5 - House, Car, or Permanent Residency?: Higher-Wage Chinese Migrant Men’s Flexible Masculinities in Singapore
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2020
Summary
Abstract
While male migrants are an understudied group, even less attention has been paid to their heterosexual practices. This chapter locates such practices by examining online personal ads posted by higher-wage mainland Chinese migrant men in Singapore. This chapter empirically contributes to migration and masculinity studies by examining the understudied site of online personal ads. Theoretically, this chapter aims to contribute by firstly, extending Aihwa Ong's (1999) theory of neoliberal flexibility to an analysis of Chinese masculinity. Secondly, even as Chinese migrant men exemplify neoliberal flexibility, the chapter argues that neoliberalism is not the only condition producing flexible masculinity. Rather, Chinese migrant men's flexible subject-making can be analyzed as ‘variegated’ and simultaneously situated in cultural and social imaginaries.
Keywords: Chinese masculinity, Chinese migrant men, migrants in Singapore, neoliberal flexibility, variegated neoliberalization, flexible Masculinity
Migration, Masculinities and Heterosexuality
Connell and Messerschmidt (2005, p. 841) suggested that ‘research on masculinity needs to explore the relationship of hegemonic ideologies of “being a man” with the mismatches, tensions and resistances evident in daily life’. Indeed, in virtue of their positions as migrants, male migrants’ masculinities can be challenged and transformed by a change in geography. This is noted by Datta et al., who observe that gender norms are often so entrenched that ‘migrants often become particularly aware of the relational and contextual nature of gender as they attempt to fulfil expectations of identity and behaviour that may differ sharply in the several places they live’ (cited in Datta et al., 2008). Observations such as this have pushed for researchers to apply not just a gender lens, but also a masculinity lens to labour migration. In particular, there is a growing body of work focusing on male migration (Datta et al., 2009; Batnitzky, McDowell and Dyer, 2008, 2009; Charsley, 2005; Datta, 2004; Levitt, DeWind, and Vertovec, 2003; Osella and Osella, 2000). However, work (and economics) is often the focal point in the literature on migrant men (Datta et al., 2009; Batnitzky, McDowell and Dyer, 2008), with little attention paid to their roles as partners and lovers. Heterosexual migrant men, in particular, are understudied. Neglecting migrant men's heterosexuality or studying migrant men's sexuality only in terms of ‘deviance’ from heteronormativity takes for granted migrant men's (hetero)sexuality.
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- Information
- Money and Moralities in Contemporary Asia , pp. 107 - 132Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019