2023 Student-Faculty Fellows: Monmouth College

Gender, Carework, and Globalization: Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore

Mentors: Marlo Marie Beard, English; Jialin Li, Sociology and Anthropology

Students: Michael Andal, Addison Cox, Ethan Forsberg, Jacinda Garcia, and Kylie McDonald

Project Abstract During Spring semester 2023, our students took a 0.5 credit course entitled Gender, Carework, and Globalization as preparation for our trip to Singapore. In this class, they learned about the history of Singapore and its economic system with emphasis on migrant workers and their challenges. Their readings included but not limited to a chapter from Turnbull’s A History of Modern Singapore 1819-2005, and essays including E. N. Glenn’s “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor,” and Brenda Yeoh and S. Huang’s “Negotiating Public Space: Strategies and Styles of Migrant Female Domestic Workers in Singapore.” These readings expanded our students’ understanding of these issues during our site visit to Singapore. Students have visited three different NGOs/NPOs that work with migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Singapore, including Foreign Domestic Workers for Social Support and Training (F.A.S.T.), Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (H.O.M.E.), and Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2). During their three-week research trip in Singapore, the students interacted regularly with MDWs, their employers, and NGO/NPO staff and volunteers. At the NGOs, students interviewed Manorath Singh, the senior executive for Clubhouse Operations and Volunteer Management at Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training (FAST); Debbie Fordyce, president of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2); and Charmaine Ng, Ruchita Chheda, and Jaya Kumar, who are staff members with Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (H.O.M.E). Each organization has its own mission and focus. They also operate with different philosophies and in distinctive social spaces. F.A.S.T. works closely with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and focuses on providing large-scale training classes, clubs, and social spaces for female domestic workers. H.O.M.E. advocates for the welfare and rights of female domestic workers. It has satellite offices in three popular shopping malls where different ethnic groups of MDWs congregate on Sundays, and H.O.M.E. also has small offices in several other locations. TWC2 operates in several small offices and emphasizes the legal rights and welfare of male migrant workers (e.g., Bangladesh construction workers). The staff and volunteers come from different countries, ethnicities, and ages, and students learned a lot from their conversations and collaborations (e.g., two workshops: tie dye and blackout poetry) with these organizations, including how different NGOs/NPOs navigate the relationship between employer, MDWs, and the government.

Michael Andal
Through the grant provided by ASIANetwork, we were able to conduct research on Singapore and provide ourselves with a breadth of knowledge that I would not have; otherwise, gotten to learn from a classroom environment. The first-hand exposure to what we have covered during readings the semester before our travels to Singapore. The experience granted to us by the grant provided valuable insight into the context of Domestic Workers in Asia, specifically, in Singapore. It allowed me to be introduced to hone my previous skills while learning new skills such as the ethics of interviewing vulnerable populations that could be transferred to other fields of interest. The project through ASIANetwork and facilitation by faculty mentors helped me grow not only as a student in an academic setting but also as an individual who is capable of striving for excellence and character.

Addison Cox
Now that the project has been completed, I feel far more confident in my ability to analyze and reference data collected through interviews in an academic capacity. While working through note sharing and completing the Storymap, I became more skilled at effective collaboration with my classmates and professors through as we worked through developing a cohesive project together. As I plan to continue my career in academic writing, the experience gained from completing this project has been tremendous. While completing the individual project, I strengthened my academic writing skills using a field of research that was unfamiliar to me and I am now more comfortable writing in a manner less traditional for purely English/literature related research. I became more familiar with sociological theories related to place-making and identity formation that will inform my career and research as I move forward.

Ethan Forsberg
When it comes to the career and professional preparation for this project/trip one of the things the professors did was bring in a woman from the college’s career development center so that she could talk to the group about how we could use this experience in our own professional lives. Since there was a mix of different majors going on this trip she talked about how the skills that we learn from the trip like interviewing, IRB writing, and research could be used to help us on our resumes and also in the careers we will have later on in life. With that being said the whole trip was a great way for me to learn career and professional skills as a Sociology major. I don’t think anything else could help me in learning about how to do research and all the parts involved in it other than being a part of this group and the research that we did in Singapore. The learning of how to use StoryMap could potentially be useful in presenting future research that I might do later in life. I think that working one on one while writing my own research essay is a great way to learn how to write a research essay, and how to make a narrative out of the data that was collected. Working with the group on the presentations for “Great Decisions” lecture series and scholars day will help us with being able to confidently present in front of an audience in the future.

Jacinda Garcia
Our trip to Singapore was quite memorable by immersing ourselves in the culture and interacting with the people. I learned many skills on this trip and continue using them daily. I valued my time speaking to the locals, foreign domestic workers, and the organizations H.O.M.E. and F.A.S.T.. The organizations taught us what the treatment could be like for foreign domestic workers and presented cases about what has happened—specifically, H.O.M.E. explained they have shelters for foreign domestic workers who needed to get away or leave the employer’s home due to mistreatment. They help in any way possible to keep these foreign domestic workers safe. F.A.S.T. helps foreign domestic workers gain the skills they need to help their employer or have a safe environment for everyone to enjoy themselves. Interacting with the foreign domestic workers was fun, exciting, and nervousness all combined. In career professional preparation, I have put my research experience in Singapore on my resume and accepted into a graduate program. I can use my analytical writing skills and communication development in my classes since I will work in groups and write research papers.

Kylie McDonald
For our project, to-date I have written a research essay titled “The Creation of Home Outside the Homeland: A Foreign Domestic Worker’s Journey” as well as collaborated on our group story map. My research essay focused on my shift in prospective I had surrounding foreign domestic work after visiting Singapore. I realized that although there is occasionally mistreatment that occurs in Singapore, majority of these women experience a large increase in quality of life when they leave their home countries to come to Singapore and work. In their home countries, specifically Indonesia, many of these women face domestic abuse, child marriages, poverty, lack of education, and more. Coming to Singapore allows them to leave that lifestyle behind and create a potentially better life in Singapore. I plan to use my research experience in Singapore not only on my resume but in interviews as well. This experience has definitely helped to increase my cosmopolitanism and make me a more attractive, well-rounded candidate for graduate school admission. Conducting that sort of research is also a great form of preparation for the level of research I will be expected to conduct in graduate school.