Thai migrants in Singapore: state,intimacy and desire

In this article, I analyse Thai migration to Singapore, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork (2004–06) to discuss the experiences of male construction workers and female sex workers in negotiating heterosexuality during their temporary residence. I argue that these Thai migrants engage in transient heterosexual encounters as one of many calculated, strategic ways of negotiating their intimate identity and subjectivity in the survival circuits of this global city. Their transient sexual acts are intimate products of negotiated moves, which form a major part of their semi-anonymous, temporary life in a foreign land. The sexual practices of Thai migrant workers in Singapore, I argue, are best understood by taking the following factors into account: the host government's regulation and control of its migrant population; the foreign workers' economic and social situations of mobility as inscribed in their highly dynamic traveling biographies; and their rationalized willingness and desire to embrace transient sexual intimacies as part of their employment and/or struggling lives in the global city's survival circuits.     

From rural life to transnational wife: agrarian transition,gender mobility,and intimate globalization in transnational marriages in northeast Thailand

Popular and academic discourses of globalization are often gender biased, focusing on formal and impersonal realms of the market, politics, and technologies. This article explores an intimate dimension of globalization by analyzing the transnational marriage trend among women in northeast Thailand (Isan's) villages. The phua farang (foreign husband) phenomenon in Isan epitomizes the intimate link between the global political economy and individuals' desires, aspirations, and imagination in the private realm of personal and marital relationships. The phua farang phenomenon is embedded in a context of spatial and economic inequalities at the local, national, and global levels, and manifests classed and gendered strategies by which marginalized subjects attempt to transcend the limited opportunities for upward social mobility available to these women.     

Still ‘breadwinners’ and ‘providers’: Singaporean husbands,money and masculinity in transnational marriages

As international marriages continue to be on the rise around the world, and in East and Southeast Asia in particular, there is an increasing need for more focused studies on the phenomenon. While the extant literature has paid attention to the complex dynamics of marital intimacies through a ‘gender-sensitive’ lens, the experiences of men are still largely under-examined. This article considers the gendered and classed subjectivities of Singaporean husbands who have married Vietnamese wives and focuses on ‘money’ as a key vehicle through which the men are able to construct masculinities in the spaces of transnational marriage and family. We argue that these non-migrant men engage with transnational processes and practices strategically in order to reclaim respectable and honourable masculine status. In doing so, they dislodge themselves from the idiom of ‘failed masculinity’ commonly ascribed to men who seek foreign spouses, but at the same time reproduce dominant models of masculinity predicated on ‘breadwinning’ and ‘providing’. This article draws on the narratives of 20 Singaporean Chinese men from a range of social backgrounds to demonstrate the endurance of money and economic potency in the performance of masculinities.     

新华侨华人与民间关系发展——以中国-新加坡民间关系为例

以新加坡的中国大陆新移民为视点,在民间关系研究的框架内,探讨和阐述了新华侨华人和跨国华人的概念特征、新华侨华人与中—新民间关系的发展、海外民间关系发展的时代价值以及民间关系的模式特征和意义。研究显示,国家关系的建立,为民间关系打开了交流和交往的正式而广泛的渠道;民间关系的良性互动,为国家关系的改善、发展和地区关系的整合,奠定了厚实的民间基础;跨国移民之于民间关系、国家关系和地区关系的多元探寻,为全球化时代的移民个人和国家关系的发展,提供了双赢互利的方向。     

跨国迁移对农村留守妇女婚姻家庭生活的影响——基于福建省明溪县H村的个案研究

论文基于质性研究方法,以人口国际迁移现象比较突出的明溪县H村为研究个案,从家庭收支特征、家庭地位、婚姻生活状态和社会支持网络等方面考察和分析了丈夫跨国迁移对农村留守妇女婚姻家庭生活的影响。研究结果显示,丈夫出国使家庭条件和物质生活得到改善,推动了农村妇女家庭地位的改善,电话联系弥补了夫妻空间分离造成的负面影响,但丈夫缺位使留守妇女承担了多重责任,婚姻品质和社会生活也因为丈夫出国而改变。与此同时,留守妇女的消费结构和消费观念并没有因为丈夫出国而发生明显的改变,社会生活支持网络并未弱化,仍是传统的亲属网络。     

Lost boys,invisible girls: stories of Sudanese marriages across borders

Forced migration challenges and changes gender relations. The transnational activities of refugees resettled in the West create gender asymmetries among those who stay behind. This article explores the transnational marriages of young southern Sudanese women (‘invisible girls’), who either stayed in Sudan or remained in refugee camps in Kenya, to Sudanese men who were resettled to America, Canada or Australia (‘lost boys’). Incorporating gender as a relational category into the analysis of transnational practices that migrants and refugees engage in is important. The article argues that there is a need to put feminist analysis at the centre of transnational processes resulting from (forced) migration. It looks at the connections between different geographical locations, the impacts of the migration of young refugee men on bridewealth and marriage negotiations and the gender consequences for young women, men and their families. It is argued that transnational activities, such as marriage, contest, reconfigure and reinforce the culturally inscribed gender norms and practices in and across places. Transnational marriage results in ambiguous benefits for women (and men) in accessing greater freedoms. Anthropological analyses of marriage need a geographical focus on the transnational fields in which they occur. The article seeks to deepen understanding of the nuanced gendered consequences of transnationalism. It shows how gender analysis of actions taken across different locations can contribute to the theorisation of transnational studies of refugees and migrants.     

