Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Paved with Good Intentions?

  • 271 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter introduces the key argument of this book: there is often a significant disconnect between the experiences of individuals who are trafficked and the discursive construction and programmatic and policy responses to human trafficking. Discussing a similar kind of disconnect in the Bosnian context, Edward Snajdr [Dialectical Anthropology, 37(2), 229–256 (2013)] suggests that a ‘master narrative’ of human trafficking operates at the discursive level, often despite emerging counter-discourses that challenge the specific type of victim story that forms such a master narrative. By disclosing the discursive rendering of trafficking by the state and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), we can understand how master narratives about human trafficking are constructed and actualised in practice. In the Singapore context, the book argues that the government has effectively managed to reduce the numbers of prospective trafficking victims by narrowing the criteria for victim identification (the indicators of trafficking) to the most severe and unambiguous cases, particularly in the sex industry. The chapter outlines the theoretical bases for discussion in the book, as well as contextualising Singapore’s anti-trafficking responses in political and economic circumstances and broader regional trends in Southeast Asia.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    A Special Pass is a visa type issued to migrants in Singapore who are involved in a legal case, civil claim, or police investigation. A Special Pass does not, however, allow the bearer legal working rights in Singapore apart from in a few special cases.

  2. 2.

    Director of Singapore’s only sex worker outreach organisation, Project X, also lamented to me in an interview that Bangladeshi women were ‘almost impossible to reach because of language barriers and the isolation and surveillance that is commonplace during their sojourns in Singapore’ (Vanessa Ho, personal communication, 14 November 2015). The story of one Bangladeshi woman’s experience being trafficking into the sex industry in Singapore is recounted in A Thousand and One Days: Stories of Migrant Worker Hardship in Singapore (Vol. I). Dhaka: Bangla Kanther Publications.

References

  • Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agustin, L. (2007). Sex at the margins: Migration, labour markets and the rescue industry. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrijasevic, R. (2007). Beautiful dead bodies: Gender, migration and representation in anti-trafficking campaigns. Feminist Review, 86, 24–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrijasevic, R., & Mai, N. (2017). Trafficking in representations: Understanding the recurring appeal of victimhood and slavery in neoliberal times. Anti-Trafficking Review, No. 7. https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.20121771.

  • Ansell, N. (2010). The discursive construction of childhood and youth in AIDS interventions in Lesotho’s education sector: Beyond local-global dichotomies. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(5), 791–810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aradau, C. (2004). The perverse politics of four-letter words: Risk and pity in the securitisation of human trafficking. Millennium, 33(2), 251–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, C., & Szablewska, N. (2016). Anti-trafficking (ill-)efforts: The legal regulation of women’s bodies and relationships in Cambodia. Social and Legal Studies, 25(4), 461–488.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brunovoskis, A., & Surtees, R. (2012). Out of sight? Approaches and challenges to the identification of trafficked persons. Olso: FAFO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable? London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casper, M. J., & Moore, L. J. (2009). Missing bodies: The politics of visibility. New York and London: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cumbers, A. (2005). Genuine renewal or pyrrhic victory? The scale politics of trade union recognition in the UK. Antipode, 37, 116–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cumbers, A., Routledge, P., & Natival, C. (2008). The entangled geographies of global justice networks. Progress in Human Geography, 32, 183–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507084818.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Shalit, A., Heynen, R., & van der Meulen, E. (2014). Human trafficking and media myths: Federal funding, communication strategies, and Canadian anti-trafficking programs. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39(3), 385–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doezema, J. (2010). Sex slaves and discourse masters: The construction of trafficking. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frederick, J. (2004). The myth of Nepal-to-India sex trafficking: Its creation, its maintenance, and its influence on anti-trafficking interventions. In K. Kempadoo et al. (Eds.), Trafficking and prostitution reconsidered: New perspectives on migration, sex work and human rights. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • GAATW. (2007). Collateral damage. Bangkok: GAATW.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, A., & Pearson, E. (2008). Detention of trafficked persons in shelters: A legal and policy analysis. La Strada International. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1239745.

  • Gorman, C. S. (2017). Redefining refugees: Interpretive control and the bordering work of legal categorisation in U.S. Asylum law. Political Geography, 58, 36–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gulati, G. J. (2012). Representing trafficking: Media in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. In A. Brysk & Y. Choi-Fitzpatrick (Eds.), Human trafficking and human rights: Rethinking contemporary slavery. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hathaway, J. C. (2008). The human rights quagmire of human trafficking. Virginia Journal of International Law, 49, 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herbert, S. (2000). For ethnography. Progress in Human Geography, 24(4), 550–568.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, J. (2010). The question of ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics: Querying the ‘child soldier’ in the ‘war on terror’. Political Geography, 29(5), 247–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, J., & Mountz, A. (2008). Another brick in the wall? Neo-refoulement and the externalisation of asylum in Australia and Europe. Government and Opposition, 43(2), 249–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • International Labour Organisation. (n.d.). Forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking. Geneva: ILO. Retrieved from May 22, 2018, from http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang%2D%2Den/index.htm

