Laavanya Kathiravelu

Book

1. Kathiravelu, L., (2016) Migrant Dubai: low wage workers and the construction of a Global City. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI 10.1057/9781137450180

Journal Articles (selected)

1. Kathiravelu, L. (2024). Immigration without diversity: the invisible second generation in Singapore. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 48(6), 1253–1270. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2024.2436079
2. Kathiravelu, L., & Dorairajoo, S. (2024). Locating invisible privilege in Asia: Conceptual travel and contextual significance. Current Sociology, 72(5): 798-813. https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921221132317
3. Kathiravelu, L and Pandian S (2024) “It’s purely mutual respect”: Cross-cultural taboos and the everyday reproduction of Singaporean nationalism, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 24(2): 129-144 https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12416
4. Kathiravelu, L (2022) Conceptualizing migration beyond the “West”: a view from Asia, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 46 (8): 1669–1673 DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2022.2141064
5. Jaafar Alloul, Laavanya Kathiravelu "Constructing Qatari Citizenship in the Shadow of the World Cup," Middle East Report 304 (Fall 2022).
6. Ho, E., Kathiravelu, L, (2022) “More than race: a comparative analysis of “new” Indian and Chinese migration in Singapore, Race and Ethnic Studies 45 (4): 636-655. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1924391.
7. Kathiravelu, L. (2021). Introduction to Special Section ‘Infrastructures of Injustice: Migration and Border Mobilities.’ Mobilities, 16(5): 645–655. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2021.1981546
8. Kathiravelu, L., Bunnell, T., (2018) “Introduction: Urban Friendship Networks: Affective ngotiations and potentialities of care.” Urban Studies 55(3): 491-504. doi.org/10.1177/0042098017737281
9. Kathiravelu, L., (2012), “Social Networks in Dubai: Informal Solidarities in an Uncaring State” in Journal of Intercultural Studies, Issue 33(1): 103-119. DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2012.633319 

Book Chapters (selected)

1. Kathiravelu, L., (2022) “Doubly minoritized: Indianness in Singapore and xenophobia as racism”. In Paul, Kristian-Marc et al (eds) Brown is Redacted. Singapore: Ethos Books.
2. Aquino, K., Kathiravelu, L., Mitchell, E (2022) “Locating Race in Migration and Diversity Studies” in Scholten, Peter (ed) Introduction to Migration Studies. Rotterdam: IMISCO (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe).
3. Kathiravelu, L., (2020) “Bodies that don’t matter, but labour that does: The low wage male migrant in Singapore and Dubai” in Natalie Boero and Kate Mason (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of the Body and Embodiment,1-17. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190842475.013.26
4. Kathiravelu, L., (2020) “What kind of Indian are you? Frictions and fractures between Singaporean Indians and foreign-born NRIs”. In Terence Chong (ed) Navigating Differences: Integration in Singapore, 110-125. Singapore: ISEAS (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) Press.
5. Kathiravelu, L., (2019) “Whose Justice and for whom? Low wage migrants, authoritarian regimes and nations of what is fair” in Sandra Brunnegger (ed) Everyday Justice, 58-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI:10.1017/9781108763530
6. Kathiravelu, L., *Wong, G., (2018) “Marginalised Migrants and Urbanisation in Southeast Asia”. In Rita Padawangi (ed) Handbook of Urbanisation in Southeast Asia, 146-156. London and New York: Routledge
7. Kathiravelu, L., (2017) ‘Rethinking Race: beyond the CMIO categorisations’, Loh Kah Seng, Thum Ping Tjin, Jack Chia (ed), Living With Myths in Singapore, 159-168. Singapore: Select Books. 

