Koh Sin Yee

Senior Assistant Professor, Deputy Director
PhD (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Room: FASS 2.34

Links: Google Scholar citations | ResearchGate | LinkedIn | Personal webpage

About

Dr Koh Sin Yee is Senior Assistant Professor in Asian Migration, Mobility and Diaspora at the IAS. She is also Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia.

She is a human geographer with 10+ years postdoctoral experience in leading universities in Hong Kong, Brunei, and Malaysia.

Her work is positioned in migration studies, urban studies and postcolonial geography. It uses the lens of migration and mobility to understand the circulations of people, capital, and aspirations in and through cities.

CV of Dr. Koh Sin Yee

Research Interests

     • Migration mobilities and inclusion/exclusion
     • Urban capital and enabling agents (e.g. intermediaries, migration industry, migration infrastructure)
     • China and Chinese worlds (i.e. societies and contexts with elements of Chineseness)
     • Youth, education and mobilities

Select Publications

Books

Monograph
Koh, S.Y. (2017). Race, Education and Citizenship: Mobile Malaysians, British Colonial Legacies, and a Culture of Migration. Palgrave Macmillan.

Edited Books
Chan, Y.W. & Koh, S.Y. (Eds.) (2018). New Chinese Migrations: Mobility, Home, and Inspirations. Routledge.

Rogers, D., & Koh, S.Y. (Eds.) (2018). The Globalisation of Real Estate: The Politics and Practice of Foreign Real Estate Investment. Routledge.

Forrest, R., Koh, S.Y., & Wissink, B. (Eds.) (2017). Cities and the Super-Rich: Real Estate, Elite Practices and Urban Political Economies. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Articles
Koh, S. Y. (2022). The inversion of majority/minority at the de/reterritorialised urban higher education enclave: Xiamen University Malaysia. Urban Studies. doi: 10.1177/00420980221109135

Koh, S. Y., & Sin, I. L. (2022). Race, whiteness and internationality in transnational education: Academic and teacher expatriates in Malaysia. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(4), 656–676. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1977362

Cheng, Y., & Koh, S. Y. (2022). The ‘soft infrastructure’ of the Belt and Road Initiative: Imaginaries, affinities and subjectivities in Chinese transnational education. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. doi: 10.1111/sjtg.12420

Koh, S. Y. (2021). Disrupted geographic arbitrage and differential capacities of coping in later-life: Anglo-Western teacher expatriates in Brunei. International Migration Review, 55(2), 322–346. doi: 10.1177/0197918320926910

Koh, S. Y. (2021). The interurban migration industry: ‘Migration products’ and the materialisation of urban speculation at Iskandar Malaysia. Urban Studies. doi: 10.1177/0042098021992219

Koh, S.Y., & Sin, I.L. (2020). Academic and Teacher Expatriates: Mobilities, Positionalities and Subjectivities. Geography Compass, 14(5), e12487. doi: 10.1111/gec3.12487

Koh, S.Y., & Harris, A. (2020). Multicultural Reflexivity: University Students Negotiating ‘Pockets’ and ‘Strings’ of Multiculturalism in Malaysia. Children’s Geographies. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2020.1713300

Koh, S.Y., & Wissink, B. (2018). Enabling, Structuring and Creating Elite Transnational Lifestyles: Intermediaries of the Super-Rich and the Elite Mobilities Industry. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(4), 592-609. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1315509

Koh, S.Y. (2015). Postcolonial Approaches to Migration in Asia: Reflections and Projections. Geography Compass, 9(8), 432-444. doi: 10.1111/gec3.12226

Koh, S.Y. (2015). How and Why Race Matters: Malaysian-Chinese Transnational Migrants Interpreting and Practising Bumiputera-Differentiated Citizenship. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41(3), 531-550. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2014.937327

Special Issue

Hyun Bang Shin, Yimin Zhao & Sin Yee Koh (eds.). 2022. Special Issue on “The Urbanising Dynamics of Global China: Speculation, Articulation, and Translation in Global Capitalism.” Urban Geography 43(10): 1457-1468. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2022.2141491

Invited Encyclopaedia Entries
Koh, S.Y. (2020) Inequality. In Kobayashi, A. (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2nd ed.) (pp. 269-277). Elsevier.

Koh, S.Y. (2020) Super Rich. In Kobayashi, A. (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2nd ed.) (pp. 127-131). Elsevier.

