In this Southeast Asia Forum event, project leaders and associated (undergraduate) research fellows presented their (preliminary) findings about work, life and migration in the COVID-19 era, examining in particular the gendered contingencies amongst Cambodian garment workers and the trends of lifestyle migration in Malaysia. Find out more about the undergraduate research fellowship scheme here.
Worn out’: Debt discipline, hunger, and the gendered contingencies of the COVID-19 pandemic amongst Cambodian garment workers
Prof. Katherine Brickell and Angbeen Abbas
The UKRI GCRF ReFashion study () is working with 200 garment workers to understand their longitudinal experiences of navigating the financial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first part of the talk we examine debt discipline and hunger as prevailing experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the second, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ student Angbeen Abbas will share some key insights from her undergraduate research fellowship on the study.
Lifestyle im/mobility in the COVID-19 Era: Preliminary Findings & Reflections
Dr Sin Yee Koh, Jimin Oh, and Nirmala Arath Prabhakar
Since early 2021, the research team (Sin Yee Koh, Jimin Oh and Nirmala Arath Prabhakar) has been investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions on lifestyle mobility trends, using the case of the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme. Running since 2002, this popular retirement and lifestyle migration programme was formally suspended from August 2020 while it underwent a review. In mid-August 2021 the government announced drastic changes to the programme (including substantially higher financial requirements), to take effect when the programme resumes in October 2021. Drawing from interviews with existing and aspiring MM2H migrants as well as MM2H intermediaries, the research team will share some preliminary findings and reflections on collaborating remotely on this project.
Video recording of this event is available .
Speaker and Chair biographies
() is Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London and a SEAC Associate. She holds 15 years of area-focused expertise in Cambodia where she researchs the gendered geographies of domestic and working life, including violence against women, forced eviction, and most recently ‘modern slavery’ in the construction industry. She is a recipient of the 2014 RGS Gill Memorial Award, and 2016 Philip Leverhulme Prize, and journal editor of Gender, Place and Culture. Prof Brickell was Chair of the RGS-IBG Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group (2016-2018).
Angbeen Abbas was an ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ SEAC Undergraduate Research Fellow for 2020/21.
is Senior Lecturer in Global Studies, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia and a SEAC Associate.
Jimin Oh was an ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ SEAC Undergraduate Research Fellow for 2020/21.
Nirmala Arath Prabhakar is a PhD candidate at Monash University Malaysia.
Prof. Hyun Bang Shin () is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and directs the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. His research centres on the critical analysis of the political economy of speculative urbanisation, gentrification and displacement, urban spectacles, and urbanism with particular attention to Asian cities. His books include Planetary Gentrification (Polity, 2016), Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Exporting Urban Korea? Reconsidering the Korean Urban Development Experience (Routledge, 2021), and The Political Economy of Mega Projects in Asia: Globalization and Urban Transformation (Routledge, forthcoming). He is Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and is also a trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation.