Serial migration, multiple belongings and orientations toward the future: The perspective of middle-class migrants in Singapore

Abstract

The growing phenomenon of serial migrants – people who have moved at least three times and profess belongings to more than two places – challenges the dialogic relationship imagined in studies of transnationalism. This is particularly true in the case of the mobile middle class, which has attracted less attention than the multiple migrations of low-waged labour migrants and the global professional elite. Drawing on interviews with 35 Australian and Indonesian migrants in Singapore, this article proposes the idea of orientation in order to understand the serial migration biographies of middle-class migrants. Rather than focusing on the propulsion and direction of movement, the notion of orientation suspends a migrant between reflection, action and imagination as they forge provisional pathways that upend or cleave to more conventional social trajectories. Developing this concept helps us to understand how migrants with middling resources navigate post-national socio-political formations contoured by race, gender, and class.

Drivers and trajectories of multinational migrations of West African international students

“…Nonetheless, they serve as a reminder that stepwise migrations are not solely motivated by economic factors. Broader aspirations also drive them as students seek viable improvements in their life circumstances, considering their general impression of different receiving countries and concerns regarding discrimination, stability, and integration opportunities (Kölbel, 2020; Ossman, 2004; Wee & Yeoh, 2021).…”

“…Nonetheless, their accounts show that their families had limited resources, and international studies placed them under considerable pressure. These constraints resulted in equivalent migration experiences, which may be associated with those of middling migrants facing various hardships and drawbacks while moving between countries (Wee & Yeoh, 2021). Several students shared how they were navigating complex legal, financial and administrative processes at each destination.…”

Migration and partisan identification as British Unionists or Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland

“…This may however involve complex and reciprocal effects between cosmopolitanism and mobility. While mobility may thus lead to increased cosmopolitanism through exposure to cultural diversity, cosmopolitan attitudes and values may also in turn increase the propensity for mobility (Salazar, 2021; Wee and Yeoh, 2021).…”

Stuck between the Global North and South: Middling migrants in Australia and Singapore

“…The middling literature, however, has a large concentration on ‘white’ migrants (Beaverstock, 2011; Collins, 2014; Conradson & Latham, 2005; Scott, 2006; Wiles, 2008;) and gendered analyses are overtly focused on women (Kofman, 2012; Main, 2016; Tu & Xie, 2020). Literature on Asian middling migrants is relatively sparse, though this has been growing in recent years (Baas, 2017; Colic-Peisker & Deng, 2019 Jaskułowski, 2017; Robertson, 2019; Wee & Yeoh, 2021).…”

“…Rather, scholars have found that middling migrants move for a combination of reasons involving economics, lifestyle and even for self-development. As such, the literature on middling migrants has looked at skilled professionals (Beaverstock, 2011; Colic-Peisker & Deng, 2019; Ho, 2011; Wee & Yeoh, 2021) and middle-class youths seeking overseas adventures on ‘working holidays’ (Clarke, 2005, Robertson, 2013). This work is significant in contributing to understanding of migrants who are ‘wedged’ between the ‘highly skilled’ and ‘low-skilled’ migrant workers.…”