scholarly journals Labour Brokers in Migration: Understanding Historical and Contemporary Transnational Migration Regimes in Malaya/Malaysia

2012 ◽  
Vol 57 (S20) ◽  
pp. 225-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amarjit Kaur
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Times ◽  
Migration Regimes

SummaryLabour brokerage and its salient role in the mobility of workers across borders in Asia has been the subject of recent debate on the continuing usefulness of intermediaries in labour mobility and migration processes. Some researchers believe that labour brokerage will decline with the expansion of migrant networks, resulting in reduced transaction costs and a better deal for migrant workers. From an economic standpoint, however, reliance on brokers does not appear to have a “use-by date” in south-east Asia. Labour brokers have played an important role in organizing and facilitating officially authorized migration, particularly during the contemporary period. They undertake marketing and recruitment tasks, finance migrant workers’ travel, and enable transnational labour migration to take place. Consequently, both sending and destination states have been able to concentrate on their role as regulatory “agencies”, managing migration and ensuring compliance with state regulatory standards and providing labour protection. Private recruitment firms have simultaneously focused on handling the actual recruitment and placement of migrant workers. Notwithstanding this, the division of responsibilities in the migration regimes has also led to uncontrolled migration and necessitated intervention by the state during both periods. These interventions mirror the ethos of the times and are essential for understanding past and present political environments and transnational labour migration in south-east Asia.

scholarly journals Human Rights in Southeast Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Werner F Menski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
And Migration

Many challenges exist regarding the discourse over human rights in South East Asia due to the complex relationship between the region’s myriad cultures, laws, religions and political desires. This socio-political environment produces a number of varying, and often contradictory, interpretations of human rights, as well as differing opinions on how they should be implemented. On one hand, some countries in Southeast Asia have internalized international human rights instruments by amending their constitutions in order to provide a semblance of protection for their citizen’s human rights. On the other hand, some countries still operate under authoritarian regimes and continue to violate certain internationally recognized rights for the sake of preserving political stability and economic development. Proponents of such regimes often claim that this is done to maintain both societal and religious harmony. Therefore, the effort to address human rights issues in Southeast Asia must expand beyond the international legal sphere and take into account the intricate relationships and power struggles between the region’s various economic interests, social and cultural norms, and religions. Furthermore, the successful implementation of human rights law in Southeast Asia will require a number of obligations and checks be imposed on the state governments in the region. The specific means by which to promote human rights in South East Asia, and how to reconcile diverging options on the definition and scope of said rights, was the theme of the 2nd Annual Conference of the Centre for Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Migration (CHRM2) and Indonesian Consortium for Human Rights Lecturers (SEPAHAM Indonesia), held in August, 2017, at the University of Jember. This article is a summary of the major points and topics covered during the two day conference.

Labour Migration and Economic Growth in East and South-East Asia

World Economy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrie Walmsley ◽  
Angel Aguiar ◽  
Syud Amer Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
South East Asia

Migration Disruption: Crisis and Continuity in the Cambodian Mass Returns1

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1130-1161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryann Bylander
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Financial Loss ◽  
Migration System ◽  
The Everyday

In 2014, Thailand experienced the mass exodus of 220,000 Cambodian migrant workers, an event precipitated by a military coup and rumors of an impending migrant crackdown. This movement was reportedly the largest in South‐East Asia since the 1970s. Yet while the mass returns were outwardly articulated as a “crisis” moment, migrants largely understood the exodus as a more extreme version of the everyday. The most significant features of the exodus—financial loss, indebtedness, involuntary immobility, and fear of violence and deportation—have been and continue to be regular features of the Cambodian–Thai migration system. In light of these findings, I suggest that taking migration disruptions seriously requires (1) decentering the language and logic of “crisis” and (2) considering what migration disruptions reveal about ordinary times.

scholarly journals Negotiating the Wild West: Variegated neoliberalisation of the Swedish labour migration regime and the wild berry migration industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110481
Author(s):  
Charlotta Hedberg ◽  
Irma Olofsson
Keyword(s):  
Labour Migration ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Migration Regimes ◽  
Roll Out ◽  
Migration Industry

Neoliberalisation processes have long permeated Western societies, including a common direction towards neoliberal migration regimes. This paper combines the perspective of variegated neoliberalisation with the recent literature on migration industries, to investigate the neoliberalisation of the Swedish labour migration regime and how it affected and interacted with the wild berry migration industry. It shows how neoliberalisation as a historical and spatially contingent process resulted in the distinct phases of intertwined policymaking and enactment of the industry. The ‘roll back’ phase included mutual interests and ‘intimate relations’ between state and industry, which both empowered and increased the number of private actors, creating structures that remained during the regular restructuring phase of ‘roll out’ neoliberalisation. While adding the perspective of variegated neoliberalisation, the paper deepens the analysis of migration industries by pointing at neoliberalisation as a spatial and temporal process, where the interplay between state and industry, an enlarged number of intermediaries and the increased responsibility of private actors are central cornerstones. The Swedish case shows how the role of intermediaries in the wild berry migration industry was reconstructed in order for the neoliberal migration regime to regulate a previously irregular migration industry. It is concluded that strong but spatially contingent links exist between neoliberal political economies, migration regimes and migration industries.

scholarly journals Seeing Migration like a State: The case of irregular Indonesian migrant workers deported from Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Hari Juliawan
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Migration Regimes

The corridor linking Indonesia with Malaysia is particularly rife with transborder mobility, including large-scale labour migration. While irregularity has long been a major feature of these flows, much of the movement now falls under the migration regimes adopted by Malaysia and Indonesia. Long-established casual migration flows collide with recently codified norms and, as a result, oscillate between regularity and irregularity. This paper explores the following questions: How does the regulatory state view and handle undocumented migrants? How does it interact with established social networks that have facilitated irregular labour migration? Particular attention is given to the distinction between the categories of deportable criminals and victims deserving protection, as ascribed by state actors to certain groups of migrants. Based on interviews with twelve deported Florenese migrant workers, the paper discusses how the Indonesian-Malaysian migration regime seeks to shape mobility. It argues that shifting categorisations reflect political imperatives more than the migrants’ needs that prompt them to migrate in the first place. 

“…times that try men's souls” – the United States after Vietnam

1975 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-182
Author(s):  
David Dunn
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Society ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
Present Context ◽  
The Times

For those who believed that the Vietnam war ‘ended’ in January 1973 with the signing of the Paris agreements, the events of the spring of 1975 must have come as a profound shock. Alternatively, for those who believed that the Paris agreements were no more than a pause on the way to the inevitable, these same events would seem to be eminently predictable. The implications of the American defeat in South East Asia are clearly a matter for the long term and one does no more than state the obvious by saying that the long term implications have yet to unfold. However, even from the short term perspective, there is much one can say about the Vietnam conflict, in terms of both its internal consequences and its impact on America and international society. Over the years, Vietnam has been held to be responsible for the end of Lyndon Johnson's career, for the so-called ‘Great Society’, for the growth of student radicalism and civil unrest. Whether and to what extent any or all of these links can be demonstrated are questions for the future. What of the present? In surveying the events of the spring of 1975 one recalls the words of Thomas Paine, written almost two centuries ago: “These are the times that try men's souls”. The point is not without a certain irony in the present context, for the American bicentennial celebrations which began in Concord, Massachusetts, were overshadowed by the scenes of evacuation and collapse in South East Asia.

scholarly journals Transnational migration, changing care arrangements and left-behind children's responses in South-east Asia

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lan Anh Hoang ◽  
Theodora Lam ◽  
Brenda S.A. Yeoh ◽  
Elspeth Graham
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Left Behind
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