ABSTRACT
The global city, one such as Singapore, is often portrayed as a saturation of emergent social and cultural transnational practices, networks and imagina - tion, arising particularly from new flows of transnational migrants into and out of the city. Such flows represent a significant dynamism reshaping not only the physical but also the social and cultural aspects of cities. That migration, especially for work, is a major issue in this era is not in doubt – the International Labour Organisation estimates that in 2000, there were over 86 million migrant workers, immigrants and members of their families worldwide, with about 25 million in Asia alone (International Labour Office 2004). In Singapore, as elsewhere, transnational labour migration has gener - ated two distinct groups of migrants flowing through the nation-state, with corresponding international research focusing on each separately. The first group comprises transnational elites that move from one global city to another (Beaverstock 2002, 2005). These are professionals, specialists, entrepreneurs and creative people who are aggressively recruited by governments and multinational companies and given incentives (such as substantial expatriate salaries, permanent residencies, company grants, etc.) to work and settle in the host countries (Yeoh 2006). The emergence of a single global market and the hyper-mobility of such skilled migrants consequently contribute towards the ‘space of flows’ in cities such as Singapore (Castells 1996), where this group tends to circulate between global cities under economic and pragmatic terms with little transculturation or assimilation processes affecting their identities. In Singapore, they are commonly known in the state and public discourses as ‘foreign talents’.
