The critical temporalities of serial migration and family social reproduction in Southeast Asia.

The prevailing neoliberal labour migration regime in Asia is underpinned by principles of enforced transience: the overwhelming majority of migrants - particularly those seeking low-skilled, low-waged work - are admitted into host nation-states on the basis of short-term, time-bound contracts, with little or no possibility of family reunification or permanent settlement at the destination. As families go transnational, 'family times' become inextricably intertwined with the 'times of migration' (Cwerner, 2001). In this context, for many migrant-sending families in Southeast Asian source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, parental migration as a strategy for migrating out of poverty or for socio-economic advancement requires the left-behind family to resiliently absorb the uncertainties of parental leaving and returning.

Grandparenting left-behind children in Javanese Migrant-sending villages: Trigenerational care circuits and the negotiation of care.

Parental labour migration requires recalibrations of care arrangements within the left-behind family. Existing studies of left-behind families, however, have largely concentrated on parental rather than grandparental caregiving of grandchildren. We argue that grandparents are pivotal to care work and changing family formations within migrant-sending villages.

Irregular Migrant Workers and Health: A Qualitative Study of Health Status and Access to Healthcare of the Filipino Domestic Workers in Mainland China.

In public health research, the health issues of irregular and vulnerable migrant populations remain under-explored. In particular, while mainland China has become a new and popular job-seeking destination for Filipino domestic workers (FDWs), the health status of FDWs and their access to healthcare have been invisible to public and academic concerns. This paper fills this lacuna by conducting a qualitative study that investigates FDWs' self-reported health status and their healthcare-seeking behaviors.

Doing Family in "Times of Migration": Care Temporalities and Gender Politics in Southeast Asia.

The prevailing labor migration regime in Asia is underpinned by rotating-door principles of enforced transience, where low-wage migrant labor gains admission into host nation-states based on short-term, time-limited contracts and where family reunification and permanent settlement at destination are explicitly prohibited. In this context, we ask how migrant-sending families in Southeast Asian "source" countries-Indonesia and the Philippines-sustain family life in the long-term absence of one or both parents (often mothers). Through temporal concepts of rhythm, rupture, and reversal, we focus on how temporal modalities of care for left-behind children intersect with gendered power geometries in animating transnational family politics around care.

Parental migration and disruptions in everyday life: reactions of left-behind children in Southeast Asia.

Increasing feminisation of transnational labour migration has raised concerns over potential 'care crises' at home, and consequently a 'care deficit' for children left in origin countries. Our paper focuses on how left-behind children from Indonesia and the Philippines understand, engage and react to changes in their everyday lives in their parents' absence. While many children had no say over their care arrangements, some were able to assert their agency in influencing their parents' decisions and eventually migratory behaviours.

A Scoping Review of the Health of East and Southeast Asian Female Marriage Migrants.

The number of female marriage migrants in East and Southeast Asia has grown significantly over the past three decades. However, little is known about the health of this population. Following Arksey and O'Malley's (Int J Soc Res Methodol 8(1):19-32, 2005) framework, a scoping review of English language research databases was used to synthesize knowledge on the health of Asian marriage migrants.

Under one roof? Left-behind children's perspectives in negotiating relationships with absent and return-migrant parents.

Children-whether left behind or as migrants-have remained largely invisible in Southeast Asian migration scholarship. Their experiences and perspectives on migration, as well as how they demonstrate agency within the limits of culturally/socially constructed childhoods influenced by a "hybridisation" of global and local conditions, are often overlooked in favour of adults'. This article addresses this research lacuna by focusing attention on how left-behind Indonesian and Filipino children between 9 and 11 years of age engage and react to the changes in their everyday lives brought about by both parental migration and parental return.

Migrant mothers, left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines.

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia - particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets - has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly 'substitute' carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women's absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and 'long-distance mothering', while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother.

Transnational migration, changing care arrangements and left-behind children's responses in South-east Asia.

Recent increases in the volume of labour migration from South-east Asia - and in particular the feminisation of these movements - suggest that millions of children are growing up in transnational families, separated from their migrant parents. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data collected in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the study seeks to elucidate care arrangements for left-behind children and to understand the ways in which children respond to shifts in intimate family relations brought about by (re)configurations of their care. Our findings emphasise that children, through strategies of resistance, resilience and reworking, are conscious social actors and agents of their own development, albeit within constrained situations resulting from their parents' migration.

Parental migration and the mental health of those who stay behind to care for children in South-East Asia.

The international migration of parents from the global south raises questions about the health impacts of family separation on those who stay behind. This paper uses data collected in 2008 and 2009 for a project on Child Health and Migrant Parents in South-East Asia (CHAMPSEA) to address a largely neglected research area by investigating the mental health of those who stay behind in Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam to care for the children of overseas migrants. A mixed-methods research design is employed to answer two questions.

Securing a Better Living Environment for Left-Behind Children: Implications and Challenges for Policies.

Migration is an increasingly significant driver of transformations in family configurations and caregiving practices as well as living arrangements. The sustainability of geographically-split family formations is dependent on several factors, including the presence and strength of care support networks among migrants and their left-behind families, access to communication infrastructure and the stability of the families' financial resources. Drawing on both a selective review of relevant academic literature as well as key findings from the CHAMPSEA Project, the article first examines the effects of these three factors on the well-being of migrants' left-behind family members, especially children.

Transnational labour migration and the politics of care in the Southeast Asian family.

Recent increases in female labour migration in and from Asia have triggered a surge of interest in how the absence of the mother and wife for extended periods of time affects the left-behind family, particularly children, in labour-sending countries. While migration studies in the region have shown that the extended family, especially female relatives, is often called on for support in childcare during the mother's absence it is not yet clear how childcare arrangements are made. Drawing on in-depth interviews with non-parent carers of left-behind children in Indonesia and Vietnam, the paper aims to unveil complexities and nuances around care in the context of transnational labour migration.

Transnational families and the family nexus: perspectives of Indonesian and Filipino children left behind by migrant parent(s).

As a significant supplier of labour migrants, Southeast Asia presents itself as an important site for the study of children in transnational families who are growing up separated from at least one migrant parent and sometimes cared for by 'other mothers'. Through the often-neglected voices of left-behind children, we investigate the impact of parental migration and the resulting reconfiguration of care arrangements on the subjective well-being of migrants' children in two Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia and the Philippines. We theorise the child's position in the transnational family nexus through the framework of the 'care triangle', representing interactions between three subject groups- 'left-behind' children, non-migrant parents/other carers; and migrant parent(s).

Foreign domestic workers and home-based care for elders in Singapore.

As with other developed nations where rapid population aging has led to increasing health care and social care burdens, Singapore has searched for ways of paying for and providing long-term care for its increasing numbers of elders. The Singapore state, faced with the prospect of one-fifth of the population aged 65 or older by 2030, has reinforced its basic principle of rendering the family the "primary caregiving unit" and home-based care as the highly preferred option for eldercare. Our paper demonstrates why, despite the range of alternative care arrangements available or emerging on Singapore's eldercare landscape, the employment of live-in foreign domestic workers as care workers for the elderly has become one of the more common de facto modes of providing care for the elderly.

SARS in Singapore: surveillance strategies in a globalising city.

Public health measures employed to fight against the spread of SARS need to be guided by biomedical knowledge as well as an understanding of the social science aspects of the disease. Using Singapore as a case study, we explore how the state constructs the disease and implements measures targeted at creating a ring of defense around the island and using surveillance to monitor and prevent its spread. While there is support, there is also resentment among some Singaporeans who complain that their right to privacy has been invaded and that over surveillance may have actually occurred.