Strains of Migration: The Thirdspace of Transient Migrant Musicking in Singapore (81156)

Session Information: Immigration, Refugee, Race, Nation
Session Chair: Mark Beeman

Monday, 27 May 2024 11:30
Session: Session 2
Room: Room D (Live-Stream)
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation

All presentation times are UTC + 9 (Asia/Tokyo)

This paper explores musicking in public spaces among transient migrant in Singapore. Musicking, as defined by the music scholar Christopher Smalls, can refer to both social activities that allow for music to be made. Transient migrant workers are low-wage workers from countries like Bangladesh, Thailand and China. Working in the marine, construction, and processing industries in Singapore, their labour is said to be underlied by precarity. This paper builds upon this contextual backdrop by investigating how transient migrant musicking in Singaporean public spaces to engender placemaking; placemaking that serves to contest the policing that their racialised bodies face in Singapore. This paper draws on a rich ethnography of transient migrant musicking and Edward Soja’s concept of the Thirdspace. In doing so, I imagine the ways in which spatial justice and the Lefebvrian “right of the city” can be achieved.

Authors:
Benjamin Harris, Independent Scholar, Singapore


About the Presenter(s)
Mr Benjamin Harris is a Independent Scholar at Applying to Graduate Schools in Singapore

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Posted by Clive Staples Lewis

Last updated: 2023-02-23 23:45:00