Sounds of Precarious Labour: Acoustic Regimes of Transient Workers

Lead Research Organisation: Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: Music

Abstract

This project investigates the sonic staking and regimenting of public, private and liminal spaces claimed by low-wage migrant workers in precarious labour. It focuses on unequal sonic and labour flows around the multicultural city-state of Singapore, where a Chinese-majority population draws heavily upon the resources of a primarily Muslim and lower-income region, particularly in domestic work and construction. This stark inequality has been exposed and exacerbated through the recent COVID pandemic, which has seen 'gold-standard' health-management protocols set up by the government upturned in a sudden and unexpected resurgence of infections among transient worker populations. At the heart COVID's second wave is the invisibilised and overlooked status of transient workers, whose (lack of) welfare - impacting overnight on the lives of all Singaporeans - has become a tipping point in a national-turned-global crisis and issue of public debate. Here, sounded worlds - particularly in electronic and virtual stakings of space, agency and identity amid harsh quarantined environments of packed hostels and employer-shared housing - have become ever more important recourses for migrants in safeguarding their voices, privacy and agency. Researching phenomena from earphone havens to social media singalongs to lockdown concerts and the acoustic disciplining of environments via language exclusion and sonic surveillance (eg maintenance of 'housework sounds' across the home), my project addresses multiple issues in urgent need of scrutiny.

My chief investigatory path targets sonic materialities, with an ocular-strategised approach to multisensorial ethnography that challenges the dominance of visually-determined narratives (Bull & Back 2003). In addition to the obvious (such as songs as therapeutic spaces), I look at the sonic regimenting of migrant communities through language control in homes, workplaces and public spaces, as well as affective soundscapes in places of sanctuary (mosques, churches, NGOs). I also consider musical imaginaries of worker-life on social media. I question debates on migration, cultural cleavage, civil society activism, technology and integration, and take an intersectional approach to analysing competing arcs of race, gender, religion, class, mobility and broader regional politics. Beyond the region, my findings will be relevant to all globally shifting societies where socio-economic inequalities borne of migratory changes and religious tensions loom. These asymmetries have been further intensified by COVID's uneven impact on the socialisation of private spaces and their sounded mappings. This intersectional approach pivots on sound studies (Steingo & Sykes 2019) and decolonised understandings of affective and marginalised labour through interrogating acoustic regimes, sonic havens and all ambivalent spaces in between. It explores interventionist strategies in building new pathways for structured listening and active (re)sounding, and makes transformative contributions towards thinking and policy-making on labour and equality in neglected aural realms whose critical reevaluation should not be overridden by blanket COVID challenges; rather, my research necessarily integrates active responses to the crisis.

Singapore as fieldsite has been chosen for its geopolitics: hailed as the culturo-economic broker for Southeast Asia, this wealthy city of third-and fourth-generation Chinese immigrants operates on asymmetrical exchanges of international resources. Here, notions of 'local' are often conflated with 'national' or 'cosmopolitan'. However, on the flipside of this globalism are ghost populations of low-paid migrant workers. My project gives voice to this invisibilised world and is integral to uncovering sounded counter-narratives of multiculturalism in Asia, where systemic inequalities have escalated the catastrophic impacts of COVID on (un)safe spaces (quarantined; surveiled; excluded; forcefully integrated).

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title FAST Kitchen Percussion Band 
Description Performance by the new FAST Kitchen Percussion Band (formed from workshops conducted on behalf of this project) for Hari Raya showcase, FAST on May 7 2023 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact - training of band participants in creative work/ music - increase in wellbeing of band participants 
 
Title Song For Nur Listening Party 
Description Fundraising Listening Party/ Concert for cancer patient and migrant worker Nur Roeg; Song For Nur campaign 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact A turnout of 50 migrant workers and members of the Singapore public came to support the project in song, and also in support of Nur. We have raised £2000 to date for Nur Reog's healthcare expenses. 
 
Title Soundscape Composition by Ghaliz Filkhair Haris 
Description Soundscape composition based on found sound 'diary recordings' by Indonesian migrant workers in Southeast Asia, assembled in Berlin by Indonesian artist Ghaliz Filkhair Haris 
Type Of Art Composition/Score 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact Re-assessing of labour as affective, creative, musical and extrapolated in shifting contexts, rethinking of different Indonesian creative and transnational/ class identities through musical co-production. 
 
