CROSSING BOUNDARIES BEING INSIDE AND OUT : THE EXPERIENCE OF EXPATRIATE WOMEN IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Situated within a context of globalisation in a world increasingly marked by time-space-compression, this study explores the experiences of expatriate women in Singapore as they traverse spatial boundaries to set up a new home abroad. It employs the concept of 'insideness' (Relph, 1976), and identifies six key dimensions (vicarious, physical, material, social, autobiographical, and structural) to serve as lenses with which various aspects of the adjustment experience can be uncovered. The study portrays expatriate women as active negotiators – redefining their gender roles and responsibilities and adopting strategies to come to terms with the transformations wrought by the move to their productive, reproductive and social domains of their lives. Specifically, the study highlights the importance of productive employment and community work as central adjustment strategies, which serve as anchors for expatriate women in the new environment. In addition, the study discerns two main sets of strategies as influential in the adjustment experiences of expatriate women: the inclusive - which draws from assimilation theories and connotes the significance of establishing both material and ideological linkages with the local society as a means of adjustment; and the exclusive - which derives from a re-creation of familiar lived-worlds with the establishment of an 'imagined community' within the expatriate populace in Singapore. The study notes a correlation of exclusive strategies adopted among Western and Japanese expatriate women, and inclusive strategies among the other Asian expatriate women, and suggests that this is due to the clearer definitions of. the former group of women (by themselves, society and the state) as 'other' in Singapore society. Consequently, the existence of an inclusive and exclusive modality of insideness experience can be identified. Lastly, this study highlights that identities of expatriate women are a product of both global and local forces, illuminating hence the importance of examining the global/local nexus in uncovering the intricacies of the human experience