Abstract
ABSTRACT This essay draws upon a digital ethnography and in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi low-wage migrant workers in Singapore to theorize the COVID-19 outbreak in dormitories housing the workers as a crisis of the consuming city. Building on the concept of extreme neoliberalism, we examine the ways in which the erasure of worker voice as a technique of smart governmentality coded into the “Singapore model” underlies the pandemic outbreak. The in-depth interviews document the ways in which the poor infrastructures for migrant living are already always in crisis because of their exploitative design that maximizes profits while undermining the health, wellbeing, and dignity of workers. In this backdrop, the workers narrate strategies of resistance, enacted in articulations that resist and disrupt the smart propaganda crafted by the authoritarian state.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.