Description 1. Acoustic disciplining of labour: the (re)structuring of lives, lifestyles and liminal spaces for identity- and community-making through the sounded environments of migrant workers in Southeast Asia.
2. Affective labour as affective leisure: this is seen for example in the (re)use of instruments of work (eg kitchen implements reformed for kitchen percussion bands) formerly identitifed as instruments of oppression, as instruments of creativity and self/ community expression.
3. Listening and silence as subversive acts: migrant workers actively negotiate these 'negative sonic spaces/ non-spaces' in deliberate agency via moments of non-engagement through non-speaking performed as 'non-understandings' in resistance and reclaiming of (non)space.
4. Intersectional solidarity rediscovered in neo/postcolonial margins afforded by the lowest common denominator of the English language as a a vehicle for intercultural communication between Indonesian, Filipina and Bangladeshi workers
5. Hacking of cheaper, 'back-channels' of technologies provided on higher-end platforms (paid for by employers' high-speed internet connections) for community use and communication
6. Recalibration of conversational and solidarity ethos in collaborative ethnography approaches between researchers and consultants
Exploitation Route 1. Reworking grounded theories and disciplinings of acoustic dimensions of (reluctant) labour and agency in work-completion
2. Redesigning care-oriented policies in facilitating different forms of labour in various regions around the world
3. Rethinking (and hacking) use of back-end social media technologies for vastly different demographics
4. Redrawing models for collaborative and dialogical research, as well as collaborative creativity
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy

Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Education

Leisure Activities

including Sports

Recreation and Tourism

Government

Democracy and Justice

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

Other

 
Description 1. Feed forward into policy making on ASEAN and Southeast Asian labour governance structures via NGO consultations 2. Discernible improvement in wellbeing of various stakeholder communities in Indonesian, Filpina/x and Bangladeshi communities, as attested to in multiple social media (and broader) testimonies and spin-off creative projects (eg sound diaries, song stories and ongoing soundsofprecariouslabour.wordpress.com blog)
First Year Of Impact 2021
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Policy & public services

 
Description Influence on labour policy/ initiatives around wellbeing and labour contracts of migrant worker in interaction/engagement with acoustic regimes/ environments
Geographic Reach Asia 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
Impact - active and continual/sustained uptake of creative workshops (via Kitchen Percussion project) from migrant worker community upon formalisation of workshop frameworks released by FAST (funded by Ministry of Manpower) - active feedback and contributions from members of the public (with many expressing new attitudes towards migrant worker welfare in person, and also on social media) as a result of the Song For Nur campaign (which has raised so far more than £2000 from members of the public for Nur Reog's healthcare costs) - active change on support work around regulatory and documentation procedures around migrant worker transitions after a period of work to home countries, and also around migrant worker healthcare (change part-effected through ILO and Think Centre's recommendations and campaigns)
 
Title New approach to collaborative ethnography in the field 
Description I am currently exploring community-based collaborative ethnography, by which my key study participants (migrant workers from Southeast Asia) are also given an (academic, and sometimes not) researcher's voice/ platform in the telling of their own stories, and asking of their own questions. This has led me to rethink the research process itself as a form of impact, and also to think about the (linguistic/ intellectual/ class-based/ cultural ) accessibility of publication platforms as well as language/writing style deployed. I am moving towards a more decolonial approach where the nature and choice of presentation style/formats in my research publications are geared towards the needs of primary stakeholders of study participants, who need to also be seen as researchers-actors-activists-educators in their own right, with their own agencies, and are also able to access and share the jointly worked-on research and findings. The choice of the Goethe-Institute platformed Nusasonic magazine, and the deliberate use of Wordpress community blog formats for shared editorship and jointly-authored uploads of research finding/ongoing queries/content have been strategic. My study consultants have all been credited as joint authors in two big projects listed on my publications list (to date), and I am exploring a similar collaborative ethnographic approach in alternative presentation styles in preparation for an anticipated monograph. Still, issues of inequality still persist with regards to the final destination/impacts of published research (on my own academic career, vis a vis the aspired future/alternative careers of individual migrant workers), and also in writing processes of jointly-produced projects in terms of unequal / limited time and labour allocations/ resources. Where I have tried to co-present research findings with joint authors, visa issues and limitations caused by work contracts (on the part of migrant worker collaborators) have posed a large number of challenges. 
Type Of Material Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact A different, decolonial model for the framing of voices of study participants is being trialled here. My study participants have all expressed great pride on seeing their names on official and unofficial publications. However, the benefits/meanings derived from these publications are different for each participating party (whether myself, or individual and specific migrant worker co-authors) 
 