近20年新加坡的中国新移民及其数量估算

本文研究近20年来中国移民进入新加坡的原因、过程和发展趋势,并根据历年新加坡人口统计中的常住人口和非常住人口数量、华人出生率、移民数量和族群比例等数据,推估出新加坡的中国移民新数据。结论是,近30年来,新加坡政府大规模吸收高素质移民,以弥补人口数量不足,确保华族占总人口75%和发展高新产业。进入新加坡的移民总数达164万人,占2009年新加坡居民总数的近33%。其中,华人移民约占80%,主要来自马来西亚和中国。从1990年到2009年,进入新加坡的中国移民潮逐渐加速,总量约50～60万人,约占新加坡总人口的10%～12%。     

Queering the transnational turn: regionalism and queer Asias

In recent years, queer studies has increasingly interrogated the racial and colonial unconscious embedded in the earlier studies of non-normative genders and sexualities through the critical frameworks of queer of color critique and queer diaspora studies. This article aims to ‘queer the transnational turn’ by considering what critical edge ‘regionalism’ might bring to the investigation of queer modernities in Asia from both contemporary and historical vantage points. The introductory section of the article provides a broad overview of the ‘transnational turn’ in queer studies, what we diagnose as the ‘area unconscious’ of queer studies in its exclusive critique of Western colonial modernity, and the related binary of cultural particularism versus Eurocentric universalism. Alternatively, we argue that the concept of regionalism can be productively mobilized in order to study the various scales of queer sexualities that traffic within and circulate across Southeast Asia, Australia, imperial China, and contemporary Sinophone cultures (Sinitic-language communities on the margins of or outside mainland China). Through a paired reading of Johann S. Lee’s Singaporean queer novel, Peculiar Chris (1992), and Su Chao-Bin and John Woo’s Sinophone martial art film, the Reign of Assassins (2010), our inquiry accounts for how the spatial–temporal telos of global queering get materially translated across multiple regional hubs of sexual differences. Queer regionalism in Singapore, China, and the Sinophone worlds encompasses relational dynamics, power differentials, and subnational and supranational linkages. Finally, queering regionalism can open up new analytical frameworks for the study of sexualities and corporealities across transcolonial relations and wider temporal and spatial connections.     

商学教育与新加坡华人经济的近代化转型

论文以第二次世界大战前新加坡华人社会中的商学教育活动为例,梳理商学教育的发展状况,并探讨了近代海外华人经济的近代化转型问题。研究显示:在近代欧美商业冲击与中国民族主义影响下,商学教育在新加坡华人社会悄然兴起,逐渐改变传统华商家族式或学徒制的商业知识传递模式。以中小学和补习学校为主的学校商学教育与以报刊杂志、国货展览会等形式进行的社会商学教育,成为第二次世界大战前新加坡华人社会商学教育的主要新形态。商学教育不仅是当地华校新式教育发展的重要内容,也是当地华人经济近代化转型的重要组成部分。     

近代跨国华人社会建构的事例分析——1929—1930年新加坡保留民信局与减轻民信邮费全侨大会

本文通过发掘1929—1930年在新加坡发起的保留民信局全侨大会与减轻民信邮费全侨大会的史料,管蠡了近代华人移民的跨国主义现象。维护侨批局生存的斗争表明,侨批局的成功保留与合法地位的确立是由多方面因素共同决定的。跨国华人社团网络的集体力量在维护跨国华人社会的利益上起着重要作用;侨批业具有内嵌于海外华人社会与侨乡社会有机体的性质,与后者有生死攸关的利害关系;在跨国的社会场景下,国家政策的制定与推行演变成了政府与跨国社会相互交涉与协商的过程。     

新加坡构建和谐社会的几点成功经验

新加坡之所以能够在全国范围内成功构建和谐社会,主要得益于他们牢牢抓住了如下几个重要的环节:始终把民族和睦作为构建和谐社会的文化基础,把防微杜渐作为构建和谐社会的制度保证,把奖优济困作为构建和谐社会的政策导向,把保护环境作为构建和谐社会的外在动因,从而保证了国家经济的持续发展和社会的文明和谐。新加坡在构建和谐社会方面的许多做法和经验,值得我们去认真研究和思考。     

