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Singapore is forcibly repatriating migrant domestic workers to conflict-ridden Myanmar. Considering the vast economic rewards Singapore reaps from their labour, the government should offer social protections and the chance to stay and work

My thesis examined the experiences of migrant domestic workers in Singapore, a population who, I argued, are subjected to multi-scalar and multi-sited, anatomies and apparatuses of violence. While academic writing has most often drawn upon the experiences of domestic workers placed in employment, my thesis looks beyond that. It paid particular attention to how domestic workers are situated within Singaporean society more broadly and focussed on what happens when they are no longer willing/able to work for (and therefore reside with) their employers. By doing so, my thesis brings new light to the geographies of security and insecurity that they have to negotiate.

Utilising an intersectional feminist lens of analysis, this research is based on nearly a year’s fieldwork in Singapore. By embedding myself within a shelter run by an NGO, I utilised both ethnographic and arts-based methods. I was ultimately able to move beyond the shelter’s confines to spend time in the courtroom, the hospital and the Ministry of Manpower, as well as in embassies, public spaces, clinics, agencies, homes and even in corporate events throughout the island nation.

In my thesis, I firstly argued that during their move to Singapore, these labourers become ‘foreign’, ‘domestic’ and ‘worker’, their bodies objectified as they are rendered ‘commodity’, ‘possession’ and ‘disposable’ by the people and infrastructures that facilitate their mobility in processes of dehumanisation. This positioning makes certain workers more vulnerable to interpersonal violence than others and enables different actors to profit from an economy of violence. Secondly, in a nation which enforces an employer-led sponsorship system, I showed how the state unpredictably materialised in the urban fabric of Singapore when DWs were rendered sponsorless. In these alternative geographies, I argued that conceptualisations of safety/unsafety need rethinking. Rather than being spaces of justice, care and humility, the courtroom and hospital, for example, became spaces where further violence was enacted. Finally, by focussing on the emotional geographies of the shelter, I brought visibility to experiences of migrant detainment and practices of deportation, drawing attention to the violence of these systems. I demonstrate how the shelter became a space of both home/refuge and confinement.

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“ ... it was only after being in Singapore for a few months, and when writing a short update on my progress, that it occurred to me that I was spending considerable time in spaces which were, in themselves, of both personal and academic significance. Indeed, as I spent more time with shelter residents and allowed them to lead conversations, rather than unsuccessfully trying to impose my original interests – and as I learnt more about the reasons for them having left their employment and their interactions/experiences after this – my own research interests gradually shifted.”

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In recent years there has been a growing body of scholarship on the use of alternative research methods in Geography, and the social sciences more broadly, as well as ongoing interest in the connections between Geography and art. There has been much less attention, however, given to how drawing might be used practically or productively as a method, and to how it might allow geographers to reach or see places they couldn't otherwise. Although many researchers advocate conducting interviews and research in situ, thinking about the importance of location, there are times when entering a specific space is not possible. This paper details how the practice of drawing enabled me to make spaces that I wasn't able to visit as an ethnographic researcher, spaces that I felt were largely invisible to me, visible. While conducting fieldwork in a shelter for migrant domestic workers who had fled from their employers in Singapore, I used drawing as a way to shed a new light on the homes in which they had been working and to understand their everyday lives and experiences within them. This method made visible the living and working environments of women who had experienced employment abuse, as well as physical and sexual violence, while maintaining their anonymity and confidentiality, from a space of (relative) safety.

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Written in 2014, this report was co-produced by nine students on the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development after completing field research across six sites in Cambodia. Participatory action research methods – including drawing, mapping, photography, and interviewing – were used in diverse urban communities. Working with local and national NGOs, local municipalities in Battamabang and Phnom Pehn, the Royal University of Fine Arts, and local community leaders in six sites, the objective of this research was to understand how the living conditions of the urban poor could be improved, and to create strategies that are both contextually grounded and implementable to achieve these ends (particularly working with the capacities of the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights). The findings and recommendations were ultimately presented to the Governors of Phnom Penh and Battambang, the Community Empowerment and Development Team for Cambodia, GIZ (or Die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), and the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights.