Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Wei Yang, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

This talk brings to the fore the life trajectories, migratory projects and aspirations of young EU migrants in two Asian cities, Singapore and Tokyo. It paints a fine-grained portrait of a group of young people juggling the dream of spatial and social mobility central to the EU project, middle-class aspirations, and the consequences of the economic and financial crisis of the 2010s – as well as being on the verge of the COVID-19 pandemic that deeply disrupted international mobility and led to protracted border closures, particularly for non-nationals. The talk discusses how migration to Asian business centres has become a way of distinction and an alternative way of middle-class reproduction for young Europeans. It also reveals how perceived insecurities in the crisis-ridden EU result in these migrants’ migration or prolonged stays in Asia. Based on longitudinal qualitative research in Singapore and Tokyo, this study makes the case for EU citizens’ aspired lifestyles and professional employment that is no longer only attainable in Europe or the West. Singapore and Tokyo have become their temporary homes. Having spent the crucial first life stage of ‘full’ adulthood and economic independence in Asia, the migrants have established grounds for a middle-class lifestyle that they might not be able to replicate back home. Singapore’s and Japan’s changing migration regimes, however, pose different barriers to the migrants, which results in ambiguous feelings towards their host societies. The analysis reveals a diametrical change in both country’s migration policies and offers a nuanced portrayal of the way the complexification of migration regimes, continuous ethnic diversification and changing global power structures affect the daily lives of foreign professionals in Singapore and Tokyo.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Helena Hof is Senior Research and Teaching Fellow in Social Science of Japan at the University of Zurich and Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Her work lies at the nexus of mobility studies, the sociology of work, skilled migration, gender, ethnicity and race, and global cities and entrepreneurship. In her current collaborative project on the role of skills in labor migration processes in Asia, Helena examines the (im)mobility, networks, and practices of staying and belonging of foreign entrepreneurs in Tokyo’s and Singapore’s knowledge-intensive startup scene. Helena holds guest researcher affiliations with Waseda’s Institute of Asian Migrations in Tokyo and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Her most recent publications include “Migratory Class-Making in Global Asian Cities: The European Mobile Middle Negotiating Ambivalent Privilege in Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai” (with Jaafar Alloul, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies) and the book The EU Migrant Generation in Asia (Bristol University Press).

REGISTRATION

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