Description Collaboration on Casework for specific individual, policy advice in scaled village campaign work, knowledge exchange 
Organisation International Labour Organization (ILO)
Country Switzerland 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution 1. I am working with the International Labour Organisation (also in partnership with the Think Centre Singapore) on specific case work for a named Indonesian domestic migrant worker Nur Reog, who is in advanced stages of cancer. My research team are assisting in her transition from Singapore to Indonesia. We have launched fund-raising campaigns for her healthcare and relocation costs/ associated costs regarding loss of income to her family (Reog being primary income earner of her household). We are also looking at Nur's situation as a case study for developing recommendations on policy and good practice on state/public funded general healthcare provision for migrant workers in Southeast Asia, and also on transition arrangements. Additionally, my research has also fed into the ILO's strategic practices/ guidelines for re-orienting the public engagement role of music in communicating the situation of migrant workers, and also in fundraising. 2. My research on the acoustic regimentalisation of labour, as well as the therapeutic roles sounded environments/music play in the lives of migrant workers, has fed into the ILO's projects on continual education and awareness-raising among migrant domestic workers, the planning of well-being campaigns and initiatives for migrant workers, and also a rethinking/recalibration of private/professional boundaries in different workplaces impacted upon by sonic maneouvering, engineering and exclusion/inclusion. 3. I have developed extensive networks with migrant domestic workers in Singapore, a few key members of whom have, through my liaising, volunteered to be 'role models' in continual education and gender-awareness/ economic-awareness raising campaigns run by multiple village operatives across Indonesia by the ILO.
Collaborator Contribution 1. Assistance with case work around the specific individual of Nur Roeg (see above). Followups have already been made with regard to a care/advice team convened to be on hand in Indonesia awaiting Nur's return, arrangements for document transfer of medical and other records, relocation, briefings. 2. Provision of information, data and guidelines currently deployed by ILO officers on welfare/well-being and education-oriented projects with a view towards deploying these in my own research project
Impact - Identifying and training of new individuals in my research network for further career development in specific education campaigns run by the ILO - Specific casework for Nur Reog, and drawing of lessons from this experience to inform on future policy (this is also done in collaboration with The Think Centre) Collaboration is multidisciplinary, involving Music/ Performing Arts and Development Studies/ International Relations/Political Science
Start Year 2023
 
Description Conference on Sounding Southeast Asian Networks (organised by PI on this project) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was an international symposium convened at RHUL Bedford Square campus to triage different research questions and approaches around the core project investigation on Southeast Asian migrantions and acoustic pathways. Details of the event are presented below:

Organisers: Shzr Ee Tan (RHUL), in collaboration with Anglo Asiatic Arts & Heritage Alliance (AAAHA)

As the world comes to terms with recovery from a pandemic whose effects remain exacerbated by existing structural inequalities across the world, we come together as a Southeast Asian (Plus) collective of liminally-spaced thinkers, writers, practitioners and activists, with a renewed commitment to making community together.

We ask questions about what it means to be (separately, differently, and communally) Southeast Asian in a post- #BlackLivesMatter world. Here, the fabled term has now been given a new twist through "postwoke" sensibilities recalibrating race debates as Gen Z/climate/precarity debates. We ask what it means to be a Southeast Asian person/ally thinking about and actively making music/sound - or, simply - listening to the world and one another in shared CET/UTC/SEA time zones, where the affordances and connectivities of WhatsApp organising and social media have brought new meanings to intimate transnational conversations and soundwaves on "underground gossip networks." We pose questions of ourselves in relation to the hierarchised world of inter-ethnic solidarities and intergenerational conversations. We come together to identify and process our shared and conflicting/challenging experiences of curiosity, anxiety, hope, precarity, abundance, cynicism, trust, anger, empathy, and healing. We attempt to negotiate ways of being alone and of coming together. We hope to discover new ways of finding one another as people collectively invest in the thriving of post-migrant Southeast Asian sound communities.

Over three workshops/sharing sessions and a performance lecture, we will rethink old and new tropes about Southeast Asian musical/sounded/listening traditions and communities in the UK and Europe. We will make reference to non-linear and overlapped historical migrations. We also celebrate key turning points (eg London's first Southeast Asian Arts Festival; Decolonial Frequencies initiative in Berlin), and commemorate ever-changing sonic memories (via old and new mediations from karaoke to radio and ABRSM, plus also good ol' family-lineaged storytelling). While we take stock of the past and present, we also think ahead about processes and structures of support, of capacity-building and renewal, and posit tentative suggestions for the unique offerings that Southeast Asian musicians/artists/allies/communities can pledge to not only a Southeast Asian cultural industry in the UK/Europe, but also broader community life in physical and spiritual places we call our transient or permanent homes.

* This event is held under the auspices of the AHRC-funded research project, Sounds of Precarious Labour.

PROGRAMME

9.30 am Coffee; welcome words

10.00 - 11.00 am Workshop 1 on Community/Capacity building and Intersectional Southeast Asian sounded/music networks

BREAK 11 - 12 pm - ASIAN SNACKS! (and maybe some biscuits from Ye Olde England)

11.30 pm - 1 pm Workshop 2 - Paper presentations on Inter-Southeast Asian exchanges in Asia:

Andita Aniarani (RHUL)

Solomon Shiu (Oxford)

Shzr Ee Tan (RHUL)

LUNCH - 1 pm - 2.30 pm - CURRY PUFFS and ACHAR!

2.30 - 4 pm Workshop 3 - next steps on Historical, current and future trajectories: intergenerational exchanges; past experiences at London's first Southeast Asian Arts Festival; future paths

BREAK 4 - 4.30 pm ASIAN SNACKS! (and maybe some biscuits from Ye Olde England)

4.30 - 5.30 pm Lecture-Performance by meLê yamomo and Johanes Santosa Pribadi Mo'ong

5.30 pm Closing Words

6 pm DINNER

Participants:

Andita Aniarani

Hi Ching

Lonán Ó Briain

Tina K Ramnarine

Johannes Santoso Pribadi

Solomon Shiu

Shzr Ee Tan

meLê yamomo

Sarnt Utamachote

Kamolnun Ruddit
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/music/events/workshop-soun...
 
Description Conference paper on the sounded lives of migrant workers, ICTM and IASPM Conference, Malaysia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Sharing of research and migrant worker listening habits and community action networks, which led to questions on scope and reach of migrant participation, which led to similar deployment of technological affordances used by migrant workers to 'hack' technological pathways.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Cultural Heritage & Partnerships Day at RHUL 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I presented work on acoustic regimes of labour in Southeast Asia, and different schematics/ models for collaborative co-created research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cultural-and-heritage-partnerships-day-at-royal-holloway-tickets-7736...
 
Description Curated Panel at British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference (organised by PI on this project) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A specialist panel on migration, Southeast Asian sonorities was organised on behalf of the Project theme and presented at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology's Annual Conference in April 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://docplayer.net/235152147-Bfe-annual-conference-2023-music-and-movement-13-th-16-th-april-univ...
 
Description Field Trip and Guided Experience at the Singapore Art Museum 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Guided Field Trip and Sonic/ Immersive Experience with Curator Yuen Chee Wai and Cheryl Ong, with members of the Singapore Art Museum,
March 6 an March 21, 2022
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Interviews at YM Gallery Mar - May 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Interviews and video recordings/ representations of stories from Migrant Workers in Singapore
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Kitchen Percussion Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Kitchen percussion improvisation workshop conducted with core group of 10 performers, with multiple video clips of short performance and followup virtual submissions shared widely on social media across Singaporean, Indonesian and Filipino networks (within Singapore, and wider Southeast Asia)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Presentation on Narrowcasting in the Migrant worker worlds, SOAS Research Seminar Series 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Presentation was held at SOAS Research Seminar series attended by 50 - 100 students/ staff, which sparked questions on migrant labour and digital platforms.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Presentation on migrant worker soundscapes for CTM Festival, Berlin 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Talk on acoustic lives of migrant workers for the CTM Festival Berlin
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Scholar of the Month - presentation on Radical Aunties and Transient Workers for Gender Institute 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation on Transient Workers and Radical Aunties for Royal Holloway Gender Institute and external parties
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
 
Description Talk on Acoustic Lives of Migrant Labour, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Lecture-presentation on the sounded lives of migrant workers for the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Weekly Kitchen Percussion Workshops (in-person/online/hybrid) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Study participants or study members
Results and Impact We have been convening weekly hybrid workshops on kitchen percussion on the basis of three in-person intensive starter sessions in Feb/ Mar 2023. The workshops test the idea of affective labour as affective leisure, whereby domestic migrant workers use the tools of their labour (kitchen utensils) to create short rhythmic and musical presentations, and rethink the work-as-play dynamics. The workshops have created therapeutic spaces for workers, but also allowed for a re-understanding and re-appreciation of the labours undertaken by the workers, and understandings of how sonic environments impact on their daily and wider lives. Interim presentations of each workshop are recorded and shared widely (with relatives of the workers in Indonesia) on a private social networks on WhatsApp and Facebook.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023