The immobility of the highly mobile: existential (im)mobility among transnational entrepreneurs in post-pandemic Singapore

Based on qualitative data of 34 highly-educated migrant entrepreneurs this paper examines the paradoxical implications of pandemic-induced immobilities in Singapore, interrogating how the same pandemic-related situations – in terms of stringent border restrictions, immigration and workforce policy transformations, or shifting landscapes of population flows – could simultaneously entail both immobility and mobility along different dimensions. The paper contrasts the way newly-arrived (South)East Asian entrepreneurs interpret startup opportunities post-migration as moving towards a positive direction within their lives with the existential immobility that long-term non-Asian entrepreneurs, some of them previous corporate expatriates in Singapore, perceive as stuckedness. Using the notion of existential (im)mobility the paper conceptualizes how spatial, legal, and socio-economic (im)mobility are intertwined and made explicit and reveals the precarious conditions even highly-educated economic migrants face in Asian restrictive migration regimes like Singapore. However, the contrasting cases also foreground the significance of life stage and the time of arrival at different times of geopolitical power constellations and highlight that (im)mobility is never ‘fully achieved’. Rather, existential (im)mobility manifests through subjective interpretations of moving in relation to one’s own and others’ previous experiences and changing expectations over time.