Bangladeshi Migration to Singapore: A Process-Oriented Approach

This book examines international labour migrants in the context of South-South migration with a focus on Bangladeshi migration to Singapore. Two principal questions in the South-South migration are addressed: Why and how individuals migrate for work; and what impact this temporary form of migration has for migrants and their families. The book adopts a relatively new methodological approach to labour migration by linking different phases that migrants undergo in the migration process and by combining migrants in the host country with their families in the origin country. This is achieved through identifying and addressing six key areas: (i) migration policy, (ii) social imperatives of migration (iii) recruitment, (iv) social worlds of the migrants, (v) remittance process, and finally, (vi) family development dynamics. This book introduces the bari to migration research as a unit of analysis over and above individual and family units. The book reveals how social and cultural forces both initiate and perpetuate migration, and later on influence bari dynamics.

Md Mizanur Rahman is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam. His areas of expertise include migration and development, diaspora engagement, migrant businesses, labor migration, migration policy and migrant remittances. He has conducted extensive fieldwork for his migration related research projects in a number of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, Hong Kong SAR, Qatar, the UAE, India, Indonesia, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada, and the USA. He is an Editorial Review Board member of Migration Letters, Migration and Development, Remittance Review, South Asian Journal of Global Business Research and International Journal of South Asian Studies. His recent co-edited books include Diaspora Engagement and Development in South Asia (with Tan Tai Yong, 2013), Migrant Remittances in South Asia (with Tan Tai Yong and AKM Ahsan Ullah, 2014), International Migration and Development in South Asia (with Tan Tai Yong, 2015), and International Migration in Southeast Asia (with Lian Kwen Fee and Yabit bin Alas, 2016). His research articles have appeared in leading migration and population journals such as International Migration, Journal of International Migration and Integration, Population, Space and Place, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, Asia Europe Journal, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, and Asian Population Studies.