近期新加坡华人经济展望

本文主要结合新加坡经济发展策略 ,探讨新加坡华人经济近期几个发展趋向。本文认为在世界经济的冲击下 ,特别是在政府经济发展策略的引导下 ,本世纪初的新加坡华人经济将有五个主要发展趋向 ,即华人企业的实力有所加强 ;华人将大力拓展海外发展空间 ;华人企业和人才与外国企业和人才的合作与竞争将明显增加 ;华人企业将更多地涉足知识经济领域 ;独立创业的中青年华人可望增加等     

论二战后新加坡华人社团与教育的互动关系--社会经济的视野

本文以战后初期华人社团在新加坡华文教育发展中的作用为讨论的切入点,重点分析会馆如何重建或新办学校、筹措资金以及提供师资与领导等方面的活动.本文也将通过详细的统计资料,探讨会馆属下学校的董事、教师、学生及其家庭的社会经济和教育背景,以期厘清华文教育、会馆以及社会经济变迁这三者之间交错复杂的关系.     

漫画：儒学在新加坡传播的另类方式

漫画与儒家思想的结合,始于20世纪80年代后期台湾出现的蔡志忠诸子百家漫画系列,这些漫画在中国及东南亚流传甚广。在新加坡,通过漫画传播儒家思想及中华文化,形成了不同的方向。受中国崛起影响,在新加坡,华文教育及传承中华文化的需要日益增加,但英文是教育主流,华文教育水平滑落。本着灵活、轻松学习华文和中华文化的宗旨,漫画这一方式在新加坡的教育体系中创造了新的空间,逐渐成为教材和教学的组成部分。本文将简述儒家思想在新加坡传播的现状,分析20世纪80年代新加坡学校推行儒家伦理课程受挫的原因,将其与新加坡华文教育的大背景结合,探讨漫画传播儒家思想和中华文化如何在新加坡重视华文教育的新形势下获得肯定,并逐渐成为其教育体系的组成部分。     

Christian Capital: Singapore,Evangelical Flows and Religious Hubs

Recent scholarship has pointed out the ways in which religions are increasingly commodified, primarily through two mechanisms: the monetisation of religious objects and practices, and the materialisation and extension of religious-symbolic power through new technologies and practices. These two mechanisms of monetisation and materialisation provide very concrete ways of understanding religious commodification, but they do not provide a complete picture of how religious capital is created and sustained in the holistic context of society, city and nation considered in relation to international capital flows. “Christian Capital” includes not only the commodity, consumerist and media empires particularly associated with global-reach “megachurches”, but also the less-tangible situational, relational, human-social and influential wealth created between religious agencies and their urban-national contexts. Using the case of Christian agencies in Singapore and their strategic creation of transnational influences, this paper offers a conception of Christian capital that incorporates not only the materialisation of religious influence in terms of finances and commodities, but also its expression in less tangible but significant ways in terms of the creation of an international “brand” of Singapore Christianity.     

新马华侨华人妇女史研究述评

本文将国内外对新马华侨华人妇女的研究情况进行了评述 ,指出这些研究在华人女性人口、妓女问题和劳工问题上取得了一定成就 ,但在华人妇女在婚姻与家庭中的作用、妇女的社会参与和社团组织、妇女对经济的贡献、移出地和移入地妇女关系的互动、妇女史料的挖掘等方面研究不足。     

History, Memory, and Identity in Modern Singapore: Testimonies from the Urban Margins

In 2006–2007, I interviewed elderly Singaporeans on theirexperiences of resettlement from an urban kampong (village)to emergency public housing after a great fire in 1961. I learnedmuch about the lives of semiautonomous dwellers in an unauthorizedsettlement and the individual and social transformation followingtheir rehousing. My informants also highlighted what the experiencesmeant to them and their identity in a modern city-state. Thispaper treats the testimonies as both source and social memoryand seeks to avoid the essentialism into which many social historians,oral history practitioners, and memory scholars have fallenin their approach toward the craft. As a source of social history,when used in conjunction with other historical sources, thereminiscences are patently useful for understanding the roleof public housing in transforming a marginal population intoan integrated citizenry. This enables the writing of a new socialhistory of postwar Singapore that departs from the discursiveofficial accounts of urban kampong life and of the 1961 inferno.At the same time, the oral history also underlines powerfulsocial and political influences on individual memory, beingmarked by nostalgia for the kampong and ambivalence toward theimagined character of younger Singaporeans. Statements on therumors of government-inspired arson in the 1961 calamity, however,constitute a significant countermyth in contemporary society,revealing a more critical side to the social memory.     

近代以来华侨华人与中医药在新马的传播发展

本文主要分析了中医师南来新加坡和马来西亚的原因,论述了他们在新马的医药活动,并以此来说明他们在弘扬和发展中医药以及促进中医药走向世界为人类的健康服务方面所作的贡献。     

中国传统文学在新马的传播--兼论土生华人的作用

中国传统文学在新马流播极早,它们主要是通过早期劳工口头传播、私塾授受传播、文人沙龙传播、华人社团传播、峇峇群落马来文翻译传播等渠道,使中国传统文学在当地被广泛接受,中国传统文化得以延续.中国文学由此对当地的华人与华文文学产生巨大的影响.