Plural politics and transient labour: Reflections on the Sunday map

Abstract

How does the temporal passage of transient populations through established immigrant geographies inform our definition of diaspora? What implications do they have for a plural political model? This paper studies the interactions and tensions between citizens and transient workers in contemporary Singapore through the analysis of their primary space of congregation, Serangoon Road, 'Little India', during Sundays, their off-day. It studies the anxieties regarding otherness and citizenship provoked by their presence in established ethnic communities and their own education into urban citizenship through the camaraderie of the Sunday map, our record of their temporal gathering in the spaces of t..