March 1, 2026

The Singapore Research Nexus at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) invites you to ‘Work, Migration, Policy Implications’, a policy outreach event that brings social science research into conversation with urgent questions of governance, labour, and family in our interconnected world.

Across three studies, we shall examine how Singapore operates as an aspirational reference for urban futures beyond its borders, as a site where migrant workers navigate systems of redress and care, and as a global city in which highly educated women negotiate work and motherhood commitments.

By bridging future-looking visions with grounded ethnographic and comparative research, this event speaks to policymakers, scholars and students interested in how work and mobility are governed, and how individuals, in turn, navigate and reshape these structures. Join us for an engaging discussion on the possibilities and limits of policy in shaping more just and inclusive societies.

1. Planning Africa’s Singapore: Geographical Imagination and Practices’ by Dr Allen XIAO (Assistant Professor, NUS Department of Geography)
2. ‘‘Complaint: Migrant Workers, Wage Theft, and the Possibilities of Care’ by Nur Amali IBRAHIM (Associate Professor, NUS Department of Sociology and Anthropology)
3. ‘Opting For the Optionless: Comparing Stay-at-home Motherhood among College-educated Chinese Women in Shanghai, Singapore, and New York’ by Zheng MU (Associate Professor, NUS Department of Sociology and Anthropology)

Date and Time: Wednesday, 19 March 2026, 2:30-5:10 pm

Venue: FASS AS7 Research Division Seminar Room (6-42) and Zoom

Venue Address: NUS AS7 Shaw Foundation Building, 5 Arts Link, 117570

Register:

In-person here

via Zoom here

Get the programme here