Conditional Sundays: sensory arrhythmia and compressed leisure in Singapore’s migrant enclaves

How do the structural conditions of live-in domestic labor shape migrant domestic workers’ sensory experiences in migrant enclaves? Based on sensory ethnography with Filipino, Indonesian, and Burmese migrant domestic workers, naturalized citizens, and permanent residents in Singapore, this article examines how compressed leisure time is sensed through the embodied practice of walking. In Singapore, migrant domestic workers occupy a structurally precarious position: guaranteed only one rest day a month and not entitled to 24 consecutive hours off. This is compounded by the asymmetrical power relations that these women experience with their Singaporean employers, which shape the sensory conditions of leisure. I put Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis in conversation with sensory scholarship to argue that the structural conditions of live-in domestic labor produce sensory arrhythmia: a condition in which compressed and unequal rhythms of movement generate sensory discomfort and infractions and constrain meaningful sensory encounters. Drawing on sensory ethnography, I show how employer-regulated temporalities translate into the arrhythmic sensory experiences of migrant domestic workers in migrant enclaves like Lucky, Peninsula, and City Plaza. To further demonstrate how the structural can give rise to sensory arrhythmia, I contrast the experiences of migrant women with the weekday rhythms of naturalized citizens and permanent residents.