The projection will be followed by a discussion with the three scholars behind the creation of these documentaries. The webinar will explore the contribution of video-based research in the representation and analysis of migration processes and their embeddedness in urban environments.

About Migrant Lives in Pandemic Times Project

Migrant Lives in Pandemic Times is a digital storytelling project produced by CERC Migration and Migration Matters. Recorded during the summer of 2021, the project presents both personal testimony and expert analysis to explore how the everyday realities of 12 migrants from across the globe have changed during the pandemic. While the stories share the lived realities of individuals, they also reveal insights into universal conditions and challenges in terms of work, mental health, and the importance of communities. They celebrate resilience, while also critically analyzing the larger structural and policy issues at play. Each migrant story includes an individual portrait and an accompanying video statement and policy brief produced by an international migration scholar to provide additional context and suggestions for how conditions could be improved. From start to finish, the migrants featured in the project have taken an active role in the production of their stories.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jeremie Molho is Marie Curie Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University in Florence, Italy and associate member of the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He received his BA in Middle Eastern studies and MA in urban studies from Sciences Po Paris, and his PhD in geography (2016) from the University of Angers, France. Jeremie’s research focuses on globalization, cultural policies and diversity governance in cities. He conducted research on the globalization of art markets in Istanbul, Singapore, Doha and Hong Kong, and his recent research explores Singapore and Doha’s cultural policies and diversity management regimes, and mobilizes visual and video-based methods.

Letizia Palumbo is a senior research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and is the coordinator of the WP on Trafficking for the H2020 research project “Vulner” (2020-2023). She was previously research fellow at the Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute (EUI) where she coordinated a research project on the working conditions of migrant workers in the agricultural sector in Europe. She was also a post-doctoral researcher in Comparative Private Law at the University of Palermo, Italy. Her research focuses on migrant labour, labour exploitation, trafficking, migrants rights and women’s rights, especially with regard to domestic work and agricultural sector.

Aneeta Shajan is currently doing her PhD at Northumbria University in Newcastle, United Kingdom. Her research interests focus on the intersections between health, migration and ageing. She is also associated with the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD) as a research fellow.

Yang Yang is Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She received her PhD in Human Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research focuses on transnational religious networks and the politics of ethno-religious identity in northwestern China. Her dissertation thus adopts an ethnographic approach to analyzing the impacts of Hui Muslims’ grass-roots connections to non-Chinese Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and the Middle East in the Hui’s everyday lives in Xi’an, China. Her current research examines how the Hui diaspora in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia contributes to grass-roots connections between China and Malaysia, and how Malaysia becomes Hui’s new Muslim role model through serving as their preferred destination for halal tourism and their style references for Muslim fashion. Notably, this project analyses how ethno-religious identities and mobility intersect in the contexts of migration and the recentering of Islamic teachings in both cultural and political contexts on a global scale.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.