Transnational elites in global cities: British expatriates in Singapore's financial district

Skilled international migration is as an important process of both contemporary globalization and the global city. The establishment of a transnational elite of expatriate labour in international finance plays a vital part in the accumulation of capital within international financial centres (IFCs). Expatriate labour has become a major determinant of the IFC, creating financial capital through complex social relations, knowledge networks, practices and discourses. The principal argument being made in this paper is that expatriates are major agents in the accumulation and transfer of financial knowledge in the IFC, and that such processes are undertaken through expatriate global–local knowledge networks and other social practices. The paper is divided into three major parts. Following a discussion of transnational elites as expatriates in global cities, which also conceptualises their contribution to the spatialization of financial knowledge networks, the empirical study investigates the working, social and cultural knowledge networks and practices of British expatriates in Singapore. Finally, the paper revisits the conceptual work on transnational elites and suggests that expatriates were deeply embedded in global–local relations in the workplace and the business/social sphere through interaction with local ‘western educated/experienced' Singaporeans, but were disembedded from the local in the home and other household social spaces due to the invisibility of the local population in their interactions. Both the theoretical and empirical analyses suggests that expatriates are flow in the Castellian spatial logic of the network society.     

Transnational labour migration and the politics of care in the Southeast Asian family

Recent increases in female labour migration in and from Asia have triggered a surge of interest in how the absence of the mother and wife for extended periods of time affects the left-behind family, particularly children, in labour-sending countries. While migration studies in the region have shown that the extended family, especially female relatives, is often called on for support in childcare during the mother’s absence it is not yet clear how childcare arrangements are made. Drawing on in-depth interviews with non-parent carers of left-behind children in Indonesia and Vietnam, the paper aims to unveil complexities and nuances around care in the context of transnational labour migration. In so doing it draws attention to the enduring influence of social norms on the organisation of family life when women are increasingly drawn into the global labour market. By contrasting a predominantly patrilineal East Asian family structure in Vietnam with what is often understood as a bilateral South-East Asian family structure in Indonesia, the paper seeks to provide interesting comparative insights into the adaptive strategies that the transnational family pursues in order to cope with the reproductive vacuum left behind by the migrant mother.     

Gendering transnational communities: a comparison of Singaporean and British migrants in China

Studies of transnational communities and transnational labour migration have focused almost exclusively on the movement of low-skilled and unskilled workers across international boundaries. While these groups may be numerically dominant, it must be recognised that there are increasing numbers of managers and professionals engaged in work-related migration in association with the intensification of economic globalisation processes. Work which has been conducted on highly skilled migrants has largely been limited to examinations of intra-firm mobility and the workspace. This approach fails to consider the ways in which the migrants' experiences are embedded in the social, economic and political practices of the host country, but also in a specific household context. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the gendered dimensions of the life of these migrants and their accompanying family members has been somewhat under-researched.Flows of expatriates can lead to the constitution of both ‘communities of transnationals', as particular cities become foci of the activities of the ‘transnational capitalist class', as well as ‘transnational communities' which involve regular and sustained contact between individuals across national boundaries. In this paper we examine these social formations using two groups of migrants––British and Singaporean migrants to China (both mainland China and the Hong Kong SAR). We focus on the gender characteristics of these groupings, but also the gender division of labour in the creation and maintenance of these ‘communities'. The paper is based on qualitative research carried out in China, Singapore and the UK 1997–2001.     

Moving players,traversing perspectives: Global value chains,production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration

This article examines the production and transnational export of Ghanaian football labour. It does so via a cross-disciplinary approach that utilises perspectives rooted in the sociology of development (global value chains) and economic geography (global production networks). The article is underpinned by two central arguments. Firstly, it contends that the GVC framework is useful in accounting for how Ghanaian players are produced and prepared for the international market, identifying the key agents and agencies involved, mapping the geography of production and export and assessing the institutional context within which the trade operates locally, nationally and internationally. The second draws on the GPN perspective to argue that while Ghanaian football labour migration remains a process contoured by uneven asymmetries of power that favour actors, stakeholders and entities in the global North, there are currently segments of the production–export chain where power is much more diffuse and some benefits are captured in the global South. The paper draws on interview data and observations gleaned from four periods of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana between January 2008 and June 2011.     

