Eric C. Thompson, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore presents this key-note lecture as part of the 'Un-thinking Asian Migrations: Spaces of flows and intersections' symposium. The presentation examines the city as a theatre of accumulation not from the top-down but rather from the bottom-up, that is from the point-of-view of rural-to-urban and transnational migrants for whom cities are sites to accumulate financial as well as social and cultural capital in order to fulfil their own aspirations. Importantly, drawing on examples from Bangkok and Singapore, the site of those aspirations is often elsewhere – not in the city but “back home” in rural areas or other countries. 25 August 2014