Finally, my piece comparing Nepali migrants living in Australia and mainland Chinese migrants living in Singapore has been published in the Journal of Sociology. The paper details their migration experiences and the techniques used by Australia and Singapore to produce temporary and compliant migrants.
The author’s copy is available through a link under my publications. The abstract is as follows:
The literature on ‘middling transnationals’ is growing although studies on Asian middling migrants are still relatively lacking. Current understandings on middling migrants are also frequently fixed on migrants’ mid-level skills and their middle-class status. Drawing on interviews with Nepali migrants living in Melbourne, Australia and mainland Chinese migrants living in Singapore respectively, this paper considers how their middling visa status and imaginaries interact with anxious desires. This paper argues firstly that migrants from the Global South experience heightened anxious desires due to imaginaries oscillating between the Global North and South. Second and relatedly, it argues that migration regimes keep migrants compliant through managing their anxious desires. By detailing the experiences of different groups of Asian migrants in separate migration regimes, this paper aims to highlight the heterogeneous experiences among migrants originating from the Global South, and the techniques used by different states to produce temporary and compliant migrants.
Sylvia Ang 