Organizations, recruitment and the local labour market: the case of the Sheffield metal sectors

An examination of the relationship between large organizations and local labour markets which draws attention to the role of the extended internal labour market (EILM). This paper explores recruitment strategies in the local labour market amongst 52 major employers in the metal sectors in the Sheffield local labour market. It shows how dependence on the external labour market rather than the internal labour market varies with the different occupations recruited within the local area and that, in some occupations, the EILM plays an important role. Where recruitment difficulties are experienced there are a variety of responses, all of which have particular implications for the amount and type of labour sought from the external labour market. The paper concludes by arguing for a greater emphasis on the recruitment strategies of larger firms in employer surveys to provide new insights into the operation of local labour markets and, in particular, the operation of the EILM.     

Juxtaposing Pakistani diaspora policy with migrants’ transnational citizenship practices

Through a juxtaposition of diaspora policy with migrants’ transnational citizenship practices, this article explores how peoplehood, nationhood and citizenship are articulated, justified and enacted. The article draws on the politico-spatial context of Norwegian-Pakistani transnational social space, analyzing the Pakistani Origin Card (POC), remittances and return mobilities as transnational citizenship practices. The elusiveness of residency becomes apparent, underscoring the salience of territoriality, for both diaspora strategies and transnational citizenship practices, involving the co-constitution of formal membership and everyday citizenship practices. Through this overlaps, frictions and disruptions in conceptions of citizenship and of nationhood are revealed, underscoring their non-static nature. Whilst questions of who is included within the people are more commonly approached from the vantage point of immigration contexts, they share key tenets of struggles over conceptualizations of citizenship, and more plural ideologies of nationhood, in emigration contexts, exposed by a juxtaposition of diaspora policies and migrants’ transnational citizenship practices.     

Curating the quest for ‘good food’: The practices,spatial dynamics and influence of food-related curation in Sweden

What is ‘good food’? Is it fair trade, local, organic or ethically produced? With an ever-expanding array of products and ‘qualities’ to consider, consumers in the global North may find it increasingly difficult and time-consuming to make the ‘right’ choices. As a result, a range of intermediaries, including food apps and collective buying groups, are emerging to support and influence people with their food choices. While intermediation refers to all activities linking producers and consumers, this paper narrows the focus and considers one important, yet poorly understood, intermediary function within the food marketplace: ‘curation’. Although the concept of curation has long been associated with museums and art worlds, curatorial practices are evolving in the contemporary marketplace and are performed by a growing range of actors operating in physical, temporary and virtual spaces. Rather than acting as brokers or gatekeepers, curators interpret, translate and shape the marketplace by sorting, organising, evaluating and ascribing value(s) to specific products. They also offer general and personalised recommendations to consumers. Although the literature on local food privileges the direct relations between producers and consumers, this paper considers the important role of intermediaries. Drawing on interviews and participant observation in Sweden it contributes to the existing literature on curation by examining the spatial dynamics and nature of curatorial practices, the motivations behind them and the values they create for consumers. The findings demonstrate that a range of activities can be understood as curation and that in order to nuance and extend existing conceptualisations of curation a wider and more dynamic range of actors (food apps), spaces (blogs) and values such as inspiration, convenience and sense of community need to be considered.     

Irregular migration,informal remittances: evidence from Ethiopian villages

Although Ethiopia has seen a reduction in refugee flows over the past decade, documented and undocumented labour migration has significantly increased. International migration has changed from that born out of conflict to irregular migration mainly driven by economic reasons. The source of migrants has expanded from urban centres to include rural areas, making them an important source of low-skilled labour for the international labour market. Based on a qualitative study, this paper explores the process and pattern of Ethiopian migration to South Africa, an emerging destination in the global South. This migration corridor is increasingly characterised by its irregularity. The paper also reflects how migration patterns shape the pattern of remittance flow, along with the way in which migrants and their networks substitute the function of financial institutions engaged in the remittance industry. It also highlights the features of remittances utilisation in emerging rural migrant community in Southern Ethiopia.     

