Shelters as Spaces of Care and Violence: The everyday experiences of detained and deported migrant domestic workers in Southeast Asia

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International migration is a hotly debated topic and contentious issue globally, with nation states attempting to balance a need for migrant labour with any xenophobic attitudes they hold, and alongside the sentiments of their citizens. While contemporary mobility is, on the one hand, lauded, it has also, on the other, become feared; dependent upon the person who is moving. As Andersson (2014, p.4) writes:"while some travellers ... are celebrated for their powers to shrink distances and connect territories, others are fretted about for the same reasons ... These migrants haunt the rich world, but it is rarely clear who they are or why they provoke such fear". As a result of the anxiety that migrants invoke, their bodies are surveilled and managed, to ensure that they behave 'appropriately' and to prevent overstaying/'illegal'-stays. In Singapore, legalisation enshrines the state's right to monitor the behaviour of migrant domestic workers, both by making biannual pregnancy tests mandatory and enshrining in law that, "[t]he foreign employee shall not be involved in any illegal, immoral or undesirable activities, including breaking up families" (MOM, 2020, p.44). The fear of migrant bodies extends further still, however, with states' maintaining the right to choose who is and isn't eligible to stay within its territory. Indeed, international migrants are marked by a lack of belonging and their temporary status, often with no legal rights to vote or to attain permanent residency or citizenship. While emerging from a history of racialised expulsions (De Genova, 2018), and in which it is still embedded, today deportation is used to create a divide between those who are, and are not, allowed within a state's boundary. Despite deep-rooted fears, migrants have been fundamental to the formation of nation states and urban space globally. Singapore's impressive skyline, clean streets and immaculate homes, for instance, are often seen as signs of prosperity, progress and pride. The exploitative labour - the literal blood, sweat, tears and death - that build, maintain and clean it are, however, rendered much less visible. While often being invisibilised, one in five households in Singapore rely on the labour of at least one full-time live-in domestic worker (HOME, 2015), with over 255,000 domestic workers now in Singapore (MOM, 2019). Despite their presence being fundamental to the functioning of society, domestic workers remain at great risk of mistreatment and abuse by their employers, and of detainment/deportation.My research brings visibility to the ways in which domestic workers are detained and deported from Singapore, a practice which occurs even when they have been abused/assaulted. In these circumstances, domestic workers are made to wait in shelter spaces for unknown periods of time, and unable to work (income generation being the reason why most people migrated in the first instance), sometimes for many months or even years. This fellowship will not only allow me to disseminate findings about these practices and processes, but will also allow me to bring attention to the lived experiences of those inhabiting these shelter spaces. By publishing in academic journals, I will be able to advance knowledge of these practices and experiences, while bringing together two disparate areas of geographic inquiry that would bring about new academic insights: writing on home and carcerality. In addition to academic audiences, this fellowship will allow me to share my research with more diverse audiences, including policy makers and NGOs, with the aim of making positive societal transformations. It will also enable me to carry out some further (but limited) research and to present my findings back to the communities it focuses upon. Finally, it will provide me with the opportunity to complete further training, networking, research visits and to put forward applications for future research.