Kevin S . Y . Tan

Labor migration is no longer a linear movement or even a one-way and one-directional flow of labor. The advancements in transportation and communication technologies have changed trans-border mobility from permanent to a large extent, circular. Interestingly, the wage gap between labor-sending and labor-receiving countries is not the only reason triggering the move. Working abroad has become a decision made by Cambodian households, resulting in about one million Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand. Migrant workers, especially undocumented laborers, are more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. In response, this irregularity facilitates the circularity of these migrant workers. To explore this phenomenon, this paper attempts to construct the typology of circular migration, namely quasi-permanent migration, sojourning, and return. Qualitative methods consisting of group and individual interviews were employed in interviewing Cambodian workers in Rayong, Thailand, and returnees in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. The findings suggest that landowning Cambodian households adopt a householding strategy, work in Thailand, and migrate circularly back home periodically.

Drawn from grounded perspectives of a Bangkok night market that is part of a franchise known as "Talad Rod Fai" (or "Train Station Market"), this article argues that the market's popularity rested originally on its liminoid character, enabling the construction of an alternate public space that can be transgressive of the city's highly urbanized landscape. Its long-term sustainability, however, appears to be at the cost of its original objectives, due to the onset of global tourism, which has increasingly converted and transformed its spaces into a site of commercialization and formalization. This has impacted the nature of the goods and products sold, and contributed to the growing precarity of many of its tenants, along with significant loss of local interest in the market. Such insights raise implications about the potentially contradictory nature of tourism on local street-level economies, and its impact on the construction and subsequent consumption of public spaces in urban settings.

The following article examines the application of Pierre Bourdieu's Practice Theory in accounting for ongoing disparities in accessing information and communications technology (ICT) in Singapore among senior citizens. As the relevance of Practice Theory is increasingly recognized among both scholars of ICT and ageing studies in modern societies, this article seeks to further contextualize and demonstrate its theoretical relevance and explanatory potential within developed, multicultural and rapidly ageing societies such as Singapore. Qualitative data collected from focus group discussions and personal in-depth interviews are analyzed to gain insights into how older adults above the age of 55 in Singapore perceive and use ICT. While it is argued that unequal access to forms of capital – be they social, cultural, economic, symbolic or bodily – has an obvious role in impacting the construction of one's habitus within the field of ICT usage, our findings reveal that not all forms of capital exert a similar impact on the accessibility of ICT. The discussions and interviews suggest that social and cultural capital play a relatively more fundamental role. While the increasingly easy-to-use and economically affordable nature of ICT has made it more accessible, our findings indicate that many older persons in Singapore still lack the necessary educational backgrounds, linguistic skills and supportive social networks that facilitate easier access. Such insights ultimately have implications on the nature of efforts by the state to create a more digitally inclusive society in Singapore.

Described by locals as Singapore’s ‘Little Thailand’, the Golden Mile Complex is known as an ethnic enclave for Thai persons. The environment of the Golden Mile Complex is described as a liminoid space, or a ‘space out of place’, where Thai cultural identity, language and religious beliefs appear to be dominant, while simultaneously suspending the everyday realities of the wider Singaporean society that surrounds it. Despite being viewed as a cultural sanctuary for many Thais, the building is also perceived as an ethnic enclosure that tends to isolate those working or living in it because of its association with ‘low-end globalization’. The urban marginality of the Golden Mile Complex and its Thai community, therefore, reflects a broader ongoing and ambivalent social-cultural divide between Singaporeans and large numbers of foreign workers, who form part of a transnational ‘precariat’ and face substantial challenges to their economic and social security.

Contemporary societies are experiencing a proliferation of e-services that is fast changing how people go about their daily lives. With the rapid ageing of many societies, the rising ubiquity of e-services is exacerbating digital divide and digital inequality as these e-services are not designed to facilitate senior citizens’ adoption and usage. The aim of this research is to explore the situated usage of e-services among senior citizens in designing useful e-services for an ageing society. The emphasis on e-services usage among senior citizens as situated practice led to the adoption of Bourdieu’s Practice Theory as the theoretical sense-making lens. Preliminary analysis revealed the saliency of disposition, bodily capital, cultural capital, economic capital and social capital in senior citizens’ use of e-service. This research has implications to both theory and practice. It proposes an approach of e-services design that holds potential to reshape societies in becoming more inclusive and age-friendly

Labor migration is no longer a linear movement or even a one-way and one-directional flow of labor. The advancements in transportation and communication technologies have changed trans-border mobility from permanent to a large extent, circular. Interestingly, the wage gap between labor-sending and labor-receiving countries is not the only reason triggering the move. Working abroad has become a decision made by Cambodian households, resulting in about one million Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand. Migrant workers, especially undocumented laborers, are more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. In response, this irregularity facilitates the circularity of these migrant workers. To explore this phenomenon, this paper attempts to construct the typology of circular migration, namely quasi-permanent migration, sojourning, and return. Qualitative methods consisting of group and individual interviews were employed in interviewing Cambodian workers in Rayong, Thailand, and ...

Drawn from grounded perspectives of a Bangkok night market that is part of a franchise known as “Talad Rod Fai” (or “Train Station Market”), this article argues that the market’s popularity rested originally on its liminoid character, enabling the construction of an alternate public space that can be transgressive of the city’s highly urbanized landscape. Its long-term sustainability, however, appears to be at the cost of its original objectives, due to the onset of global tourism, which has increasingly converted and transformed its spaces into a site of commercialization and formalization. This has impacted the nature of the goods and products sold, and contributed to the growing precarity of many of its tenants, along with significant loss of local interest in the market. Such insights raise implications about the potentially contradictory nature of tourism on local street-level economies, and its impact on the construction and subsequent consumption of public spaces in urban set...

Based on an ethnographic study conducted from 2002-2005 in Canada, this paper argues that the practice of Aikido within a specific community of practitioners does not simply exist as a medium for acquiring martial knowledge, but is also a viable conduit for acculturating or essentializing aspects of Japanese culture and identity. This is made possible in light of the highly embodied and corporeal dimension of Aikido practice, which requires one to develop the necessary dispositions and strategies for the construction of an Aikido <em>habitus</em>. Consequently, the path towards becoming an Aikidoka enables one to potentially embody, in similar but also unique ways, the cultural and moral worldviews that the art seeks to represent within intercultural and transnational spaces.

Contemporary societies are experiencing a proliferation of e-services that is fast changing how people go about their daily lives. With the rapid ageing of many societies, the rising ubiquity of e-services is exacerbating digital divide and digital inequality as these e-services are not designed to facilitate senior citizens’ adoption and usage. The aim of this research is to explore the situated usage of e-services among senior citizens in order to design useful e-services for an ageing society. The emphasis on e-services usage among senior citizens as situated practice led to the adoption of Bourdieu’s Practice Theory as the theoretical sense-making lens. Preliminary analysis revealed the saliency of disposition, bodily, cultural, economic and social capital in senior citizens’ use of e-services. This research has implications to both theory and practice. It proposes an approach of e-services design that holds potential to reshape societies in becoming more inclusive and age-frien...