Navigating the terrains of transnational education: Children of Chinese ‘study mothers’ in Singapore

This paper demonstrates the value of child-centred migration studies which highlight children’s role in shaping the migration journeys of their families, as well as their own projected journeyings. It examines the case of children from China who move to Singapore, an aspiring global education hub, expressly for the purpose of an overseas education that will facilitate longer-term migration and life goals. Focus is given specifically to the children of ‘study mothers’ or peidu mama (literally: ‘mothers accompanying their children who are studying’). Through interviews with the teenagers and the conceptual optic of ‘social navigation’, our paper demonstrates that children are resilient and creative beings able to navigate the twists and turns of their immediate trajectories, as well as develop their own goals and projected destinations for their futures. The paper calls for a refinement in the way we understand children’s mobilities. First, in arguing that their spatial journeying across the terrains of transnational education cannot be decoupled from their process of social becoming and emotional development from passive followers to active negotiators, we wish to disrupt hegemonic discourses and dominant representations of children in migration as simply ‘migrant’s children’ and restore them to the status of ‘migrant children’. Second, adopting the concept of social navigation as an analytical lens allows us to highlight the fluid ways that young people think about their futures and the different pathways by which they can get there. This leads us to conceive of social and cultural capital accumulation through transnational education as a process with many more degrees of provisionality than what is often presented in the literature as a ‘strategic project’ with a fixed and abstract goal.     

Caribbean skilled international migration and the transnational household

The increased proportion of skilled workers in the total number of Caribbean international migrants since the mid-1960s has been the cause of much concern by governments of Caribbean countries. It has been interpreted as a loss in human resources with detrimental implications for development. This paper briefly outlines the occupational profile of Caribbean migrants and raises questions concerning the extent to which migrant outflow represents absolute loss. The argument is advanced that the traditional conceptualization of migration as displacement is largely responsible for the assumptions made. It oversimplifies the process to present a set of sources and destinations, ignoring the interactions accompanied by significant counterflows of people, ideas, influence, capital and goods. It is argued that circulation is not confined to commuter-type mobility but in the Caribbean it is also a feature of long-stay migration and the establishment of what are effectively transnational households. Though the characteristics and spatial behaviour of the household vary with the specific migration type, the transnational household provides a more appropriate model for analysing Caribbean migration and its implications than does the model based on migration as displacement.     

The `global city' misconceived: the myth of `global management' in transnational service firms

The `global city hypothesis' proposed by Saskia Sassen - and subsequently developed by Manuel Castells and others in the theory of a globalized urban network - has in recent years formed the basis for the argument that power and control in transnational firms (TNCs) is primarily situated in global head-offices. Such offices are located in key urban centres such as London, New York or Tokyo where global managerial power is ultimately wielded and where senior managers make strategic decisions about transnational business activity. This paper takes issue with this theoretical legacy, arguing that the idea of strong centralised managerial power and control in contemporary TNCs is far more complex than this literature suggests. It explores how managerial control in some of the supposedly most globalized of business service industries - investment banking and management consultancy - cannot be understood as being centralised in global headquarter offices, and nor does it purely reside with a few senior managers at the top of the transnational organisation. Rather, it argues that managerial control in TNCs is diffused throughout a transnational network of management-level employees, and that strategic power in transnational firms resides with a larger and more dispersed group of actors than has been previously suggested. These arguments are developed through analysis of qualitative research into the managerial strategies and practices of senior business practitioners in the transnational investment banking and management consultancy industries. In presenting qualitative data from interviews with senior management in transnational corporate head offices, the paper thus examines the decision-making process of global management practice and unpacks the complex context in which transnational corporate strategy develops in such firms.     