• Kathiravelu, Laavanya & Arokkiaraj, H. (2025). Migration Intermediaries and the Brokerage of Mobilities. I Rajan, S. Irudaya (Red.), The Palgrave Handbook of Indian Migrants to South East Asia. Springer Nature. ISSN 9789819642045. s. 285–299. doi: 10.1007/978-981-96-4204-5_19. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  There has been a long history of intermediaries shaping low wage or unskilled mobilities between South India and Singapore. Starting with the movement of indentured labour in the colonial period and the kangani system to more networked forms of migration in the contemporary era. Today, those same transnational trajectories continue, primarily with low waged migrants from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. These men and women are considered temporary migrants who do not have access to any pathway to citizenship or permanent residency beyond the tenure of their work contracts. Much of this migration takes place through intermediaries in both India and Singapore, who often demand very high recruitment fees in order to secure a job for the potential migrant. Already in a precarious position due to their immigration status, they are further indentured through their debt bondage as a result of the high costs of mediated migration. Drawing from interviews with return migrants and migration agents in Tamil Nadu, this chapter understands the role of trust, kinship, and village networks, and the lure of transnational migration to Singapore as interlinked with the continued exploitation of low wage migrants. While labour recruiters play the dual role of enabler and exploiter, this chapter also points out that it is also employers and a system that displaces authority from both sending and receiving states that are responsible for structural disadvantages that low waged migrants from India to Singapore continue to face.

• Kathiravelu, Laavanya (2025). Low Waged Migrant Men and Covid-19 in Singapore. I Rajan, S. Irudaya (Red.), The Palgrave Handbook of Indian Migrants to South East Asia. Springer Nature. ISSN 9789819642045. s. 361–372. doi: 10.1007/978-981-96-4204-5_24. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The pandemic of 2020 has exposed global inequalities not just between nation-states but also, within them. Singapore, while generally lauded for its handling of the epidemic, is also a space where internal inequalities became quickly apparent with the rapid spread of Covid-19 amongst low waged migrant men housed in crowded worker dormitories. This development was seen as indicative of the structural abuse of this group not just in Singapore, but internationally, as similar waves spread amongst low waged migrants in Gulf states. This group, who were initially neglected in efforts to inform, educate, and enforce social distancing became the victims of more than 90 per cent of Singapore’s coronavirus infections. Attempts to quickly deal with the surge of cases within this migrant community led to mass testing, provision of masks and other supplies as well as the expansion of high-quality free healthcare. These measures have led to an almost complete eradication of coronavirus within this group and also ensured a very low rate of mortality from the virus. Drawing from social media posts, news coverage, and interviews with migrants in Singapore as well as returnees in India, this paper demonstrates that even within the realm of a globally marginalized group, the “right to have rights” (Arendt, 1973) is unevenly felt. It is not the legal privileges conveyed by citizenship, but instead the ways in which nation-states interpellate individuals as part of national governance regimes that determine their access to healthcare and welfare. The case study of Singapore demonstrates that in times of crisis, the borders of the nation can expand (or contract) to include even Others ordinarily seen as peripheral Outsiders.

• Heller, Arokkiaraj & Kathiravelu, Laavanya (2025). Blurring the Boundary Between Regular and Irregular: Tamil Low-Wage Migrants in the Gulf and the Co-Construction of Khalluli. International Migration Review. ISSN 0197-9183. doi: 10.1177/01979183251377390. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Daly, Patrick; Nejad, Amin Shoari; Domijan, Katarina; McCaughey, Jamie W.; Brassard, Caroline & Kathiravelu, Laavanya [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). The socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 mitigation measures and vulnerabilities in Singapore. Progress in Disaster Science. 24. doi: 10.1016/j.pdisas.2024.100377. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Starting in early 2020, countries around the world imposed mitigation measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 including social distancing; closing public transport, schools, and non-essential businesses; enhanced hygiene; face masks; temperature monitoring; quarantining; and contact tracing. These mitigation measures helped reduce loss of life, but also disrupted the lives of billions of people. Here we assess whether mitigation measures used to manage a disaster can also have negative impacts that disproportionately burden vulnerable sub-sets of a population. We use data from a survey of Singaporean citizens and permanent residents during the lockdown period between April and July 2020 to evaluate the social and economic impacts of Singapore's COVID-19 mitigation measures. Our results show that over 60 % of the population experienced negative impacts on their social lives and 40 % on household economics. Bayesian Hierarchical Logistic Regress reveals that the negative economic impacts of the mitigation measures were partly influenced by socio-economic and demographic factors that align with underlying societal vulnerabilities. Our findings suggest that when dealing with large-scale crisis' such as COVID-19, slow-onset disasters, and climate change, some of the burdens of mitigation measure can constitute a crisis in their own right which could disproportionately impact vulnerable segments of the population.

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