‘White-Collar Filipinos’: Australian Professionals in Singapore

Abstract

Not all migrant labour in Asia is regarded with the same complex relationship of need and demonisation as many of the documented cases cited in this book. In Singapore, for example, highly educated and entrepreneurial white-collar professionals are clearly not only wanted by the government, but unlike their domestic and blue-collar counterparts, are encouraged to settle there. Supporting the migration of foreign talent is one of the corner stones of Singapore’s economic development strategy, but professional migrants are also impacting on the country’s social organisation. The process of migration and settlement of transnational professionals is reflecting the wider dynamics of cultural change that are taking place as a result of global mobility. It is this latter phenomenon that is the focus of this chapter, using Singapore’s Australian expatriate community as a case study of how global labour regimes can shift or reinforce personal understandings of identity and belonging.KeywordsForeign WorkerWork PermitCultural CodeRacial StudyHome PointThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.