SINGAPORE FILIPINA MAIDS WEEKEND ENCLAVE" : A CASE STUDY OF LUCKY PLAZA"

Abstract

In this age of economic restructuring and globalization, Singapore, is actively moving towards being ,as a knowledge economy. To attain this status, the State has been actively attracting foreign talents to realize this potential. In addition to the foreign talents in Singapore, there is also at large number of unskilled and less skilled foreign labour in Singapore. Singapore, with the biggest pool of foreign labour - skilled and unskilled in Asia today, like any global city, exhibit social polarization, divided along the lines of ethnicity, gender, class and profession to different extent, marginalizing the foreign labour in different dimensions. In this thesis, the focus is on the marginalization of foreign workers in a spatial dimension. In Singapore, with the growth in unskilled and less skilled foreign labour, certain public spaces have been colonized by different groups of foreign labour on Sundays, creating a mosaic of "weekend migrant enclaves". In this study, the growth of "weekend migrant enclaves" will be delineated with specific focus on the "Filipina maids weekend enclave" in Lucky Plaza the Filipina maids have colonized over the years and its surrounding area - Orchard Road. The association with "Filipina maids" has resulted in very different reactions, amongst the locals and the Filipino community - the professionals and the maids. The study will examine the perceptions of the Filipino community and locals on Lucky Plaza and Orchard Road on Sundays. It will show that the perceptions held by the two groups results in the different strategies they adopt in negotiating these public places. The study also notes the liminality of the Filipino professionals who can identify themselves spatially with both the locals and the Filipinos. The perceptions and strategies adopted show that most of the locals and Filipinos who do not want to be associated with the "maid space", avoid it while the maids that are the most subordinate, resist by further reinforcing the space as "their own" by continuous colonization of the space on Sundays.