Envisioning the Care Economy Otherwise - Migrant Care Workers' Speculative Futures for Sustainable and Decent Care Work
How else care economy can function? And how migrant care workers values and desires can reshape technologies, services and policies?
Overall research aim: This design research project explores alternative futures for the care economy in Singapore through participatory futuring with formal and informal migrant care workers. Positioning care as both a method and an analytical lens, the program comprises a series of design experiments that investigate how the care economy might be reimagined and reconfigured
Related papers
Design for Care-Full Inclusion: Foregrounding the Voices of Vulnerable Communities Through Vignettes in Co-design
Summary: This paper explores how a care-oriented approach to vignette-making can amplify the voices of migrant care workers in co-design workshops. It shows that vignettes help surface lived experiences, foster empathy, and support more inclusive participation despite structural barriers, ultimately enabling more care-full and equitable design processes.
Conference: DRS26
Status: Accepted, to be published
Work in progress
Mapping and Reimagining Care Networks with Migrant Domestic Workers
Summary: Beyond domestic chores, Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) are crucial actors in Singapore’s care economy, providing informal paid care for both children and older adults. Their impact also extends to their home countries, where they contribute not only through remittances but also as unpaid caregivers offering emotional and affective support. Despite this dual and transnational role, their perspectives are rarely included in shaping the future of the care economy. This study explores with 12 MDWs how they navigate and sustain care networks. Using a scaffolded storytelling approach with material artefacts, participants also co-created “magic things” to imagine future artefacts that could better support their roles.
