Theme 

As a group of people who will lose their income by staying at home, migrant workers sustain greater economic costs and health risks during a pandemic. They either lose their jobs or expose themselves to higher health risks when taking international flights and staying in packed dormitories. Migrant workers are often seen as the social “other” in countries where they contribute a significant part of the labor force. The social otherness has caused a blind spot, or the unknown known, in disease control. For example, in the early phase of the pandemic, Singapore was lauded for its containment policy. But the outbreak in foreign worker dormitories had shattered its success story with hundreds of cases reported since mid-April. Although migrant rights groups had warned that viruses spread faster in overcrowded dormitories, the warning was ignored. The Singaporean government has taken a distinct way in releasing corona figures by demarcating the number of cases into that of community and that of dorms, entrenching the social otherness of migrant workers. We will be focusing on how social inequality and marginalization have impeded disease control efforts, and how the pandemic affects global job markets for migrant workers.
 

• Jason Hwang | Political Officer, American Institute in Taiwan

• Dr. Pei-Chia Lan | Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of Global Asia Research Center, National Taiwan University