Regulatory migration regimes and the production of space: The case of Nepalese workers in South Korea

This paper engages with contemporary debates in labour geography through its focus on: migrant workers as active agents of change; precarious employment, its complexities and consequences; and the importance of material spaces in migrant labour struggles. Since the early 2000s the South Korean government has been strengthening the institutionalised regulation of low-wage migrant workers. A key tool in this process is the Employment Permit System (EPS), in force since 2004. Under this policy migrant workers are temporary sojourners and effectively socio-politically, culturally and spatially excluded from Korean society. EPS restricts migrants’ freedom to choose or change workplaces, which renders them vulnerable to economic and social precarity. Employers use these restrictions to segregate migrant workers from co-nationals, and low-waged migrant workers often find themselves in exploitative working conditions in isolated places. This paper is based on deep ethnographic fieldwork in “Nepal Town” in Seoul and remote Nepalese workers’ accommodation. We examine how such precarious working conditions and isolation impact on workers’ active involvement in the formation and transformation of Nepal Town in Seoul. We examine the ways in which Nepal Town is a site of spatial agency and praxis for Nepalese workers and explore the potentialities of ‘reactive ethnicity’. The empirical insights provided, suggest that the regulatory migration regime for low-wage migrant workers is strongly linked with new formations of material landscapes of connection, mobility, freedom and safe space. Such space production enables migrant workers to perform agency and employ tactics of resistance in order to create spaces of possibility.     

Young people navigating political engagement through post-war instability and mobility: A case from rural Nepal

The everyday politics of rural young people who live in post-war settings in the Global South is poorly explored. In the aftermath of a recent civil war in Nepal (1996–2006), villages have been operating without elected bodies, and poorly functioning local governance has been concentrated around party patronage networks and community development. In the lives of many young people, the aspirations and practices of educational and labour mobility have been dominant. Based on fieldwork carried out in the Panchthar District, this article discusses how ordinary young people nevertheless engage in different political dimensions. Guiding the analysis through the narratives of four young men and women, I have accentuated how the tension between socio-political situatedness and young people’s life strategies shapes the versatility of their political engagement. How do those who did not become political activists balance their daily lives, mobility and household obligations with involvement in party and local development politics? By exploring their motivations and engagement, I come to two conclusions. Firstly, young men navigate party politics by juggling the legacy of patronage and rejecting parties, as well as by involving themselves in disruptive events and seeking personal benefit from them. Secondly, young men and women negotiate their political motivations in community development politics primarily through household dynamics adjusted to their mobile lifestyle.     

Getting international labour rights right at a foreign controlled company in Malaysia: A Global Labour Network perspective

The article addresses international campaigning for labour rights and global labour networking against illegitimate labour practices of global corporations. Theoretically, the article offers an analytical framework to explain and strategise labour empowerment and disempowerment in Global Production Networks. The problem is approached by reviewing how the issue of labour agency is addressed in literature about Global Value Chains, Global Production Networks and Labour Geography. Given the limited progress in theorising cross-border labour agency, two new approaches within the industrial relations research tradition – Strategic Union Corporate Analysis and Strategic Choice Framework – are linked to economic geography perspectives, with a view to offering a more integrated Global Labour Network (GLN) approach. The framework is then applied to analyse and explain the outcome and impact of a Danish–Malaysian campaign in support of a worker collective in a Danish controlled joint venture in Malaysia struggling for union recognition and collective bargaining agreement. The article concludes that the GLN approach integrates the achievements of the labour agency literatures by focusing on explaining changes in strategic labour power from the dynamic interface of strategic opportunities and labour capacity. Moreover, it is argued that semi-comprehensive international campaigns of labour NGOs may add critical but insufficient support to labour agency in developing countries with highly legalistic and politically infused industrial relations systems. Finally, international labour NGO networks will not be sustainable if they are not integrated with and supported by national and global union networks that match the power of global corporate networks.     

Globalisation, information technology and the emergence of niche transnational cities: the growth of the call centre sector in Dublin

The development of information and communications technologies (ICT) has facilitated the emergence of a complex global urban system in which many formerly lower-order cities have been carving out “niche” specialist functions serving urban fields of transnational dimension. This is illustrated in the case of Dublin, which in recent years has been transcending its traditional role as Ireland’s national metropolis through the development of a range of functions servicing mainly European markets. One such function comprises pan-European telephone call centre operations. The development and characteristics of this newly-emerging sector are described. It is argued that the growth of the sector confirms Dublin’s — and Ireland’s — dependent position in the international division of labour, and that its long-term sustainability is open to question.     

