ON THE CONDITION OF WAITING: EVERYDAY LIFE OF BANGLADESH FOREIGN WORKERS

Abstract

Waiting is an often-overlooked phenomenon broadly assumed to be a suspension of time; periods marked by emptiness and inaction. Yet, various scholars have argued that waiting constitutes an arena where power is experienced, and in which those who wait can partake in agentic processes of negotiation and manoeuvring to generate meaningful politics. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this thesis examines the phenomenon of waiting, as experienced by Bangladeshi foreign workers in Singapore, to contribute to meaningful understandings of the everyday lives of foreign workers in Singapore. Specifically, this case study looks at Bangladeshi workers who encounter work trouble during their sojourn here, and are subsequently filtered through the formal help-seeking system. Going beyond literal analyses of time, this thesis interrogates how time is mired in notions of control, autonomy, and power in workers’ encounters with parties viz. employers and the state authorities in their everyday lives. Through mechanisms of control embedded in legislations, at work and in the bureaucratic help-seeking system, Bangladeshi workers in Singapore are incapacitated and rendered idle during these protracted waiting periods, thus producing a distinct experience of waiting for this group of workers. However, this study also illustrates how these periods can constitute fertile grounds for productive politics and action. Notably, the process of imagining futurities enables workers to conjure up meaningful visions of a ‘good life’ for themselves. I finally extend these ideas to the wider community of aspiring Bangladeshi migrants, and suggest how waiting for the ‘good life’ can constitute an inevitable condition of life.