ABSTRACT
Research on migrant workers has become a major theme in globalization studies, including research on Asia (Castles, 2003; Douglass and Roberts, 2003; Flanagan, 2006; Hewison and Young, 2006; Oishi, 2005; Yeoh and Willis, 2003). The import of large numbers of foreign workers into the “newly industrialized economies” of Pacific Asia began from the mid-1980s when the labor force in these economies began to decline in number. Mostly drawn from Southeast Asia, and more recently China, the majority of foreign workers have gravitated to metropolitan regions, filling in not only the “3-D” (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) occupations in construction and manufacturing but also entering as domestic workers for middleclass households. The focus of this chapter is on the ways in which these workers navigate the spaces of these cities in their efforts to create meaningful social lives beyond the sites of work and residence.