Household migration in disaster impact analysis: incorporating behavioural responses to risk

Detailed estimates of economy-wide disaster losses provide important inputs for disaster risk management. The most common models used to estimate losses are input–output (IO) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. A key strength of these models is their ability to capture the ripple effects, whereby the impacts of a disaster are transmitted to regions and sectors that are not directly affected by the event. One important transmission channel is household migration. Changes in the spatial distribution of people are likely to have substantial impacts on local labour and housing markets. In this paper, we argue that IO and CGE models suffer from limitations in representing household migration under disaster risk. We suggest combining IO and CGE models with agent-based models to improve the representation of migration in disaster impact analysis.     

Transnational entrepreneurs,global pipelines and shifting production patterns. The example of the Palanpuris in the diamond sector

Building on the buzz-and-pipelines model of regional clusters, the paper shows that transnational entrepreneurs play an important role in the construction of external cluster relations and hence influence both the dynamics of regional clusters and global production settings. Unlike most studies on the economic implications of transnational migrants, the paper deals with a labor intensive manufacturing sector. In detail, diamond dealers from the Indian city of Palanpur will be conceptualized as transnational entrepreneurs who, in the past, were able to cover certain locations of the diamond value added chain with family members. The global relations set up by these families at the same time formed business networks allowing for an intense global exchange of knowledge and artifacts (diamonds). In the long run, these patterns implied a change of the overall production structures: in Antwerp, a traditional diamond trading and cutting center, the Indian dealers developed to strong competitors in the smaller stones segment and as such contributed to the fading away of the historically grown industrial base. In addition, the institutional support structures were partly dismantled. On the other hand, in India, a new cluster in diamond cutting emerged. The findings suggest that transnational entrepreneurs can contribute to a weakening of traditional cluster structures and therefore call for a more differentiated view as evoked by the one-sided focus of studies on returnee migrants in the high-tech sector.     

Trans-scalar embeddedness and governance deficits in global production networks: Crisis in South African fruit

The governance of labour in global production networks (GPNs) has become a critical area of concern amongst academics and policymakers alike. To date, GPN research has focused on the role of private company codes and multi-stakeholder ethical initiatives primarily driven by lead-firms. Other GPN studies highlight the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in challenging lead-firm purchasing practices and shaping regulatory outcomes at local production sites. However, GPN research has not sufficiently incorporated the role of nation states in regulating work through legislative frameworks and enforcement regimes, often referred to in the literature as ‘state’ or ‘public’ governance. This is despite a ‘regulatory renaissance’ taking place across certain developing countries, seeking to strengthen their national regulatory labour institutions (Piore and Schrank, 2008:1).The GPN framework provides an analytical lens through which to conceptualise cross-cutting strands of trans-scalar governance regimes, involving complex networks of state, private and civil society actors operating at multiple scales. Notions of territorial and societal embeddedness are used to elucidate how global ethical standards derived from particular country contexts become enmeshed in national regulatory frameworks and local societal relations, shaping governance outcomes for precarious workers incorporated into GPNs. The paper draws attention to the ‘trans-scalar embeddedness’ of labour governance regimes which interact across geographical scales and, in the case of South African fruit, reflect a ‘trans-scalar governance deficit’ for precarious workers. It is argued that the influence of national regulatory regimes should be more fully incorporated into analytical frameworks for understanding governance outcomes in GPNs.     

How “Water for All!” policy became hegemonic: The power of the World Bank and its transnational policy networks

As recently as 1990, few people in the global South received their water from US or European water firms. But just 10 years later, more than 400 million people did, with that number predicted to increase to 1.2 billion people by 2015, transforming water in Africa, Asia, and Latin America into capitalized markets as precious, and war-provoking, as oil. This article explains how this new global water policy became constituted so quickly, dispersed so widely, with such profound institutional effects. It highlights the prominent role of transnational policy networks in linking environment and development NGOs and the so-called global water policy experts with Northern high-end service sectors, and the ways in which the World Bank facilitates their growth, authority, and efficacy. This phenomenon reflects the World Bank’s latest and perhaps most vulnerable development regime, which I call “green neoliberalism.”