ICS Seminar - Jane Jacobs

Home-Based Work in Singapore: Preliminary Findings

Presenter: Jane Jacobs

Discussant: Katherine Gibson

Chair: Heather Horst

Abstract

This paper reports on preliminary findings on research inquiring into the past and present state of home-based work in Singapore. Using a multi-method approach, the study is seeking to understand who does such work and why, and the extent to which current social, virtual and material infrastructures adequately support such work. Drawing on in-depth case studies of home-based workers, the paper showcases the ways in which workers supplement their spatial and temporal home infrastructures to support paid work.

Presenter

Jane M. Jacobs is currently an Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor with Monash Indonesia, Jakarta. She gained her PhD in human geography from University College London (1991) and has taught at The University of Melbourne (1991-2001), University of Edinburgh (2001-2011) and Yale-NUS College, Singapore (2012- 2023). Prof. Jacobs has published on postcolonial geographies, architecture and society, high-rise urbanism, and the politics of urban heritage. Her publications include Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996 Routledge), Cities of Difference (1998 University of Minnesota Press, edited with Ruth Fincher), Uncanny Australia (1998 University of Melbourne Press, co- authored with Ken Gelder), and Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture (2014 MIT Press, co-authored with Stephen Cairns). She is currently completing a socio-technical history of the residential high-rise in Singapore.

Event Details

Date & Time: Thursday, 12 October 2023 | 11:30am - 1:00pm

Venue: Room: EZ.G.23 Parramatta South Campus

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The Institute for Culture and Society is located in Parramatta, “the place where the eel sets down” in Dharug language,
along the north bank of the Parramatta River. It sits on the traditional lands and waters of the Burramattagal people of the Dharug Nation,
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one of the most diverse cultural communities in the world and home to the largest number of Indigenous Australians in the country.
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