Singaporean Transnational Migration and Acculturation in Australia tentative

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Singaporean Transnational Migration and
Acculturation in Australia (tentative)
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Contents

• Intro
• Research Questions
• Claim
• Theory
• Methodology
• Other Possibilities

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Introduction

• Migration should be seen against the backdrop of
  recent government attempts to bind Singaporeans
  to homeland
• - State does not encourage emigration
• - Quitters vs stayers
• - Combination of strong push and pull factors

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• Australian society
• - Officially multiculturalism, but essentially a
  mono-cultural core that is white (Anglo-Celtic)
  (Stratton 1998 Hage 1998 Dixson 1999)
• - Re-emergence of racism after a quarter
  century of seemingly successful multicultural
  policy (Schech and Haggis 2001)
• - Unpacking of multiculturalism reveals an
  essentialized notion of culture whichleads to
  an assimilatory logic (Stratton 1998)

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• Background of Singaporean migration
• - 2 waves
• - 1970s mostly Eurasians and Indians who gave
  up Singapore citizenship
• - mid 1990s till now mostly educated,
  middle-class professionals and some retirees
• - total population now 10,000 plus
• Previous works
• - Sullivan Gunasekaran (1994 ISEAS)
• - Yap (1991 IPS)

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(Potential) Research Questions

• To what extent are Singaporean transmigrants
  assimilating into their host society?
• Are there differences in the assimilation/adapta
  tion patterns (or trends) between 1st wave and
  2nd wave migrants?
• Do Singaporean transnational migrants consider
  themselves to be Singaporeans, Australians or
  both? When, why, and how do these identities
  occur?

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Claim

• Singaporean transnational migrants do not
  assimilate into the host society, but they engage
  in a process of acculturation and unintendedly
  form a third, hybrid culture that is neither
  fully Australian, nor fully Singaporean, but
  incorporates elements of both cultures.

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Theory

• Assimilation
• - Arose from Robert Park (Chicago School, 1920s)
  to explain race relations in the US, whereby
  assimilation was the end-stage of a race
  relations cycle
• - Broadly speaking, refers to a process whereby
  the subordinate group is absorbed into the
  dominant group and becomes indistinguishable from
  it in cultural terms

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• - Used largely to analyse or make sense of the
  ethnic identities of new immigrants in their host
  societies (assimilation vs ethnic retention)
• - Been criticised as static, unilinear etc, and
  has evolved over time (Milton Gordon 1964
  Herbert Gans 1973 Gans 1992 Richard Alba,
  Victor Nee, Alejandro Portes et al 1990-present)

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• Acculturation
• - Broadly speaking, those phenomena that result
  when groups of individuals from different
  cultures come into first hand contact, causing
  changes in the original (cultural) patterns of
  both groups
• - Two-way process of interaction that leaves
  Australians with something Singaporean, and vice
  versa (c.f. Tong and Chan 2001 on their study on
  ethnic Chinese assimilation in Thailand)

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• - But does it produce something new (third
  culture)?
• Transnational migrant
• - Immigrants whose daily lives depend on
  multiple and constant interconnections across
  international borders and whose public identities
  are configured in relationship to more than one
  nation-state (Glick Schiller et al 1992 1999)

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Model/Framework
Australian Culture
Singaporean Culture
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State Policies (Singapore and Australia)
Social Networks
Singaporean Neighbourhoods (Ghettos)
Acculturation (Cultural Contact)
Other Structural/ Macro and Meso Variables
Social Relations between Australians and
Singaporeans
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Methodology

• Participant observation
• Interviews
• - structured
• - consent form
• - tape record (upon consent)

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• Research site Perth, Western Australia
• Why Perth (only)?
• - logistical limitations (time, funds)
• - highest concentration of Singaporeans
• - familiarity with the place
• - between 1 to 6 months

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• Choice of informants
• - must at least have a PR in Australia (but
  special cases for those with retirement visas)
• - as many as possible
• - any age ethnic background income level
• - doesnt matter how long they have stayed there
• - Singaporeans who are here and in Perth

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Other Possibilities

• Study differences in assimilation and/or
  acculturation patterns between the 1st and 2nd
  waves
• Study whether children of immigrants (1st wave)
  have lost their cultural and/or ethnic roots,
  i.e. have children assimilated or is there ethnic
  retention?