Experiencing exclusion and reacting to stereotypes? Navigating borders of the migrant body

Abstract

In her seminal work on the body, Robyn Longhurst (1994) outlines that the body can be seen as the ‘geography closest in’. However, in contemporary society, when restrictions are placed upon the body and the body is subjected to boundary making and territorialisation, how does the geography of the body begin to change? The paper investigates the way in which emotional experiences of situated bodies alter over time and how public perceptions of particular (migrant) bodies changes the spaces through which they are materialised. It critically discusses the specific ways in which female migrants' bodies may be bordered in place and how particular stereotypes surrounding the migrant body lead to a very particular sense of territoriality. Territory has been defined as ‘a portion of geographic space which is claimed or occupied by a person or group of persons or by an institution’ (Storey D 2001). This paper looks at how territory is inscribed on, in and through the body, utilising the migrant body as an example that enacts and performs particular aspects of territory as a response to the classificatory stereotypes that challenge it. Drawing on feminist embodied research in Singapore, the paper demonstrates the different ways in which female migrants' bodies operate on the margins of society, creating specific territorial borders around their bodies. Discussions of the experiences of foreign domestic workers and expatriates in Singapore highlight how these bodies are stigmatised and categorised, demonstrating how social and cultural separations lead to a re‐territorialising and renegotiation of bodies.

Travel as learned behaviour: Western migrants in Hong Kong and Macau

“…A number of factors that are unique to a group of Western professional migrants living in places like Macau and Hong Kong that have recent colonial pasts may mitigate against them adopting the travel norms of the host population, while residing in places far removed from their home countries may preclude them from perpetuating past behaviours. Instead, they may display unique travel behaviours that are function of membership in a diverse multi-national community that Jackson (2016) describes as functioning as a parallel expatriate bubble to that of the local population.…”

Wish you were here: bodies, diaspora strategy and the politics of propinquity in post‐apartheid South Africa

“…I would also like to suggest that this irony helps deepen our understanding of the mutually constitutive relationship between ideologies of the body and economic restructuring across multiple contexts and scales, and thus broadens conceptions of emotional geographies and geographies of the body beyond the dominant phenomenological register to include a more central role for state and market ideologies and idealisations of what bodies are or ought to be (e.g. Jackson ).…”

The impact of self‐concept and place attachment on migrants' travel

“…Interestingly, many of these people live in a Western expatriate bubble and see themselves as being fully integrated into the parallel Western community, while remaining isolated from the local population. Jackson (:297) suggests these people “practice their daily lives through routinized actions that are different from the routines of the local population.” The presence of such a bubble is pervasive and long lasting (Leonard, ). Two reasons have been proposed.…”