The fragmentation of community: Singaporean migrants in a transnational (Australian) setting

Abstract

Beginning with the a??first wavea?? of Eurasians in the 1960s, an increasingly large number of middle to upper middle class Singaporeans have steadily expanded the Singapore-Perth migration system. However, while most scholars on international migration and transnationalism find that migrants often maintain strong ties by forming dense social networks in the host society, I argue through a forms of capital approach that the Singapore-Perth migration system is characterised by fragmentation at the a??post-nationala?? level due to weak intra-migrant social ties. Generalised mistrust and negative self-essentialisation, coupled with their multifarious conditions of exit, have created a highly heterogeneous migrant group with individual interests, so that the formation of a a??transnational communitya?? characterised by solidarity, reciprocal obligations and trust is problematised. Despite fragmentation at the aggregate level, symbolic capital nevertheless functions to reinvent migrant identities at the everyday level, thus maintaining a strong sense of diaspora consciousness among migrants.