Mobilizing Migrant Workers’ Rights in “Non-immigration” Countries: The Politics of Resonance and Migrants’ Rights Activism in Israel and Singapore

Abstract

How are the rights of migrant workers mobilized in non-immigration regimes? Drawing on an ethnography of human rights NGOs in Israel and Singapore, two countries that share similar ethnic policies but differ in their political regime, this study contributes to scholarship on migrants' rights mobilization by expanding cross-national analysis beyond the United States and West Europe and diverting its focus from legal institutions to the places where rights are produced. Findings show that differences in the political regime influence the channels for mobilizing claims but not the cultural politics of resonance that NGOs use when dealing with the tensions between restrictive ethnic policies and the expansion of labor migration. While restraints in authoritarian Singapore operate mainly outside the activists' circle, in the Israeli ethno-democracy they operate through self-disciplining processes that neutralize their potential challenge to hegemonic understandings of citizenship. Paradoxically, success in advancing rights for migrants through resonance often results in reinforcing the non-immigration regime.Recent comparative studies on migrant workers' rights 1 shed light on how national fields of power shape and are shaped by legal mobilizations (Bloemraad 2006;Bloemraad and Provine 2013;Kawar 2011aKawar , 2012. Bridging the comparative migration studies' interest in national settings and sociolegal mobilization perspectives, this scholarship underscores the complex dynamics of rights making when activists engage in settings with varying institutional configurations and cultural repertoires. Despite its interest in legal pluralism, much of the cross-national scholarship We thank the NGOs staff and activists in Singapore and Israel that took part in the study for their participation, openness and insights. We are indebted to the editors of LSR and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and constructive comments. We thank the Asian Research Institute (National University of Singapore) for providing academic affiliation during fieldwork.

Cultural mediation through vernacularization: framing rights claims through the day‐off campaign for migrant domestic workers in Singapore

“…In many parts of the world, concerns about the exploitative working conditions to which migrant workers are often subjected have galvanized civil society action, leading to the formation of NGOs which advocate for the rights of migrant workers (Martin, ; Yeoh and Annadhurai, ). When migrant workers are unable to negotiate directly with the state or their employers, migrant civil society performs an important mediating role (Basok, ; Cullen, ; Elias, ; Kemp and Kfir, ; Lim, ; Martin, ; Odmalm, ; Pangsapa, ; Piper, ; Yee, ; Yeoh and Annadhurai, ; Yeoh and Huang, ). Migrant workers often face retaliation for contesting working conditions, a problem exacerbated by their marginal position in society as non‐citizens (Martin, ; Yeoh and Huang, ).…”

“…Anthropologist Sally Merry leans partly on this concept of framing when she asks how human rights are produced, circulated, and adopted in various contexts (Merry, ; Levitt and Merry, ). In the absence of a consensus on human rights principles – marked by the reluctance of many migrant‐receiving countries to ratify international and regional conventions surrounding migrant rights (Basok, ; Yee, ) – a productive advancement of migrants’ position may nevertheless be achieved through the cultural mediation strategy of vernacularization, whereby transnational rights discourses are framed and adapted to national and local communities (Kemp and Kfir, ; Merry, ). Defined as a “process of appropriation and local adoption”, vernacularization entails “tak[ing] the ideas and practices of one group and present[ing] them in terms that another group will accept” (Levitt and Merry, : 449; 446).…”

“…In these accounts, the political opportunity structure for civil society has generally been described as “closed”, or as Bal (: 220) more baldly puts it, a “near‐absolute lack of opportunity for NGOs to pursue their agendas”. Yet in focusing on the constraining impact that political institutions and national structures exert on Singapore's civil society, the latter's agency in carving its own political space of contention is often overlooked (Kemp and Kfir, ). Furthermore, existing literature has tended to emphasize the structural effects of Singapore's political institutions of “soft authoritarianism” on civil society space (Nasir and Turner, ) as well as how civil society players strain against these limitations (e.g.…”

“…More recently, theorists are moving towards understanding instances of productive and successful advocacy, particularly within the sphere of migrant labour activism (Basok, ; Kemp and Kfir, ; Theodore and Martin, ; Yee, ). Our research joins this growing body of literature by examining the ways in which civil society actors mobilize migrant rights in Singapore through the case study of the day off campaign for migrant domestic workers.…”

“…A strong argument can be made that vernacularization mirrors but does not challenge dominant social and institutional logics, hence perpetuating rather than overturning a use‐and‐discard approach to low‐waged labour migrants (e.g. Kemp and Kfir, ). However, the success of these strategies in permeating and changing dominant discursive and legislative structures is borne out by reflections within Singapore's government and state bureaucracy that it was, at the end of the day, “the right thing to do”, and the subsequent enactment of the day‐off policy.…”