News

New Research Article on Migration by IAS Staff

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee has recently published an open access article on “Lifestyle migrants’ urban citizenship and right to have rights” in Cities. The article uses the case of the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme during a time of crisis to highlight the scalar tensions in normative understandings of lifestyle migrants’ urban citizenship. In doing so, it challenges empowering and emancipatory accounts of (migrant) urban citizenship.

IAS Researcher Contributes to Workshop on Southeast Asian Studies

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee was an invited speaker at the workshop entitled “Back to the Future; Academic and Social Views on Southeast Asian Studies”, held on 22 June 2024 in Guangzhou. The workshop was organised by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, South China Normal University. Read more about the workshop here.

Webinar on “Crisis Infrastructuring” in Malaysia

Senior Assistant Professor Sin Yee Koh delivered a webinar entitled “Crisis Infrastructuring: Malaysia My Second Home” hosted by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC) on 5 February 2024. The webinar was co-hosted with the Malaysia and Singapore Society of Australia (MASSA). Dr Koh’s talk was based on her recent publication, “Crisis Infrastructuring: The Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) Programme, 2018–2022.” The Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) visa program was introduced in 2002 and by the 2010s had become one the world’s most popular retirement and lifestyle migration programs. In recent years it has experienced a series of disruptions that dovetailed…

New Editorial on Geographical Debates

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee has recently published a co-authored editorial on “Way-finding agendas through Transactions” in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. The piece is the first in a series of occasional editorials where readers are guided through groups of papers recently published in the journal that the editorial board considers as being ‘way-finding’ contributions to geographical debates. In spotlighting these groups of curated papers, the editorial invites readers to use the papers to navigate and engage with ongoing conversations and discussions in the field.

Workshop on “Decolonialising Migration Studies?”

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee co-organised a two-day workshop entitled “Decolonising Migration Studies?” with Professor Francis Collins (Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland) and Professor Brenda Yeoh (National University of Singapore). The workshop was held on 20-21 November 2023 at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. It included an open panel session where Dr Koh presented a paper. The workshop explored the relationship between colonialism and migration studies and addressed the future of the field in a time of intellectual decolonisation.

IAS Researcher Participates in the Women RISE Asia Regional Learning Workshop

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee participated in the Asia Regional Learning Workshop held on 26-27 July 2023 at Monash University Malaysia. The workshop is part of the Women RISE Initiative, a Canadian initiative launched in March 2022 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council SSHRC), to address the impacts of COVID-19. The workshop, co-organised by the Women RISE initiative, the Health Population Research Organization (HPRO) and Monash University Malaysia, aimed at encouraging…

New Special Issue on the Urbanising Dynamics of Global China

Senior Assistant Professor Sin Yee Koh of the Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (IAS @ UBD) has co-edited a journal special issue entitled “The Urbanising Dynamics of Global China: Speculation, Articulation, and Translation in Global Capitalism” with Professor Hyun Bang Shin (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Dr Yimin Zhao (Renmin University of China). Published in the journal, Urban Geography, the special issue contains four research articles and a commentary by Professor Tim Bunnell (National University of Singapore). Here is the full abstract of the special issue introduction: The assembled papers in this special issue…

IAS Researcher Contributes to Malaysia Futures Forum

Senior Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Asian Studies Koh Sin Yee was a panellist on the Urban Futures panel at the LSE SEAC-KRI Malaysia Futures Forum, held on 31 May and 1 June in Kuala Lumpur. The 2-day forum was co-organised by the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE SEAC), and the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI). The purpose of the forum was to bring together leading scholars, policymakers and thought leaders to discuss an provide insights into Malaysia’s future. The other panellists on the Urban Futures…

Online Writing Workshop for Southeast Asian Early Career Social Science Researchers Studying Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is a region with diverse cultures and languages. Scholars based in Southeast Asia are relatively well-published in local journals in English and local languages. However, internationally recognised published research by Southeast Asian social science scholars who are based in the region is still limited. This is even more so for early career researchers (ECRs) who may lack the experience, exposure and confidence to disseminate their work to an international scholarly audience. At the same time, Southeast Asian ECRs based outside the region may also face challenges in publishing in internationally recognised journals due to language barriers. Moreover, the…

Seminar on Migration Mobilities in Asia

The Institute of Asian Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (IAS @ UBD) recently held a seminar on “Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Migration Mobilities in Asia – Dialogue #1 Lifestyle Migration.” Facilitated by Senior Professor Koh Sin Yee (IAS), the seminar engaged with the work on mobility in Asia of Dr. Sirijit Sunanta (Mahidol University), Dr. Mayumi Ono (Notre Dame Seishin University), and Dr. Anindita Majumdar (Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad). For more information, please see the flyer below.