Brenda Yeoh
Pathways to and through the Cosmopolis: Migrant Careworkers and Their (Un) cosmopolitan Encounters in Singapore

Leonie Sandercock writes that the great possibility of cities in the 21st century is ‘the dream of cosmopolis’ in which ‘there is acceptance of, connection with, and respect and space for "the stranger"’ as citizens and migrants work together ‘on matters of common destiny and forging new hybrid cultures’. Despite the significance of personal relations as the litmus test of cosmopolitanism suggested in Sandercock’s formulation, much of the current writings on the cosmopolis – especially where twinned with the notion of the ‘global city’ – tends to focus on a masculinised version of cosmopolitanism, usually equated with creativity and public civility, as an accompanying if not necessary condition for developing successive productive relations in the field of business and enterprise. In this paper, we adopt a far less common set of lenses to examine the (un)making of the cosmopolis. We turn to the sphere of ‘carework’ which is crucial to shoring up the cosmopolis and at the same time a likely antithesis to the cosmopolis since carework is often feminised work oriented towards the private sphere away from public display. Through the lens of carework, we first examine the possibilities and limits to social inclusion and citizen incorporation of migrant careworkers in Singapore. This is followed by an exploration of how migrant careworkers themselves (un)learn to become ‘more cosmopolitan’ in coping with difference in Singapore’s multiracial setting. In this process, moving through Singapore may become a stepping stone to increase their cultural competencies for navigating the global stage.

Nicola Piper
Making Rights Matter; Feminized Migration and Political Transnationalism

Taking into account the changing landscape of migration today and its increasing feminization globally, this paper’s objective is to critically examine the broad question of how flows of people, ideas, and experiences impact on social development and democratization in the context of ‘transnational social spaces’. More specifically, it is democratization of human relations with regard to gender equality and opportunities for political participation for female migrant workers.

Through the lens of transnational activism and transnational advocacy networks, this paper explores the various formal and informal mechanisms through which female migrants can, and do, attempt to influence political structures and decision-making processes in origin and destination countries at multiple levels – and the obstacles they encounter. The "network" concept is used to establish the analytical link between migration and the politicization of migrants’ economic rights through social justice organizations. Within migration studies, networks theory has mostly been approached from socio-cultural and/or spatial perspectives, whereby the political sphere has not received sufficient attention. Although social movement scholars and political scientists working on advocacy networks, investigated the transnational sphere of such network activities, they have not engaged with the specificities of contemporary forms of migration and applied their analyses to the context of migrant rights advocacy.

The focus of this paper, thus, is to explore migrant women’s capacity to influence specific policy areas through organizations in both host and origin countries that defend their interests as migrant workers and those of their families left behind. Drawing on research on activist networks across Asia, this paper links questions of political mobilization of migrants to the expanding field of transnationalism and the gendering processes involved.


Miyoko Tsujimura
Gender Strategy for Peace as Human Rights; toward the Construction of an Anti-Military Theory

War, in itself, is a violation of human rights. Based on this principle, we will examine peace as human rights and its connection with gender from a comprehensive view on gender, human rights and peace. Concerning the relationship between peace and human rights, it is profitable to understand the historical meaning of "the right to live in peace" guaranteed in the Preamble to the Japanese Constitution, through a comparative analysis of pacifist constitutions. Concerning the relationship between peace (or war, armed forces) and gender (or women’s human rights), many international documents have proved the oppression of women during wartime on the one hand, and the increasing participation of women in military service on the other. In this antagonism (the thorny issue of feminism), what is women’s responsibility to peace? I hope we could contribute, even in a small way, to the building of a gender strategy for peace and women’s human rights toward an anti-military theory.