The article examines temporary extramarital cohabitation arrangements between low-wage Chinese female migrants and their male counterparts in Singapore, a phenomenon which is widely referred to by the migrants as becoming a “temporary couple” or “teaming up to have a life.” In the simulated households, the men usually shoulder most of the daily expenses for both members, while the women are expected to take care of the men’s intimate needs and most of the housework. The vast majority of the women involved in such arrangements are married and migrated for work on their own. This article, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2016 and 2019, explores how these women perform and understand such temporary intimacies. I first demonstrate that the women enter the relationships as a reaction to the institutional setup that places them in a suspended status, in which they are treated as nothing more than temporary labourers. I then illustrate how the women put the relationship in a state of suspension: they instrumentalize it as a means to maximize savings, and mark it out as a short-term exception that will end abruptly once they leave Singapore. The structurally imposed and self-inflicted conditions of suspension limit the women’s agency to an ambiguous private domain that is away from both work and home. Drawing on my long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this article deploys the notion of suspension as a guiding concept to unravel the tensions and moral anxieties that the women experience with their temporary intimacies.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08862605211072150

Bystanders have an important role in preventing sexual violence, but they are often reluctant to intervene due to a range of barriers. In this study, we investigated relationships between the Dark Triad of personality (i.e. psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism), rape myth acceptance and five bystander barriers. We addressed the paucity of research by collecting data from three countries (Indonesia, Singapore, and United Kingdom). In total, 716 University staff and students participated in an online survey. We found very few country-level differences in the correlations between the variables. In regression analyses, Machiavellianism and rape myth acceptance both had significant, positive relationships with failure to identify risk, failure to take responsibility, skills deficits and audience inhibition. Narcissism and psychopathy were significantly, negatively associated with audience inhibition and skills deficits. Findings indicate similarity in predictors of perceived barriers to bystander intervention across the three countries. © The Author(s) 2022.

This article examines boycott movements in Malaysia and Singapore as expressions of popular Islam, with the Israeli–Gaza conflicts of 2008 and 2014 as case studies. The study of Muslims in Malaysia and Singapore is important for a number of reasons. First, it highlights the complexities of the global discourse on boycotting among Muslim communities. It not only shows the degree of the Muslims’ collective action on the ground but also the conversations among the elites. Second, it demonstrates the diverse manifestations of religiosity within differing socio-political conditions. Owing to their unique position as a minority population in a Sinicized environment, located in between Malay and Muslim dominated countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, Malay Muslims in Singapore are often juxtaposed against a barometer of the Malay Other. Music, movies, popular trends and terminologies coined across the Causeway often find their way into the everyday lexicon of Muslims in Singapore. While these popular cultural expressions might seem free flowing and amorphous, one cannot neglect the roles of states in influencing the practice of popular Islam.