  • Jahic, G., & Finckenauer, J. (2005). Representations and misrepresentations of human trafficking. Trends in Organized Crime, 8(3), 24–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Juris, J. S. (2004). Networked social movements: Global movements for global justice. In M. Castells (Ed.), The network society: Cross-cultural perspective. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juris, J. S. (2005). The new digital media and activist networking within anti-corporate social movements. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1, 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716204270338.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, C. (2007). Banal terrorism: Spatial fetishism and everyday insecurity. In D. Gregory & A. Pred (Eds.), Violent geographies: Fear, terror, and political violence (pp. 349–361). Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimm, S., & Sauer, B. (2010). Discourses on forced prostitution, trafficking in women, and football: A comparison of anti-trafficking campaigns during the World Cup 2006 and the European Championship 2008. Soccer and Society, 11(6), 815–828.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitchin, R., & Hubbard, P. J. (1999). Guest editorial: Research, action and ‘critical’ geographies. Area, 31, 195–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lainez, N. (2010). Representing sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. In T. Zheng (Ed.), Sex trafficking, human rights and social justice. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latham, A. (2003). Urbanity, lifestyle and making sense of the new cultural urban economy: Notes from Auckland, New Zealand. Urban Studies, 40, P1699–P1724. https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098032000106564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawson, V. (2007). Geographies of care and responsibility. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 97(1), 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindquist, J. (2010). Images and evidence: Human trafficking, auditing, and the production of illicit markets in Southeast Asia. Public Culture, 22(2), 223–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lobasz, J. K. (2009). Beyond border security: Feminist approaches to human trafficking. Security Studies, 18(2), 319–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, K. (2002). From solidarity to fluidity: Social movements beyond ‘collective identity’—The case of globalisation conflicts. Social Movement Studies, 1, 109–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Megoran, N. (2006). For ethnography in political geography: Experiencing and imagining Ferghana Valley boundary closures. Political Geography, 25(6), 622–640.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mertes. (2002). Grassroots globalism. New Left Review, 17, 101–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molland, S. (2013). Tandem ethnography: On researching ‘trafficking’ and ‘anti-trafficking’. Ethnography, 14, 300–323. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138113491671.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mountz, A. (2004). Embodying the nation-state: Canada’s response to human smuggling. Political Geography, 23(3), 323–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mountz, A. (2010). Seeking asylum. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mountz, A. (2011). Where asylum-seekers wait: Feminist counter-topographies of sites between states. Gender, Place & Culture, 18(3), 381–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mountz, A., & Hiemstra, N. (2012). Spatial strategies for rebordering human migration at sea. In T. M. Wilson & H. Donman (Eds.), A companion to border studies (pp. 455–472). London: Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mountz, A., & Hiemstra, N. (2014). Chaos and crisis: Dissecting the spatiotemporal logics of contemporary migrations and state practices. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104(2), 382–390.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nieuwenhuys, C., & Pécoud, A. (2007). Human trafficking, information campaigns, and strategies of migration control. American Behavioral Scientist, 50(12), 1674–1695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Connell Davidson, J., & Anderson, B. (2002). Trafficking—A demand-led problem? Part I: Review of evidence and debates. Stockholm, Sweden: Save the Children.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, H., & Taylor, B. (2000). Embodying ecological citizenship: Rethinking the politics of grassroots globalisation in the United States. Alternatives, 25, 439–449.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riles, A. (2001). The network inside out. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Routledge, P. (2003). Convergence space: Process geographies of grassroots globalisation networks. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28(3), 333–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma, N. (2003). Travel agency: A critique of anti-trafficking campaigns. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 21(3), 53–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sklair, L. (1995). Social movements and global capitalism. Sociology, 29, 495–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Small, J. L. (2012). Trafficking in truth: Media, sexuality, and human rights evidence. Feminist Studies, 38(2), 415–533.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snajdr, E. (2013). Beneath the master narrative: Human trafficking, myths of sexual slavery and ethnographic realities. Dialectical Anthropology, 37(2), 229–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Surtees, R. (2017). Moving on: Family and community reintegration amongst Indonesian trafficking victims. Washington, DC: NEXUS Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tazreiter, C. (2015). Lifeboat politics in the Pacific: Affect and the ripples and shimmers of a migrant saturated future. Emotion, Space and Society, 16, 99–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United States Department of State. (2017). Annual trafficking in persons report. Washington, DC: US DoS.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNODC. (n.d.). On trafficking of persons and smuggling of migrants. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/index.html?ref=menuside.

  • Walters, W. (2008). Bordering the sea: Shipping industries and the policing of stowaways. Borderlands, 7(3), 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wogan, P. (2004). Deep hanging out: Reflections on fieldwork and multi-sited Andean ethnography. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 11(1), 129–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S. (2013). Social visits and special passes: The exploitation of migrant women in Singapore’s sex and nightlife entertainment sector. Singapore: Franciscan Sisters of Mary.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S. (2015). Trafficked enough? Missing bodies, migrant labour exploitation and the classification of trafficking victims in Singapore. Antipode, 47, 1080–1100. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S., & Chok, S. (2018). Unfreedom unbound: Contingency and co-production in migrant worker exploitation in Singapore. Work, Employment and Society, 32(5), 925–941.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S., Balakrishnan, B., & Fordyce, D. (2018). A thousand and one days: Stories of migrant worker hardship in Singapore. Dhaka: Banglar Kanther Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S., Haque, R., & Fordyce, D. (2015). A thousand and one days: Stories of migrant worker hardship in Singapore. Dhaka: Banglar Kanther Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yea, S., Mohsin, A. K. M., & Fordyce, D. (2013). A thousand and one days: Stories of migrant worker hardship in Singapore. Dhaka: Banglar Katha Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yeoh, B. S. (2006). Bifurcated labour: The unequal incorporation of transmigrants in Singapore. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 97(1), 26–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Inquiry, La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga, Australia

    Sallie Yea

Authors
  1. Sallie Yea
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sallie Yea .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Yea, S. (2020). Introduction. In: Paved with Good Intentions?. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3239-5_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3239-5_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3238-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3239-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation