SQ5 - S1 - Huard - Lecture Complémentaire - Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations
SQ5 - S1 - Huard - Lecture Complémentaire - Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations
SQ5 - S1 - Huard - Lecture Complémentaire - Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF ASIAN MIGRATIONS
Housing more than half of the global population, Asia is a region characterised by increasingly
diverse forms of migration and mobility. Offering a wide-ranging overview of the field of Asian
migrations, this new handbook seeks to examine and evaluate the flows of movement within
Asia, as well as those into and out of the continent. It offers in-depth analysis of both empirical
and theoretical developments in the field, and includes key examples and trends such as British
colonialism, Chinese diaspora, labour migration, the movement of women, and recent student
migration.
Organised into thematic parts, the topics cover:
Contributing to the retheorising of the subject area of international migration from non-west-
ern experience, the Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations will be useful to students and scholars
of migration, Asian development and Asian studies in general.
Brenda S.A. Yeoh is Professor in the Department of Geography at the National University
of Singapore, and Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at NUS’s Asia Research
Institute.
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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF ASIAN MIGRATIONS
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Gracia Liu-Farrer and
Brenda S.A.Yeoh; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Gracia Liu-Farrer and Brenda S.A.Yeoh to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-95985-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66049-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Out of House Publishing
v
CONTENTS
PART I
Asian migrations in the historical context 19
PART II
Asian migration regimes and pathways 49
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Contents
PART III
Reconceptualising migration through Asian experiences 139
PART IV
Challenges in Asian migration 209
Contents
Index 299
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
5.1 Number of Chinese government scholarships provided to
international students 82
8.1 Overlapping migration fields intersecting with medical migrations 115
17.1 Remittances and other flows to developing countries, 1990–2014 227
17.2 Factor price equalisation with freer trade 231
Map
22.1 The China–Vietnam borderlands 292
Tables
5.1 Percentage of Asian students hosted by leading host countries
in East Asia 76
5.2 Proportion of Asian students hosted in Asian universities 80
5.3 Reasons for migration 81
5.4 Government scholarship students divided by continents in
China (2009–2011) 83
5.5 Comparison between Asian and non-Asian students on the reasons
for studying in China 83
5.6 Students’ plan after graduation 85
5.7 Plan after graduation for international students studying in Singapore 86
5.8 International students’ social network in Singapore 87
17.1 International migrants in 2015 224
17.2 Migration humps: trade and low-skill migration as complements 234
20.1 Selected non-citizen populations in Asia 266
20.2 Modes of non-citizen political engagement 267
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank Leanne Hinves, our commissioning editor at Routledge, for inviting
us to embark on this project, and all the contributors for their enthusiastic support. We wish to
give special thanks to our capable research assistants,Wei Ning Law from National University of
Singapore and An Huy Tran and Mira Malick from Waseda University, who helped in the pro-
cess of the manuscript preparation. This book project is also supported by Waseda University’s
English academic research book publication grant.
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CONTRIBUTORS
Rameez Abbas is Assistant Professor in the College of International Security Affairs at the
National Defense University in Washington, DC, where she teaches courses on South Asian pol-
itics and international relations. Among her publications is “Internal Migration and Citizenship
in India” in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2016). She holds a PhD in political science
from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Sunil S. Amrith is Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History
at Harvard University, where he is also a director of the Centre for History and Economics.
He is an historian of South and Southeast Asia. Amrith is the author of Migration and Diaspora
in Modern Asia (2011) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of
Migrants (2013). He is currently working on the environmental history of modern India.
Maruja M.B. Asis is the Director of Research and Publications at the Scalabrini Migration
Center in Manila.
Michiel Baas is a Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute of the National University
of Singapore. The overall theme in his work is the Indian middle class, focusing on IT profes-
sionals in Bangalore, Indian students in Australia, mid-level skilled migrants in Singapore, and
new middle-class professionals in urban India. In recent years he has published on questions of
migration and transnationalism, the body and masculinity, as well as racism and violence. His
ORCID (orcid.org) is: 0000-0003-4405-146X.
Graziano Battistella is the Director of the Scalabrini Migration Center in Manila, and the
founding editor of the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal.
Jocelyn O. Celero recently obtained her PhD in International Studies at Waseda University-
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Tokyo, Japan. Her dissertation examined the transna-
tional life trajectories of 1.5-and second-generation Japanese-Filipinos.
Erin Aeran Chung is the Charles D. Miller Associate Professor of East Asian Politics in the
Department of Political Science and Co-Director of the Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship
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Contributors
(RIC) Program at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She specialises in East Asian
political economy, international migration, and comparative racial politics. Her first book,
Immigration and Citizenship in Japan, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 and
translated into Japanese and published by Akashi Shoten in 2012. She is currently completing
her second book, Immigrant Incorporation in East Asian Democracies.
Jamie Coates is interested in how mobility and creativity shape perceptions of commonality,
self and political possibility. Empirically he has worked on Sino-Japanese migration, media and
tourism, with particular focus on how these issues affect young Chinese efforts to reimagine
co-ethnic and regional identities. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University,
and has since taught at the University of Sheffield in the UK, and conducted research at Waseda
University in Japan.
James Farrer is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Graduate Program in Global
Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, specialising in urban sociology in East Asia, researching
sexuality, nightlife, expatriate communities, and food cultures.
Rochelle Yun Ge obtained her PhD from Sociology at the National University of Singapore.
She was a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute and worked in the University of
Macau. Her recent research interests are in the area of internationalisation of higher education
in Asia, including but not limited to educational organisation management, international stu-
dent mobilities, curriculum development and policy analysis.
Marielle Stigum Gleiss is Associate Professor of Social Sciences at the Department of Religion
and Society, MF Norwegian School of Theology in Oslo. Her research interests include the
politics of civil society engagement, migrant labour and discourse analysis. She has published
articles in China Information, Media, Culture & Society and the Journal of Chinese Political Science.
Kong Chong Ho is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, National University of Singapore. Trained as an urban sociologist at the University
of Chicago, his research interests are in the political economy of cities, higher education, and
youth. Dr Ho is an editorial board member of Pacific Affairs and the International Journal of
Comparative Sociology. Recent higher education publications include “International Student
Mobility and After-Study Lives: the portability and prospects of overseas education in Asia”,
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Contributors
Population, Space and Place (2016); and “The University’s Place in Asian Cities”, Asia Pacific
Viewpoint (2014).
Shirlena Huang is Associate Professor of Geography at the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, National University of Singapore. She is also a member of the Steering Committee
of the Faculty’s Migration Cluster. Her research focuses mainly on issues at the intersec-
tion of transnational migration, gender and family, with a particular focus on the themes of
care labour migration and transnational families within the Asia-Pacific region. Her ORCID
is: 0000-0001-8932-6362.
Theodora Lam is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University
of Singapore. She obtained her PhD in Geography from NUS and her dissertation focused on
understanding changing gender subjectivities, web of care and relationships within the family
in the wake of transnational labour migration. Her research interests cover transnational migra-
tion, children’s geographies and gender studies, and she has also published on themes relating to
migration, citizenship and education. Her ORCID is: 0000-0003-0342-5808.
Madeleine Lim Pei Wei is a research assistant and undergraduate at the Department of
Geography, National University of Singapore. Her graduating thesis considers the integration
experiences of Chinese migrants who reside in Singapore’s public-housing estates, where social
mixing is mandated by state policy.
Johan Lindquist is Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Forum for Asian
Studies at Stockholm University in Sweden. He is a member of the editorial committees
of Public Culture and Pacific Affairs, has published articles in journals such as the Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, Mobilities, Public Culture, Pacific Affairs, and International Migration
Review, is the Co-Editor of Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity (2013), the author of The
Anxieties of Mobility: Development and Migration in the Indonesian Borderlands (2009), and the
director of B.A.T.A.M. (2005).
Hong Liu is Tan Kah Kee Endowed Professor of Asian Studies at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore, where he also serves as Chair of the School of Social Sciences and
Director of the Nanyang Centre for Public Administration. Prior to joining NTU in 2010,
he was Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore
and Chair Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Manchester. His ORCID
is: 0000-0003-3328-8429.
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Contributors
Pardis Mahdavi, PhD, is currently Chief Academic Officer and Acting Dean of the Josef Korbel
School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Before coming to Denver, she was
at Pomona College from 2006–2017 where she most recently served as professor and chair of
anthropology and director of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College as well as Dean
of Women. Her research interests include academic freedom, diversity and inclusion in higher
education, gendered labour, human trafficking, migration, sexuality, human rights, youth culture,
transnational feminism and public health in the context of changing global and political structures.
She has published four single authored books and one edited volume in addition to numerous
journal and news articles. She has been a fellow at the Social Sciences Research Council, the
American Council on Learned Societies, Google Ideas, and the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars.
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University
of Southern California. She writes on the labour and migration of women from the
Philippines.
Jonathan Rigg is Professor of Geography and Director of the Asia Research Institute at the
National University of Singapore. He has worked on migration and mobility since the 1980s
in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as in Nepal and Sri Lanka. His most recent book is
Challenging Southeast Asian Development: The Shadows of Success (Routledge, 2016). His ORCID
is: 0000-0002-6563-4640.
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newgenprepdf
Contributors
Brenda S.A. Yeoh is Professor (Provost’s Chair) in the Department of Geography as well
as Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National
University of Singapore. Her research interests include the politics of space in colonial and
postcolonial cities, and she has considerable experience working on a wide range of migration
research in Asia, including key themes such as cosmopolitanism and highly skilled talent migra-
tion; gender, social reproduction and care migration; migration, national identity and citizenship
issues; globalising universities and international student mobilities; and cultural politics, family
dynamics and international marriage migrants. She has published widely in these fields. Her
ORCID is: 0000-0002-0240-3175.
Juan Zhang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Social Science, the University of
Queensland. Her research interests include transnational mobilities, borders, labour migration,
and casinos in Asia. She has published in journals including: Current Sociology, Environment and
Planning D, Environment and Planning A, Gender, Place and Culture, among others. Her recent co-
edited book is entitled The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China’s Borders (University
of Amsterdam Press, 2017). Juan serves on the editorial board of the journal Transitions: Journal
of Transient Migration. Her ORCID is : 0000-0003-3613-6332.
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1
INTRODUCTION
Asian migrations and mobilities: continuities,
conceptualisations and controversies
Spanning a vast geographic area, Asia sustains nearly two-thirds of the world’s population. In
this populous continent, people have never ceased to move across different boundaries looking
for a better life. Economic globalisation, demographic transformations and the expansion of
international education and tourism since the 1980s have resulted in even more rapid popula-
tion mobility. In particular, the attempts at creating integrated regional communities such as
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have further facilitated the movements of
people within Asia. People migrate –sometimes permanently but more often than not provi-
sionally –to work, to study, to marry, to retire, to escape insecure environments and to enjoy a
different climate and lifestyle.
In recent decades, given the wide array of social organisations, political regimes, economic
developmental pathways and cultural configurations in Asia, migration phenomena, patterns
and outcomes of mobility are necessarily complex. An increasing number of studies have
engaged in the new mobility patterns out of, into and within Asia. The field of Asian migration
has accumulated a vast scholarship over the years. This Handbook of Asian Migrations provides
an overview of this maturing field and contributes to outlining a conceptual framework for
understanding complex migration phenomena in Asia. It hopes to capture the new empirical
and theoretical developments that might serve as a departure for comparative migration studies
with other regions.
Theories of migration, and of international migration in particular, have been influenced by
the social experiences and political experiments of classical immigration countries, especially
those in North America. The specific political and social contexts in Asia, however, have pro-
duced migration phenomena that are fundamentally different from those observed in North
America, Europe and Oceania, thereby making it imperative for scholars working in an Asian
context to plough the field for new conceptualisations that are more useful in making sense of
grounded realities. There are several distinctive conundrums that shape migration in the Asian
context.
First, the region is replete with diversity and contradictions. It has the world’s richest and
poorest societies, and the most advanced and the least developed economies. The political
regimes in Asia range from liberal democratic secular states to totalitarian and religious funda-
mentalist governments. These extreme variations in development both drive and prohibit the
movements of people, and create complex patterns of mobility.
1
2
Second, Asian nations are torn between an anxiety for building strong national states
and an aspiration for creating integrated regional communities. In Asia, the former process
–nation-building –is often hostile to population mobility, not only between states but also
within a country. The legitimacy of nation-states is sometimes founded on the solidarity
and triumph of an ethnic majority. Nation-building processes entail the reconstruction of a
dominant ethno-national identity, and to ensure national security therefore means rendering
migrants, mostly ethnic others, as outsiders who have no place in the nation-state. Given a
political history comprising largely postcolonial nation-states, the institutional frameworks
for international migration did not develop until very recently in some Asian countries, and
are still non-existent in others. As a consequence, despite the domestic demand for productive
and reproductive labour, or the international responsibility for humanitarian assistance, most
countries in Asia are reluctant to open their doors to foreign workers or refugees, let alone
allow them to settle or give them equal social rights. Those which have admitted migrants
in substantial numbers are struggling with thorny issues of the integration of immigrants.
How to deal with questions of ethno-national identity when foreign workers and marriage
migrants who enter the nation-state eventually stay and have children is a challenge many
Asian countries now have to face. Regional integration initiatives as seen in the formation of
ASEAN, on the other hand, demand lowering thresholds or removing barriers for the flow of
people as well as capital and goods, and has the potential for further increasing the mobility
of people across borders.
Third, a prominent feature of Asian migration stems from the contradiction between ris-
ing aspirations and desire for mobility among a broad spectrum of people on the one hand,
and the increasingly restrictive immigration regimes on the other. The ‘space’ between human
aspirations for mobility and stringent immigration control has been mediated by the rise of the
migration industry. At the same time, the development of flexible labour markets characterised
by sub-contracting and the privatisation of migration management mean that intersections
between state and market actors are increasingly complex.
Almost all authors who contribute to this volume have done extensive and in-depth field-
work about various migration phenomena in the Asian region.The results are grounded insights
into these diverse and distinctly Asian modes of migration. This introduction chapter lays out
the rationale for producing a handbook on Asian migrations, and provides a preview of the
contents included in this volume. Parts I and II on historical routes and contemporary pathways
survey the main characteristics of these migration phenomena, while Part III, on reconceptu-
alising migration through Asian experiences, showcases innovations in the field. Part IV then
discusses the challenges and controversies surrounding migration research and policies in Asia.
We conclude this chapter by discussing how studies in Asian migrations have contributed to
theoretical developments in the migration field in general, and some of the limitations of the
handbook.
2
3
Introduction
of contemporary Asian migration and seven chapters present the distinct migration pathways
in contemporary Asia.
3
4
policies that encourage one of the major migration patterns in Asia –that of the ‘return
migration’, a topic we will return to later.
Contemporary migrations
One of the purposes of this handbook is to document the varied mobility regimes in con-
temporary Asia, aiming to capture different forms of migration that have taken place and the
institutional frameworks that facilitate or restrict them. Some of these migrations continue
historical patterns, while others have been produced in modern political and economic con-
texts. What often shows up in contemporary migration phenomena in Asia is the ambivalence
and anxiety of the nation-states toward migrants, especially ‘the wanted but unwelcome ones’
(Zolberg 1987). Many industrialised states are scrambling to regulate migration by creating dif-
ferent schemes to classify people and exercise differentiated control. However, we see frequent
disjunctures between what the policies intend and what is taking place in actual practice. These
tensions take many different forms in the course of contemporary migrations in Asia.
4
5
Introduction
specific example of nikkei (ethnic Japanese) Brazilians to illustrate the hypocrisy of such an eth-
nic project. Because Japan’s national identity clings to the myth of racial homogeneity, instead of
opening the door to foreign workers, the government used the legal admission of the nikkeijin
(ethnic Japanese people) as a solution to labour shortage. Meanwhile, official discourses con-
tinue to treat the policy as an opportunity for those of Japanese descent born abroad to explore
their ethnic heritage and visit their ancestral homeland. However, lacking cultural competen-
cies, these nikkeijin’s Japaneseness tends to be questioned and is often rejected. Their economic
roles as imported, unskilled, manual labour also marginalise them in Japanese society. As a result,
many are disillusioned by their experiences in their ancestral homeland and instead reorient
their homeland longing toward Brazil, where they were born.
Women in motion
Amidst sweeping changes in the constitution of migration flows from and within Asia in the
past decades, an important trend noted from the 1980s is that women are taking an increasingly
prominent part in contract labour systems. In some Asian countries, such as the Philippines and
Indonesia, women constitute the majority of emigrants (www.unpfa.org). These women are
not moving as dependents –as wives or daughters –but crossing borders as workers, students
and marriage partners. The feminisation of migration has much to do with labour and repro-
ductive demands resulting from economic globalisation, urbanisation and population ageing
(Oishi 2005).
For female migrants, mobility is often seen as a means of female empowerment, whether as
a conscious strategy or an unintended by-product of the migration experience. Theoretically,
migration may improve women’s social position if it leads to increased participation in wage
employment, more control over earnings, and greater participation in family decision-making.
However, while migration may potentially open up space for resistance, disruption and eman-
cipation, and in so doing reconfigure gender hierarchies so as to improve immigrant women’s
positions of power and status relative to left-behind men’s, it may also leave gender asymmetries
largely unchanged or even further deepen some aspects of women’s subordination. For example,
while it has been noted that women migrants, through their work in foreign countries, learn
skills which they can then bring back to their own countries and households, the apparent ben-
efits of migration for individuals do not apply to all who have migrated abroad for work. Indeed,
de-skilling often occurs in female migration streams that originate from developing countries
and flow to developed economies.
Economically advanced societies in Asia, especially in East Asia, face the problems of below-
replacement birth rate and a rapidly ageing population. The imbalanced gender ratio in rural
areas also makes the import of foreign women a marital practice in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Focusing on those involved in sex work and cross-border marriage, Hwang and Parreñas’s
Chapter 4 provides a critical review of the state of research on intimate migrations in the Asian
context. They argue that the US-based radical feminist view to conflate intimate migrations
with human trafficking, and the subsequent moralistic condemnation of sex work and mar-
riage migration, does not capture the complexity of intimate migrations taking place in the
real world. Instead, they argue that as with all forms of migrations, intimate migrations often
involve complex motives –from love and romance to monetary gains and self-development.
A ‘hostile worldview’ in which the realms of intimate relationships and economic transactions
are clearly demarcated will only give rise to heightened regulations and further exacerbate
women’s vulnerability.
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6
6
7
Introduction
world where citizenship and residency have increasingly become commodified, constitutes an
important element in the cultural formation of global elites. Within this cultural frame, physi-
cal mobility, or “motility” as Kaufmann et al. (2004) terms it, is seen as a form of capital itself,
and is conducive to the accumulation of other forms of capital –economic, cultural or social –
immediately or intergenerationally. However, rich emigration challenges several institutions.
The realisation of this form of migration often entails transnationally split households, and is
premised on a regression of gender roles. Moreover, while globalisation has already created
many challenges to nation-state citizenship, the migration of the wealthy adds further question
marks to the meaning of citizenship.
Asian mobility pathways are still in the process of expanding. Changing political economic
dynamics as well as demographic makeup give rise to a proliferation of migration patterns and
channels as well as businesses that service them. Population ageing means more resourceful
retirees are moving around (Ono 2015). The growing economy has also attracted young peo-
ple from other parts of the world to come to Asia and move around within this region (Hof
forthcoming). Moreover, regional integration efforts are facilitating more active mobilities of
different types within Asia.
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8
no concept disputes the image of simple push–pull dynamics and presents the reality of migra-
tion as a heavily mediated process better than that of ‘migration infrastructure’ –‘the system-
atically interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and condition mobility’
(Xiang and Lindquist 2014, p. 124, and Lindquist and Xiang, Chapter 11). In their seminal
article expounding this concept, Xiang and Lindquist delineate five dimensions of migration
infrastructure: ‘the commercial (recruitment intermediaries), the regulatory (state apparatus and
procedures for documentation, licensing, training and other purposes), the technological (com-
munication and transport), the humanitarian (NGOs and international organisations), and the
social (migrant networks)’ (2014, p. 124). These five dimensions, they propose, involve complex
sets of actors interacting with each other with different motives and logics of operations.
In their contribution to this handbook, Lindquist and Xiang argue that migration infra-
structure has become increasingly central to contemporary migration, especially labour migra-
tion, transforming how people move. While in cases of colonial migrations, the mediators
tended to be humans and migrations were channelled through social networks that are sus-
ceptible to local contingencies, the infrastructure that has been instituted over recent decades,
especially since the 1990s, facilitates and regulates contemporary migrations in much more
precise, delocalised and systemised ways. However, the development of the migration infra-
structure, made up by intense state regulations, commercial brokerages and servicing as well
as humanitarian intervention, has not necessarily ‘enhanced people’s migratory capability in
terms of making independent decisions, exploring new paths, and cultivating transnational
social relations’ (Chapter 11). Rather, it becomes an ‘involution’, multiplying internally with-
out expanding in scope.
The ascendency of the idea of migration infrastructure reflects the overall shift in attention
of social scientific research to the actual engineering of action. On the one hand, this ‘infra-
structural turn’ is an acknowledgement that what is social is no longer separable from what is
technical, echoing Bruno Latour’s forceful argument for taking stock of all actors –human and
non-human –in the production of social events (Latour 2005). On the other hand, it urges a
more careful examination of the previously ‘black-boxed’ process of migration to identify the
different forces that condition its direction, scope and substance (Lindquist et al. 2012).
Lin and Gleiss’s Chapter 10, too, focuses on the formative processes of mobilities. Lin and
Gleiss take a deliberate look at three mechanisms that shape migrations in Asia –political
economy, transport technology and border governance. Migration features as an important part
of the political economy in Asian countries. While receiving countries such as the Gulf States
and Singapore rely heavily, and sometimes solely, on migrants to supply productive or repro-
ductive labour, for the sending countries of Nepal, the Philippines and Bangladesh, remittances
from their overseas compatriots are a major source of state revenue.1 Demographic crunch and
labour shortage, as well as globalisation pressures, have made immigration an unavoidable reality
confronting even countries based on founding myths of homogeneity such as Japan and Korea.
Meanwhile, major emigration states such as China and India, seek to ‘harness the powers of
economic globalisation to their own advantage by mobilising, constraining and structuring the
flows of people across national borders’ (Chapter 10). State policies therefore play an active, and
in many countries, the primary, role in shaping migration.
It is also of little doubt that transport technologies –the methods and modes that move
people and things –are an essential component of mobility. Lin and Gleiss demonstrated that
technological revolutions, from railway to air travel, have in different historical periods contrib-
uted to the expanding scope of human mobility, not only in its geographic reach and the speed
of travel, but also transforming the demographic profile of those who move and the purposes
for which people move. The extension of railways in the 19th and early 20th centuries not
8
9
Introduction
only allowed people to move by connecting them to the outside world, but it also mobilised
workers from different corners of the world to work on its construction. Similarly, the flour-
ishing of low-cost airplanes, for example, has facilitated the circulation of migrant labour and
made transnational living more attainable. Finally, Lin and Gleiss show that the border is the
site where the state demonstrates its power to intervene and regulate mobilities. Biometric
passports, finger-printing and selective visa regimes not only allow the state to assert more effi-
cient control over population flows, but also make migrants’ encounters with the border highly
uneven experiences.
9
10
10
11
Introduction
11
12
12
13
Introduction
economic lens or taking in broader considerations of knowledge, skills and cultural practices –
and where one looks –at the individual, the household, or the larger community. The
developmental outcomes are also context-specific, depending on a range of conditions in dif-
ferent communities. Lastly, the effects of migration unfold as a process over different durations
of time. Cole and Rigg conclude in arguing that, in general, migration increases options for
the source communities and builds capabilities. Development is possible within the landscape
of human mobilities.
Approaching similar issues but as an economist and from a more global perspective,
Martin (Chapter 17) agrees with Cole and Rigg’s emphasis on context-dependent outcomes.
Resonating with Lindquist and Xiang’s notion of an ‘infrastructural turn’ as well as Lin and
Gleiss’s emphasis on mobility process, he calls for a more detailed examination of the process by
which migration is managed in order to gauge the benefits of migration on source countries.
Martin separates the labour migration process into three stages –recruitment, remittance and
return –and argues that each of these stages involves multiple actors with diverse interests and is
prone to errors and abuse despite various regulatory efforts. Whether migration brings positive
outcomes, how remittances can be utilised to faciliate development, and in what ways return
migration can bring back economic resources and technological innovations, all depend to a
large degree on how these processes are managed.
A second set of issues that has generated considerable debate in the political realm relates to
migration and citizenship in both receiving and source countries. In western liberal democra-
cies, naturalisation and voting are used as important indicators of immigrants’ political incor-
poration. Nonetheless, the naturalisation rate in most destination countries has declined, and
so has voting rate (Putnam 2000; Chung and Abbas this volume, Chapter 20). A large body of
scholarship has developed in the recent decades that questions and theorises the variation in
citizenship acquisition rates, attributing the causes to immigrant characteristics (Borjas 1989;
Liang 1994), institutional conditions (Brubaker 1992; Favell 2001), and the establishment of
supranational rights regime (Soysal 1994) to the increasing expansion of citizenship rights (see
Kivisto and Faist 2009; Chung 2010). These observations and arguments are primarily framed
in the context of North America and Western Europe. Chung and Abbas (Chapter 20) argue
that, given the differences in terms of the history of national citizenships and patterns of immi-
gration regimes in Asia, the citizenship and electoral-based evaluation of immigrant political
participation needs to be re-examined. In the context of Asia, they point out that migrants are
actively engaged in many forms of political activism both within the national framework of the
receiving country –such as participating in civic associations, engaging in collective action and
labour union participation –and transnational political participation in their home countries’
politics –from ethnic civic association to diasporic voting. They suggest a shift of focus from
investigating migrants’ political incorporation to political empowerment in order to understand
immigrants’ political interests and strategies in the changing political landscapes brought on by
global mobilities.
A related issue that has stirred political controversy concerns the phenomenon of irregu-
lar migration. Irregular migration, or undocumented migration, has often been considered an
undesirable side effect of migration. Clandestine migrants and visa overstayers are invariably
criminalised and politicised, and have become a top immigration control priority in many
countries. Asis and Battistella’s Chapter 21 debunks the myth of irregular migration in Asia and
argues that much of the so-called irregular migration is a consequence of gaps and inconsisten-
cies of migration governance. So-called ‘irregularity’ can result from misclassification due to a
lack of diligent screening of asylum seekers, the lack of due process to address migration that
is part of historical patterns –such as borderland mobility –or is facilitated by an irregular
13
14
migration industry. Moreover, they point out that irregular migration often emerges in the
disjunctures between a structural need for labour and receiving governments’ attempts to keep
the imported labour force temporary, especially in tying employment and stay of migrants to
their employers. In many Asian countries, such schemes that aid governments to keep track of
migrants often end up forcing migrants to endure difficult working conditions, or risk becom-
ing absconders or runaways when the conditions become unbearable. Importantly, Asis and
Battistella’s chapter questions the binary between regular and irregular migration. These are not
two distinct patterns; rather, the distinction reflects different access to legal channels of migra-
tion. In the course of migration, the status of migrants is subject to many uncertainties and
therefore prone to irregularity.
A third set of concerns in migrant-receiving societies is inextricably tied to the question of
migrant integration and the effects of immigrant presence on the social fabric of the host socie-
ties. While much has been written on the effects of race-based exclusion acts in historical time,
and the prevalence of skill-based selective migration policies in western countries,Yeoh’s chap-
ter takes a different approach in exploring the influence of migration on Asian city life. Urban
diversity in Asia is first of all, as Yeoh points out, deeply influenced by the politics and paradox
of postcolonial encounters. Colonial migration, nation-building projects and contemporary
mobilities have engendered complex patterns of ethnic and cultural fault lines and different
schemes of inclusion and exclusion. The boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are repeatedly
challenged and redrawn in postcolonial cities. Diversity politics is often manifested in ‘spaces
of enclavement’ that contemporary transnational migration has created. Both the desired high-
skilled migrants and the ‘needed but unwanted’ low-skilled migrants are, by choice in the case of
the former and by lack of choice for the latter, temporary dwellers in Asian cities.Yet, the spaces
they have carved out for themselves become part of the urban cultural landscapes, inspiring
conviviality while also instigating conflict. Finally, spaces of the home have also been reconsti-
tuted as a form of ‘contact zone’ between family members and familiar strangers. As a response
to declining fertility rates and population ageing in industrialised Asian states, marriage and care
migrations have become a major trend of transnational mobility and, along with this trend, eth-
nic and cultural diversities have become everyday realities in the domestic realm. In the spaces
of intimacy in homes, the politics of self and other reflects the larger structural inequalities of
gender, race, class, culture and citizenship.
A fourth strand of work investigates the way migration entails disruptions to family life.
The stories of family members who leave behind other members, including children, in
embarking on migration journeys are part and parcel of migration history in Asia. In the
contemporary era, population mobilities of increasing volume and diversity have resulted in
expanding numbers of split households and even broader varieties of family formations. The
chapter by Lam et al. (Chapter 19) employs the concept of ‘transnational family’ (Bryceson
and Vuorela 2002) to highlight migrant households’ strategies in adapting family life to the
dispersal of core members in order to ensure the family’s economic well-being or elevate
its social status. In particular, to counter the view of children as passive receivers of the fate
of separation from one or both of their parents, Lam et al. focus on the active roles chil-
dren assume in migration processes. This is illustrated by middle-class Asian children who
become educational migrants, bearing responsibilities for the family’s transnational capital-
accumulation projects. Similarly, children of less privileged backgrounds and in marginal
circumstances, even those labelled victims of human trafficking, are not necessarily void
of agency in their migration decision-making and mobility processes. Instead, migration
becomes a means to attain some degree of independence and social mobility under difficult
circumstances. Even children left behind by migrant parents are not simply deprived of
14
15
Introduction
parental care and supervision as often presumed. Their experiences are much more complex
and contingent as they strive to take charge of their own well-being, as well as that of other
household members including younger siblings.
Finally, as several chapters in this handbook infer, the borderland is one of the most con-
tested zones for migrants. Local struggles against state control over historical patterns of social
and economic life are often manifested in the persistent transgressive activities in borderlands.
Border-crossing is part of borderlanders’ livelihood strategies, and in no small way an integral
part of the economic and social life there. Entrepreneurial transgressions and permissive politics
(Zhang, this volume, Chapter 22) are signs of constant negotiation between local interests and
state mandates. Zhang’s ethnographic depictions of border-crossing activities on the Vietnamese
and Chinese borders show that local interests are in constant tension with the state’s border
regime. Borderlanders carefully negotiate state-determined border spaces as they produce alter-
native routes and relations, and experiment with controversial zones of profit and morality. For
example, the sex trade and smuggling, though criminalised by the state and condemned by the
international human rights regime, are tolerated because they attract business interests and are
economically productive in the area. The borderlanders’ ‘counter-topography’ and the ‘edginess
of the borders’ show the unexpected power and autonomy on the margins. As Zhang points out,
‘ “margins” do not suggest that they are marginal to contemporary experiences. Rather, they
provide alternative, off-centre perspectives on a range of political questions –who defines the
border, who navigates the border, who is policing the border, and who claims ownership of the
border –that are central to debates on governance and mobility, security and citizenship, global
forces and local strategies’ (Chapter 22).
Conclusion
Asia has seen mass migrations in the past and is witnessing dynamic mobilities at present.
Because the postwar nation-building process in many newly independent Asian nation states
made enforcing borders and controlling population movements a priority, the migration trends,
especially those of immigration, slowed down, and did not become a subject of social scientific
inquiries until the 1970s. Migration research began to thrive in the 1980s when more countries
relaxed entry and exit regulations and labour shortages started to emerge in the early industri-
alised Asian nations. By reviewing research in Asian migrations in the past three decades, this
handbook highlights the distinct characteristics and phenomena of population mobilities in
Asian contexts. Moreover, these contributions illustrate how an empirical focus on Asia has
contributed to theoretical developments in the field of migration.
Asian researchers, especially those in critical cultural studies, have in recent years proposed
the concept of ‘Asia as method’, arguing that ‘using the idea of Asia as an imaginary anchor-
ing point, societies in Asia can become each other’s points of reference, so that … the diverse
historical experiences and rich social practices of Asia may be mobilised to provide alternative
horizons and perspectives’ (Chen, 2010, p. 212). Researchers investigating the mobilities of
people in Asia have also felt the need to develop theoretical frameworks that match Asian expe-
riences. This is because, on the one hand, how and why people move are related to the political
economy, history, geography and sociocultural practices in the particular region. Theories and
concepts born out of North American and European experiences cannot capture local specifi-
cities. On the other hand, constrained by a lack of statistical data, migration studies in Asia have
been mostly qualitative and fieldwork-based. As a result, for many researchers the grounded
realities have not been accurately represented in the academic literature and political discourses,
including those employed by international organisations. This handbook, as the first survey of
15
16
the field of Asian migrations, presents the empirical insights and theoretical innovations that
have emerged in the three decades of research on Asian migration.
This said, however, it is not our intention to declare that Asian migration phenomena are
unique to the region and the conceptual tools developed out of Asian experiences are only
applicable to Asian contexts. None of the phenomena or issues presented in this handbook are
exclusive to Asia. The conceptual advancements are also products of continuous engagement
with the theoretical developments in the migration and mobility research field in general.
Finally, given the vast geographic area covered and the immense complexity of migration
phenomena in Asia, this handbook has several limitations. The handbook cannot claim to rep-
resent ‘Asian migrations’ in terms of geographic representation. For example, there are too few
studies on the Middle East and South Asia –both areas of intense mobilities.There are also gaps
in the coverage of themes. Many migration phenomena and issues are left out. The mobilities
of domestic helpers, retirees, institutional careworkers, academics, professionals and entrepre-
neurs are but some that we have not been able to incorporate into this volume. Importantly,
the handbook circumvents topics of forced migration. Refugees and internally displaced per-
sons are perhaps the majority of the people on the move in the Asian continent. Yet literature
on such complex movements warrants its own volume. Our decision, however, is to highlight
conceptual and thematic innovations that have emerged from empirical studies carried out in
different areas in Asia. By illuminating these developments from that part of the world that has
thus far remained in the shadow of global migration and mobility research, this handbook hopes
to contribute valuable insights to the advancement of migration research in a world in flux.
Note
1 World Bank. Migration and Remittances (3rd edition), siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/
Resources/334934-1199807908806/4549025-1450455807487/Factbookpart1.pdf.
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PART I
1
COLONIAL AND
POSTCOLONIAL MIGRATIONS
Sunil S. Amrith
Introduction
Asia has always been mobile. Even those agrarian landscapes that appear most settled –the
fertile paddy fields of the Ganges or Irrawaddy river deltas, for instance –have been shaped
by a centuries-long process of migration and land colonisation (Eaton 1993; Richards 2003;
Lieberman 2013). Merchants’ and pilgrims’ voyages across the Indian Ocean and the South
China Sea, or journeys along the overland ‘Silk Road’, stimulated the exchange of ideas
and material culture (Gordon 2007). Many routes intersected at the port cities of Southeast
Asia, which were trade emporia at the end-point of the northeast and southwest monsoons
(Reid 1993).
In the 19th century the pace and quantity of migration –within Asia, and Asia to other
parts of the world –experienced a leap in scale. Mass migration met the needs of expanding
empires. Capital investment in plantation agriculture created a need for labour, as industrialisa-
tion spurred demand for natural resources. Transportation and communication advances made
long-distance migration faster and cheaper. After a period of interruption and reversal during
the decades of decolonisation and the Cold War, transregional migration across Asia has grown
again since the 1970s, alongside vast internal migrations.
The social and gender composition of contemporary Asian migration differs from the pat-
terns of earlier movements of people, most notably in the much larger proportion of female
migrants today. Many routes of migration –for instance, the vast migration of contract work-
ers from South Asia to the Gulf States –are new. Nevertheless, the legacies of earlier colonial
migrations continue to shape contemporary Asia; the resurgence of migration across Asia in an
age of globalisation has reactivated social networks forged in an earlier imperial age of regional
connectedness.
This chapter explains the causes and pathways of Asia’s first mobility revolution, which took
place between 1850 and the 1930s. It examines the relationship between migration and Asian
modernity, as migrant networks channelled new political ideas and new cultural practices across
frontiers. It proceeds to examine the growing regulation of both immigration and emigration
in Asia in the aftermath of the economic depression of the 1930s. Through the upheaval of war
and decolonisation, a new legal and political regime emerged to govern Asian migration –and
we still live with many of its institutions. The final section of the chapter considers the decline
21
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Sunil S. Amrith
and then the reorientation of Asian migration in the post-independence era, culminating in the
resurgence of Asian migration from the 1980s. As such, this chapter aims to provide the histori-
cal backdrop to the diverse strands of contemporary Asian migration considered in the rest of
this handbook.
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23
In China, the mid-19th century marked a period of unprecedented social and political
change accompanied by violence on a massive scale. The millenarian Taiping Rebellion (1851–
66) led to the deaths of up to 20 million people over 15 years. The imperial aggression of the
Opium Wars culminated in the concession of treaty ports, which became the prime sites for
the recruitment and shipment of Chinese labour overseas.The impact of political instability was
intensified by a concurrent environmental crisis: a series of mega-droughts, linked to excep-
tionally severe El Niño events in the 1870s and 1890s.
In India, the consolidation of British political control over the subcontinent uprooted some
social groups and immobilised others. Following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire
in the 1830s, Indian workers moved under contracts of indenture to meet the labour demand
from sugar-producing colonies of the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.The workers came from
rural districts of Bihar and Madras. At the same time, deepening colonial control limited the
options of groups that had previously been mobile. For weavers, artisans, professional soldiers,
and many others, British conquest brought economic ruin. Many urban residents were pushed
onto increasingly marginal lands. The acute vulnerability of large parts of South India to fam-
ine –India was as badly affected as China by the droughts of the 1870s and 1890s –was one
result of this enforced decline (Parthasarathi 2009).
In neither India nor China was there an inevitable link between political or environmental
catastrophe and long-distance migration. The mechanistic language of the early social science
literature on migration, its picture of migration as subject to ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors, fails to cap-
ture the role of intermediaries and networks in making overseas migration a viable response to
local distress. In the late-19th century the conduit between crisis and opportunity was provided
by what today we would call the ‘migration industry’.
From the 1840s, tens of thousands of Indian labourers a year arrived in Ceylon to work on
the coffee plantations. By the end of the 1850s, this had grown to nearly a hundred thousand
arrivals annually. Between half and three-quarters of them returned to India each year. The
longer journey to Malaya involved smaller numbers until the 1880s, but by the end of that dec-
ade, 22,000 people arrived at the ports of the Straits Settlements from India. From the 1880s,
Burma was the third greatest destination for Indian labour, and would attract the most migrants
of all. By 1911, over 100,000 people each year arrived from India in each of these three destina-
tions across the Bay of Bengal (Amrith 2013; Peebles 2001; Adas 1974).
India’s migrants were recruited under a range of arrangements. The earliest migrants to
Malaya travelled to sugar and coffee plantations under contracts of indenture, in which labour
recruiters and brokers played the role of middlemen. Indentured workers on Malaya’s plantations
faced brutal conditions and mortality rates were high. The archives are pervaded by instances
of physical abuse and even torture. By the start of Malaya’s rubber boom, indenture gave way
to more informal means of procuring labour. Across all three countries to which Indian labour
travelled in large numbers, the most common mode of recruitment was the system known as
the kangany system (in Ceylon and Malaya) or the maistry system (in Burma). The kangany was
often an existing plantation worker who would return to his home village in India to recruit
more men on commission.The kangany’s ability to advance money to the migrants’ families put
him in a position to offer attractive terms to indebted agrarian families –and debt provided the
bond that kept workers tied to their employers, even when they were not formally indentured
(Amrith 2013; Sandhu 1969).
Whereas Indian migrants tended to stay within the boundaries of the British Empire, Chinese
migrants travelled to a wider range of destinations across multiple empires. And while Indian
migrants tended to travel on British steamships to work on European-owned plantations or in
the urban economy, Chinese migrants to Southeast Asia worked primarily for Chinese employers
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24
Sunil S. Amrith
and capitalists. The majority of Chinese emigrants departed from Hong Kong, Xiamen, Shantou
and Hainan Island. Between 19 and 23 million Chinese migrants travelled to Southeast Asia
between 1850 and 1940: 6–7 million to Singapore and Malaysia; 4–5 million to Java and the
outer islands of Indonesia; up to 4 million to Thailand; and another 3 or 4 million to Indochina,
the Philippines and other parts of the Pacific taken together. The regional concentration of
Chinese migration sharpened over time.Whereas 40 per cent of Chinese emigrants in the 1850s
travelled beyond Asia, between the 1880s and 1930 96 per cent of Chinese emigrants remained
within Asia (McKeown 2010).
In the era of mass migration after 1870, Chinese travelled to Southeast Asia under a wide
range of arrangements.What unites them is the importance of social networks and intermediary
institutions in making migration possible. Some of these networks and institutions were rooted
in the family and kinship. Other common forms included native-place and surname associations
and, on a wider scale, dialect-group and regional associations. These institutions also hosted the
religious and cultural rituals that made long-distance migration less traumatic, and rendered
new destinations more familiar. The importance of social networks was such that where one
village had intensive emigrant connections, its neighbours might have none (McKeown 1999).
The most fortunate of the emigrants financed their own passages with family resources.
Since families viewed emigration as an investment, those with assets were willing to sell or
mortgage them in the expectation that emigration would prove fruitful. Another common
method was recruitment by an ‘old hand’, a system comparable with the kangany system used
to recruit Indian labour: here the recruiter would advance the cost of the passage, and often a
recruitment bonus, to the emigrants’ families; the emigrants were bound to work off these debts.
More common still was migration through the ‘credit ticket’ system, wherein an intermediary
took on the migrant’s debt of passage. Labour brokers in Singapore or Penang worked directly
with boarding-house keepers in Chinese ports, based on the rapid transfer of information about
job openings and labour demand. Either on embarkation or upon arrival, the migrant would
contract himself to an employer, at least until he had worked off his debts. Labour brokers often
worked directly for the Chinese brotherhoods that controlled migrant labour in Southeast Asia.
The brotherhoods’ command of armed force ensured that the migrants did not escape their
control (Sugihara 2005: 268).
Migrants under the credit ticket system suffered many kinds of abuse and exploitation,
but the most unfortunate were those who had signed formal contracts of indenture directly
with European employers. Chinese labour brokers, again, made these transactions possible.
Labourers under indenture tended to come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds; they
had least access to the social networks that made migration possible. In all, close to 750,000
Chinese signed contracts of indenture in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. This rep-
resents a small proportion of Chinese migrants overall. Around 250,000 of the indentured
migrants went to the Caribbean and Latin America, where they suffered the most brutal
conditions faced by Chinese migrants anywhere, in some cases conditions very close to
enslavement. Within Asia, the plantations of Sumatra were the main destination for Chinese
indentured workers: around 250,000 made the journey between 1880 and 1910. Up to a
quarter of the Chinese migrant workers to Sumatra’s plantation belt died before working
out their contracts. Malaria, malnutrition, frequent injuries, and a high rate of suicide made
Sumatra lethal for plantation workers. Until the turn of the 20th century, it proved cheaper
for planters to import new labourers from overseas than to care for the welfare of those
already in Sumatra. In general, indentured labour recruitment only flourished for destina-
tions which were particularly distant or unattractive, or where Chinese social networks were
especially thin (Kuhn 2008; McKeown 2004).
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25
The movement of Indians and Chinese to Southeast Asia represents one of the world’s great
migrations of the modern era, but many others were on the move alongside them. Within
Southeast Asia the same era witnessed the acceleration and expansion of mobility across the
Indonesian archipelago and across the Straits of Malacca (Tagliacozzo 2005; Kahn 2006), together
with a deepening of the centuries-old circuit of Arab mobility between the Hadhramaut and
Southeast Asia (Ho 2006). Throughout the region, ‘a significant traffic in human labour existed
outside of the power of Europeans… Javanese, Boyanese, Banjarese, Dayaks, Kelantanese,Tamils,
and Chinese were all in motion’ (Tagliacozzo 2005: 243–4).
Migration took place overland as well as overseas: nowhere more so than in China
(Gottschang and Lary 2000). With the expansion of railway construction that made a previ-
ously remote region more accessible, the decades after 1890 saw a massive migration to the far
northwest. C. Walter Young (1932), an American traveller to Manchuria, wrote in 1931 that,
‘the magnitude of this migration [is] perhaps unprecedented in modern history and assuredly
unparalleled today’. Between 28 and 33 million Chinese migrants moved to Manchuria and
Siberia after 1850, together with approximately 2 million Koreans, and 500,000 Japanese. If
we include migration from Russia into Siberia, a further 13 million people can be added to
this migration to Asia’s far northeast. Between 8 and 10 million of the Chinese migrants to
Manchuria settled there permanently. Overland migration to Manchuria and overseas migra-
tion to Southeast Asia shared similar underlying causes, and similar conditions of possibil-
ity. They followed similarly circulatory paths; the majority of migrants to Manchuria, too,
returned home eventually. In contrast with emigration to Southeast Asia, however, Chinese
migrants soon constituted a clear numerical majority in Manchuria, which they did not any-
where in Southeast Asia.
Many went to work in mines and on the railways, but most Chinese migrants to Manchuria
went as cultivators. A relatively small proportion of the migrants owned land on a freehold basis;
many more leased their land, or worked as sharecroppers. Large parts of Manchuria were owned
by Chinese official organisations, private or semi-private companies, and by large landowners.
By the 1920s, the soya bean had emerged as Manchuria’s most important cash crop, account-
ing for 80 per cent of the region’s exports. Family was the ‘engine of migration’ to Manchuria
(Gottschang and Lary 2000). Families in Shandong and Hebei sent young men to Manchuria as
part of a diversified strategy for family survival –the expectation of return was almost universal.
Most Chinese migrants to Manchuria moved in small groups of kinsmen or fellow villagers.
They moved along existing family networks to destinations where uncles, cousins, or other local
people had preceded them. When this happened on a large enough scale, whole ‘villages across
the sea’ emerged, almost as branches of the original northern Chinese village in Manchuria
(Gottschang and Lary 2000).
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Sunil S. Amrith
The circulation of ideas accompanied the movement of people across the South China Sea.
From the 1880s reforming Qing officials and revolutionary anti-Manchu activists alike began
to see the overseas Chinese as a fruitful source of financial support and investment. For their
part, many Chinese in the diaspora began to see that a strengthened, modernised China with a
stronger voice in the world would improve their position as minorities overseas. The Chinese
government established its first overseas consulate in Singapore in 1878. Chinese commissions
of inquiry investigated the appalling conditions suffered by Chinese indentured workers in
Cuba, Peru, and Sumatra.
The Chinese diaspora proved a battleground of ideas for those with very different views of
China’s future. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) built his political movement from the support of over-
seas Chinese communities. In 1905, he formed the Tongmenghui (the Chinese Revolutionary
League) with the support of the Chinese student community based in Tokyo. Sun travelled
widely in Southeast Asia; in 1906, he formed the Singapore branch of the Tongmenghui. The
contacts and resources that Sun mobilised during his travels provided the lifeblood of the
Chinese revolutionary movement. Overseas Chinese support was crucial to several attempted
uprisings in the southern provinces in the first decade of the 20th century. Soon after the
revolution of 1911, overseas Chinese began to contribute their resources, finances, and skills to
building a new China.
In India, too, the development of mass politics drew heavily upon ideas, networks, and
resources from overseas. The movement for the abolition of indentured labour was one of
the most widely supported political movements in modern India; it preceded the rise of mass
nationalism, fuelled by news reports of the brutality to which indentured workers were subject
(Sinha 2015). The political strategies of the most iconic of India’s political leaders, Mohandas
Gandhi, were forged not in India but in South Africa –where he spent two decades as a lawyer
and as leader of a movement for Indian rights (Hofmeyr 2014). The visit to Malaya in 1929
of South India’s leading campaigner for caste and social reform and leader of the Self Respect
Movement, ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy, marked a political awakening among Tamil migrant work-
ers in the cities and on the plantations. E.V. Ramasamy’s tour stimulated the development of
the Tamil language press in Singapore, and helped to disseminate a Tamil regionalism that was
distinct from Indian nationalism (Amrith 2013).
By the early decades of the twentieth century, the scale and pace of Asian migration gave
rise to new ways of imagining the world.Technology bridged distance. New ideas of citizenship
brought under debate the relationship between land, migration, and political representation.
Newspapers addressed, and in the process they created, new publics. Their debates, and their
readership, crossed colonial and national borders. The vernacular press in urban Southeast Asia
spoke of –and spoke to –many ‘imagined communities’, not merely national ones (Anderson
1991). They appealed to constituencies defined in local, regional, religious and ethnic terms,
which were not always mutually exclusive. Port cities played a central role as sites of debate
and encounter. Texts circulated between them; translation and republication were common in a
world when ideas of copyright were still in flux (Hofmeyr 2014). Often debates over social and
religious reform transcended linguistic or cultural boundaries. The English-educated elites of
many of these port cities forged an inter-ethnic public sphere (Frost 2002; Chua 2012). Inter-
Asian migration gave rise to a distinctive Asian cosmopolitanism –but it had clear limits.
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state in particular, have been more concerned with controlling emigration than immigration,
though the official ban on the emigration of Chinese subjects that lasted into the 19th c entury
was rarely effective, and honoured mostly in the breach (Kuhn 2008). The acceleration of Asian
migration in the 19th century took place in a context of capitalist expansion and imperial
competition: the hunger for labour in Southeast Asia was such that very few restrictions were
placed on the entry of migrant labourers into countries like Malaya. Singapore and Malaya
did not introduce immigration control until 1930. Nevertheless, European empires in Asia
were concerned with distinguishing between different types of migrants for other reasons.
The British colonial government of India passed a set of complicated rules governing which
social groups of Indians could and could not leave the country (Amrith 2013). Concern with
political subversion or with smuggling encouraged many colonial states to guard their borders
more closely, and to try to distinguish between legal and illicit flows (Tagliacozzo 2005). Almost
all of the colonial societies of Southeast Asia distinguished between indigenous and migrant
populations –even where migrants had settled for several generations. In the Dutch East Indies,
migrants from other parts of Asia were categorised as ‘foreign Asians’ and had different rights
from ‘natives’.
Nevertheless, in comparative perspective, what is most striking about the Asian context is
how late migration control became widespread: most Asian migrants before the 1930s travelled
without passports or visas. The global economic depression was a turning point. It brought the
inequalities of colonial capitalism to the fore, and raised new questions about inequality and
redistribution; this made the question of political institutions –their inclusions and exclusions
–more important than ever before. With prescience, John Furnivall, the Burma-based British
scholar-administrator, wrote in 1939 that ‘we can already see that 1930 marks the… close of a
period of 60 years, beginning with the opening of the Suez Canal, and, although less definitely,
the close of a period of 400 years from the first landing of Vasco da Gama in Calicut’ (Furnivall
1939: 428). The collapse of global commodity markets led to a reversal of the flows of migra-
tion that had become entrenched over 60 years. Colonial laws restricted fresh migration from
China and India to Southeast Asia –as often through changes in labour recruitment regula-
tions as through explicit immigration restriction. Ethnic tensions flared up at a time of rising
unemployment –for instance during the anti-Indian violence in Burma that accompanied the
Saya San Rebellion of 1930–32. Emergent nationalist movements in Southeast Asia demanded
further immigration restriction; the British Indian government retaliated, in 1938 and 1939,
with a unilateral ban on all labour emigration from India to Malaya or Ceylon (Amrith 2010).
World War Two brought the trauma of dislocation and forced migration for millions of
people across Asia. It also put an immediate end to patterns of long-distance migration linking
India, China, and Southeast Asia, though many of those routes of migration were already under
strain –subject to new immigration and emigration controls, and swayed by new forms of pop-
ulist anti-immigrant politics –even before the war.With decolonisation in the 1940s and 1950s,
paths of migration that had previously taken place within the boundaries of a single empire, for
instance the vast Indian migration to Burma, became international movements.
Postcolonial migration
The 1930s and 1940s marked a rupture, bringing an end to patterns of Asian migration that had
persisted for almost a century. Distinguishing migrants from locals, identifying and resettling
refugees and displaced peoples, became central to new states’ assertions of authority, and their
definitions of citizenship. Asia’s new states had to balance the demands of ethnic nationalism
with the fact that their boundaries were inherited from the imperial structures from which
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Sunil S. Amrith
they were created. The idea that nations each constituted the homeland of a particular major-
ity ethnic community was a common-sense proposition in the mid-20th century. Yet many of
Asia’s new nations were conspicuously multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual. Given
the heterogeneity of Asia’s population, the new international borders both united and divided
people. New international borders left many ethnic groups without a state; they created ‘ethnic
enclaves included in larger … political units’, and left ‘pools of people as minorities on one or
both sides of the frontier’ (Cribb and Li 2004).The transformation of India and China –the two
largest source countries of emigrants –fed the epochal shift away from long-distance migration.
With the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, overseas migration from China virtually ceased
for three decades; the main exception to this trend came in the continuing flow of Chinese to
Hong Kong. International migration from India continued, but on a significantly reduced scale
compared with the colonial era. India’s international migration sought new routes: first to the
old colonial centre, the United Kingdom, and later to the Middle East. The great migrations
from China and India that had shaped Asia’s capitalist development and its population geogra-
phy from the late-19th to the mid-20th centuries came to an end. But those earlier migrations
left a significant legacy. In every new nation in Southeast Asia there were significant Chinese and
Indian minorities. Their experiences in the postcolonial era were mixed; but for many of them,
their migrant origins were a source of disadvantage and discrimination long after their parents
or grandparents had made their journeys across the Bay of Bengal or the South China Sea.
In keeping with a wider global pattern, the decades between the end of World War Two
and the 1970s saw a decline in international migration within Asia. Economic integration in
general within East Asia, and between East and Southeast Asia, reached a low point; integration
between South and Southeast Asia fared worse still. For most of the Cold War, Prasenjit Duara
has argued, ‘the economic energies of Asian countries in the two camps were directed more
towards the nation and the supraregion than the region itself ’ – the ‘supraregion’, here, refers to
the geographically dispersed capitalist and socialist blocs (Duara 2015: 254).
However, in an era when virtually all postcolonial states believed in planning and when even
pro-western and market-oriented states intervened to shape their economies and societies, mil-
lions of people were mobilised to move within Asia’s new national borders in pursuit of ‘devel-
opment’. For instance, whereas in the age of empire the frontiers of migration for the young
men of Tamil Nadu lay overseas, after 1947 these patterns of movement were redirected within
India’s borders. In India and throughout Southeast Asia, millions moved to work in factories
and workshops; they moved to work in the offices of expanding government bureaucracies;
they moved to work in the informal economies that flourished at the interstices of regulation,
in neighbourhoods unmarked on maps; they moved to build the dams and power plants that
fuelled dreams of an industrial future. Above all they moved to Asia’s growing cities. Even in
China, where the government instituted the hukou system to inhibit population movements,
the violent mass mobilisation of the Great Leap Forward displaced large numbers of people,
and the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution sent millions of students and urban dwellers to the
countryside (Lary 1999).
After the reorientation of the middle decades of the 20th century, the 1970s marked another
turning point in the history of migration in Asia. Accelerated internal migration has led to
the growth of megacities that attract hundreds or thousands of new migrants every week –
alongside this growth, hundreds of smaller cities have developed, many of them within a very
short space of time. This mass movement is particularly evident in China, where earlier strict
controls over migration and settlement in urban centres have fragmented, leading to the largest
and most rapid urbanisation in history. Mumbai, Jakarta, Manila, and Dhaka are not far behind
Chinese cities like Guangzhou or Shenzhen in their capacity to attract migrants. At the same
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29
time, increasing prosperity and increasing inter-regional inequalities have stimulated a resur-
gence in international migration in Asia. Some of the new routes of migration are entirely new;
others built on long historical connections, including many described earlier in this chapter.
Two main circuits of Asian migration established themselves from the 1970s: the first, from the
1970s, involved the migration of millions of short-term contract workers from South Asia, the
Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand to the oil-producing states of the Middle East. The major-
ity were men working in construction, though an increasing proportion of women made the
journey from the 1980s, to work in domestic service and in the leisure industry. The second
circuit of Asian migration, which took off during the 1980s, drew migrants from South Asia,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, and Vietnam to the growing economies of Southeast Asia and
Northeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia,Thailand, Japan and Korea.The migration of young women
for leisure industry and domestic work constitutes a significant proportion of this movement, as
does the movement of male construction and manual workers. Both streams of migration have
grown in scale over the past decade, and both involve large numbers of undocumented (‘illegal’)
migrants. There has at the same time been a marked ‘feminisation’ of several currents of mobil-
ity –internal and international, skilled, and unskilled –since the 1980s (Kaur 2004).
Alongside a resurgence in labour migration, the last three decades have also seen a move-
ment with fewer historical precedents: a vast movement of skilled professionals and hundreds of
thousands of students, together with significant and unprecedented marriage migration across
national frontiers. Intra-Asian migration forms part of a continuum that includes movement to
the United States, Australasia, and Europe.
Conclusion
In many ways contemporary migration in Asia is without historical precedent; this can be seen
in the diversity and complexity of routes and kinds of migration; in the unprecedented speed
of long-distance travel; in the instantaneous nature of the communications technologies that tie
migrants to their families and their homelands. In its gender composition, too, current migra-
tion is unprecedented. In the colonial era, by far the majority of Asia’s migrants were men; this
is no longer the case. But in other ways, understanding the long history of Asian migration con-
tinues to be important to illuminate our present condition. Historical analogies can be helpful
in understanding what is truly distinctive about recent patterns of migration; moreover, direct
historical continuities can be seen in some, though not all, routes of Asian migration.
There are plenty of analogies to be made between historical and contemporary migration
in Asia. In terms of the drivers of migration, there are parallels with an earlier era of imperial
globalisation in Asia. Internal and international migration today are consequences of processes
familiar to historians: sharpening inequalities between regions, and between the city and the
countryside; environmental pressures on agrarian regions, including but not limited to natural
disasters; the circulation of ideas and information giving rise to new aspirations and the search
for a better life far away.
In terms of the mechanisms of migration, too, there are important historical analogies to be
made. Today, as in the past, Asian migration depends very often on informal networks of infor-
mation, capital, housing, and emotional support. Contractors, ‘jobbers’, brokers, intermediaries,
play a pivotal role in facilitating both rural–urban and intra–rural migration in Asia, akin to the
kangany of the 19th century; similarly, migrants to China’s cities continue to depend on infor-
mal connections: networks of kin and fellow villagers. Now, as in the past, these networks are
fragile. They can unravel as quickly as they form. Migration scholars Stephen Castles and Mark
Miller (2009) see the ‘migration industry’ as a distinctive feature of Asian migration in global
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Sunil S. Amrith
perspective; as discussed earlier in this chapter, the migration industry in both China and India
has deep historical roots.
Another sort of analogy can be made in discussing the conditions that migrant workers face.
In the lack of autonomy that so many migrant workers in the Gulf and Southeast Asia experi-
ence, there are undoubtedly parallels with earlier forms of unfree labour. Activists for migrant
rights have at times drawn directly on an historical language of ‘indenture’ and even ‘slavery’
to describe the working conditions of migrants in both the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.
Such analogies can obscure as much as they illuminate; they tend to elide the significant changes
in the political, institutional, and geopolitical structures under which contemporary migration
takes place (Amrith 2011); yet they can assume political and discursive importance within activ-
ist movements to bring about improvements in migrants’ working conditions.
Contemporary Asian migration does not merely resemble past practice; there are direct
continuities inherent in the ways that particular places are connected. This can be seen most
evidently in the continuing centrality of port cities like Singapore and Hong Kong as hubs of
Asian connections –as destinations and as transit points in migrants’ journeys. Both port cities
have adapted to global transformations, yet their basic outward orientation provides a continu-
ity with their colonial histories as free ports (Tagliacozzo 2007). Similarly, many of the regions
from which Asia’s migrants originate have deep histories of mobility: migrants from Bangladesh,
for instance, often come from regions which have long been connected, along riverine routes,
to Indian Ocean networks (Alexander, Chatterji and Jalais 2015). Many of the Tamil Nadu
villages that are home to the migrant construction workers who have moved to Malaysia and
Singapore since the 1980s have much longer histories of connection with Southeast Asia. Often,
migrant workers follow in the footsteps of their grandparents whereas their parents tended to
have more sedentary lives in the period of migration’s interruption in the mid-20th century
(Amrith 2013).
All the while, new relationships are being forged between old diasporas and their newly
ascendant homelands, eager for capital, expertise, and connections. While countries like
Singapore aim to attract highly skilled Asian professionals (Yeoh and Lin 2012), their home
countries seek to draw them back. Following the example of Taiwan, China and India have both
made efforts, in the 21st century, to encourage their diasporas to invest in their homelands, and
to encourage migrant professionals to return. A significant number have begun to do so, as rapid
economic growth creates opportunities and boosts salaries. In 2004, the Indian government
instituted a partial concession to the ban –in place since 1955 –on dual citizenship. Tellingly,
the Indian government’s efforts were directed largely towards Indians in the West, with a more
ambivalent view towards working-class Indians settled elsewhere in Asia (Sinha 2015). At the
same time, new forms of migration superimposed upon older ones –’old’ and ‘new’ diasporas
are divided by class and experience as often as they are united by a shared culture.
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2
THE CHANGING MEANINGS
OF DIASPORA
The Chinese in Southeast Asia
Introduction
Dispersed over all corners of the earth, the Chinese diaspora –estimated to be around 60 mil-
lion –is the largest in the world. It constitutes an important part of the Asian diaspora, not only
because of its size, but also because more than three-quarters of the Chinese diaspora still reside
in Southeast Asia today. Due to geographical proximity and trading ties, the Chinese diaspora
has a long history in Southeast Asia, which was the main destination of emigrants from the
Southern Chinese provinces of Fujian and Guangdong until the 1950s. From then onwards,
re-migration from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to North America, Australasia,
Europe, and Japan led to a more geographically diverse Chinese diasporic landscape. Following
the start of economic reforms in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the late 1970s, places
of origin of Chinese emigrants also became more varied as the latter departed from everywhere
in China, and not merely from the traditional emigration areas (qiaoxiang) in South China. Even
though the Chinese diaspora is unique in many ways, it can also illustrate some of the broader
concerns and changing contexts pertaining to the Asian diaspora. These include questions of
identity and homeland ties; the various factors that contribute to divisions within diasporas; the
attempts of governments to incorporate diasporas; and the changing relationship between states
and diasporas in different historical periods and geopolitical contexts. Guided by such an under-
standing, this chapter provides an historical overview and theoretical framework of the Chinese
diaspora in Southeast Asia in the context of changing meanings of diaspora (identity, difference,
and homeland linkages) from the beginning of Chinese settlement in the region to the present.
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Scholarly literature of recent decades also includes new meanings of diaspora. In one sense,
the term has become integrated into broader attempts to deconstruct ‘bounded and static
understandings of culture and society’ against the background of newer paradigms such as
globalisation and transnationalism (McKeown 1999: 308). As a project of resistance, diaspora
exposes the limits of the nation-state paradigm and focuses instead on interconnections at
both sub-national and transnational levels. Here, the role of networks is particularly relevant in
what McKeown has referred to as a ‘diasporic perspective’ that pays attention to transnational
flows and connections (ibid.: 307). Diaspora in this sense also challenges the understanding
of movements as linear and uni-directional, as in older conceptions of migration. Culturally,
diaspora signifies a revolt against a single narrative in favour of diversity, heterogeneity, or what
McKeown (1999) calls ‘diaspora-as-difference’.
In a third sense, however, the term diaspora has become a ‘category of practice’ employed
by states to claim populations beyond national boundaries and ‘to appeal to loyalties’ (Brubaker
2005: 12), reflecting the tendency of ‘nationalising transnational mobility’ (Ho, Hickey, and
Yeoh 2015: 153; Xiang,Yeoh, and Toyota 2013). As a political category, governments have used
the term to erase differences in an attempt to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Since
it is in the interest of nation-states to conceive of ‘their’ diasporas as homogenous groups that
can be managed and that share their loyalty to the ‘motherland’, the notion of difference so
central to diaspora-as-critique comes under threat in this third use of the term.
The homogenisation that underlies diaspora is not just specific to the political use of the
term; it also underlies its original meaning. Conceiving of diasporas as groups that share the
common experience of forced exile minimises internal differences, such as those of class, race,
religion, dialect, origin, occupation, or generation. Hence, scholars have warned of the dangers
of essentialisation and homogenisation when applying the term ‘diaspora’ outside specific his-
torical contexts (Ang 2003; Wang 2004). It is thus important not only to focus on the historical
experiences of the Chinese diaspora, but also on divisions within Chinese communities.
The tension between the diverse meanings of diaspora as group identity, difference, and
homeland ties, is also visible in changing research paradigms on the Chinese in Southeast Asia,
which continues to be a main geographical focus of research. Until World War Two, the Chinese
were perceived of as ‘unchanging’ sojourners in scholarship (Purcell 1951). The term huaqiao
(overseas Chinese) mostly appeared in official discourse and in scholarship to refer to the period
before World War Two, when Chinese bachelors from the southern provinces of Guangdong
and Fujian migrated to Southeast Asia with the intent of returning to China. Up to the 1960s,
the term ‘Nanyang Chinese’ (Nanyang huaqiao), which suggested the existence of a unified and
homogenous community, was commonplace in research. During the 1950s and 1960s, in the
context of the rise of nationalism and the Cold War, researchers mostly framed identity ques-
tions in terms of studies on the assimilation of the Chinese in several Southeast Asian countries
(Skinner 1957;Wang 1959).This nation-state framework used in studies up to the 1980s gradu-
ally made way for a ‘diasporic perspective’ that focuses instead on transnational mobility, links,
flows, institutions, and networks (McKeown 1999).
During the 1980s, scholars also replaced the simplistic dichotomy of unchanging sojourners
versus assimilated nationals with an understanding of identity as a complex and multilayered
category, consisting of, among others, national, cultural, ethnic, and class identities (Wang 1985).
With the growing impetus of cultural studies since the 1990s, researchers further problema-
tised notions of ‘Chineseness’, multiculturalism, and diaspora as markers of cultural preservation,
‘separateness’ and ‘proto-nationalism’ (Ang 2003). Since then, the ‘hybridity’ behind terms such
as totok (‘pure’ Chinese) or peranakan (ethnic Chinese of mixed origin) has been increasingly
acknowledged (Ang 2003; Coppel 2012). In recent years, scholars have also paid more attention
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35
to the question of ethnic minorities and changes in identification modes of these communi-
ties in a global context (Barabantseva 2011; Leo 2015). At the same time, questions pertaining
to agencies, interfaces, and marginality as a source of diasporic Chinese strength have been
addressed (Liu 2006; Liu and van Dongen 2013).
Whereas earlier criticism of the Chinese diaspora focused on its spatial quality of China-
centredness or the denial of localisation, Shelly Chan has recently argued in favour of the use of
the concept of ‘diaspora’ in a temporal sense. Diaspora, Chan argues, is less about deconstructing
the model of centre and periphery than it is about asking who is making claims about diasporas
and for what purpose at specific moments in time. Hence, both centre and periphery are con-
tingent forces, subject to shifting interests, perceptions, and values in time (Chan 2015).
Highlighting the tension between the various understandings of diaspora, and keeping in
mind Shelly Chan’s proposition regarding changing understandings of diaspora at different
‘moments’ in time, our overview discusses five main periods or ‘moments’ that have defined
the evolution of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. They are (1) the early history of the
Chinese traders in the Nanyang and colonial expansion (15th-19th centuries); (2) the mass labour
migration movement after the 1850s; (3) the nationalist movement of the early 2 0th century;
(4) the period of decolonisation and the Cold War; and (5) the period of China’s reform and
opening-up (post-1978) in the era of globalisation and neoliberalism. Each period manifests
changes in diaspora as homeland ties, dynamics of difference, and the perception of the Chinese
state regarding the role and relevance of the Chinese diaspora. If we understand diaspora as a
field of competing interests across time and space, constructed and shared by diasporic commu-
nities, host societies, and the homeland, diaspora remains a useful category of analysis.
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36
community was far from homogenous. In the early urban settlement of Spanish Manila, for
example, it consisted of Chinese leaders who acted as middlemen, rich merchants who provided
products for the famous Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, small merchants and artisans residing in
the Chinese quarter (the Parián), and labourers offering food and services (Kueh 2014).
In the 17th century, Chinese trade in Southeast Asia expanded.Tin and gold mining and the
growing of pepper and gambier arose in the region to meet Chinese demands. By the 18th cen-
tury, the Chinese also gradually became engaged with setting up the rice trade between China
and Southeast Asia. Some of these early labour migrant communities in Borneo, Riau, Bangka,
and Johor set up ‘kongsis’ or partnerships between labourers, headmen and capital providers, or
‘taukehs’ that made them self-ruled and quasi-autonomous (Trocki 2005). Other forms of com-
munity arrangement during this period included the ‘bangs’, organisations based on dialect and
with complex internal hierarchies that cut across class divisions, and that provided recruitment
and offered patronage (Kuhn 2008).
Each of the main dialect groups had its own niche occupations, influenced not only by the
skills of the respective emigrants but also by networks and conditions in the host societies. The
Hokkien, maritime traders since the 1500s, were present in Taiwan, the Philippines, Java, Malaya,
Borneo, and Siam. The Cantonese specialised in, among others, trade and cash crops, and could
be found in great numbers in Malaya.The Teochiu [Teochew] people, mostly based in Thailand,
were known for shipbuilding, but also worked on plantations and engaged in businesses such
as the rice trade. The Hakka migrated to Malaya (West Borneo) and Singapore, where they
engaged in mining, forestry, and agriculture (McKeown 2010; Wang 1991).
The Qing government continued Ming policies of prohibiting migration and treat-
ing migrants as ‘outcasts and deserters’, partly because of their actual support for the Zheng
Chenggong (Koxinga) regime in Taiwan (Yen 1978: 7). Although emigration remained banned
until 1893 (with bans on trade instated and lifted during the 18th century), the first half of the
19th century witnessed a rapid expansion of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia (Wade
2009; Wang 2009). Because of the trading ban, the demands of trading itself, and the depend-
ence on the winds for return, the early communities of Chinese traders in Southeast Asia were
temporary and forced sojourners (Chin 2010: 157; Wang 1981: 120). Given the rapid growth of
communities, evictions and massacres of the Chinese communities already took place in Manila
(1603), and Batavia (1740) (Kuhn 2008).
Since those who migrated were male (mostly bachelors) and huaqiao who had the intent
to return to China, a dual family system emerged. Maintaining a family in their place of ori-
gin, they married local wives. Because of this practice, ‘creolised Chinese societies’ such as the
Mestizos in the Philippines and Peranakans in the Malay peninsula and the Indonesian archi-
pelago, developed in a stable fashion in the 17th and 18th centuries (Skinner 1996). Merchants
of these communities, rooted in both local and Chinese cultures, made suitable revenue farmers.
By the end of the 18th century, the economic position of the Chinese in Southeast Asia was
secured through tax farming and strategies such as trade peddling and giving advance credit
(Kwee 2014). Whether in European colonies or in monarchies not under colonial rule, the
Chinese in Southeast Asia benefitted from the protection of weak patron-states and the exist-
ence of occupational niches (Kuhn 2001).
During this early period, it was the socio-economic visibility of the Chinese traders and
middlemen –as opposed to their physical visibility in other geographical contexts –that led
to discrimination (Wickberg 1994: 70) and the preservation of homeland ties. However, as
explained, differences within this group identity were already manifest, as the early ‘sojourners’
were not merely traders, but also labourers and artisans. Whereas Safran has identified ‘pariah
capitalism’ as a trait of the Chinese diaspora, Wang Gungwu has warned against a singular
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understanding of the Chinese diaspora with ‘business acumen and wealth’ as such (Safran
1991: 89; Wang 2004). Moreover, trading networks during this early period defy nation-state
approaches and reflect the second meaning of diaspora, emphasising the role of co-ethnicity in
the construction of these networks (Curtin 1984). Finally, the Chinese state’s primary strategy
was to prevent migration rather than to obtain the loyalty of its diaspora.
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Concerning group identity and relations with the homeland, with mass migration since the
mid-19th century, native-place organisations (huiguan) based on the intersecting ‘segments’ of
dialect, locality, and surname (Crissman 1967) in both North America and Southeast Asia served
to assist the migrants upon arrival. These ‘adaptive organisations’ (Wickberg 1994), hierarchi-
cally organised and with wealthy community members as leaders, helped the new arrivals with
services such as housing and employment. The organisational principles of the huiguan reveal
the importance of kinship and family relations in the migration system, as well as the crucial
role of language in networks. Dialect groups engaged in specific niche occupations, as noted
above, and chain migration of those from the same local area and/or kinship group to the same
destination occurred.
Apart from these native- place organisations, a number of other organisations also had
important functions in colonial Southeast Asia, such as the secret societies and the trading
guilds. Chambers of commerce replaced the trading guilds that functioned as umbrella organi-
sations of the huiguan, trade associations, and other associations during the late 1 9th century. As
such, supra-dialect organisations were already in place as mass migration transformed the older
intermediate communities. The voluntary organisations were also instrumental in the sending
of remittances to the hometowns, or qiaoxiang, which served as one of the most important and
tangible linkages between the Chinese diaspora and China, contributing to the emergence of
transnationalist capitalism (Liu and Benton 2016; Wickberg 1994).
As for the attitude of the Chinese state toward the Chinese diaspora, an important shift took
place during this period. The Chinese government engaged in the protection of the Chinese
emigrants, with the first Chinese consulate being established in Singapore in 1877 (Yen 1978:
7). The question of the nationality of the Chinese overseas first emerged during this period,
namely in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty between the Qing government and the United States.
The Qing government did not recognise naturalisation of Qing subjects in the United States
or after their return to China, thereby confirming that Chinese were huaqiao (overseas Chinese)
who were legally, politically, and culturally tied to the Qing government (Shao 2009: 9). The
Chinese state now recognised the existence of Chinese communities outside China, consider-
ing them as Chinese nationals who belonged to the Chinese state.
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Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore and circulated through local branches of the Tongmenghui
(Revolutionary Alliance) and affiliated organisations. To reach illiterate audiences, the revo-
lutionaries used newsletters to spread cartoons with revolutionary content, set up ‘reading
clubs’ (shubaoshe), first in Singapore and Malaya between 1908 and 1911 and later throughout
Southeast Asia and North America, and ‘drama troupes’ (Yen 1978: 16, 18–19).
In the context of mounting local nationalisms and anti-Sinicism, in terms of diaspora as
group identity and difference, during this period, there was a tension between identification
with what Kuhn has referred to as the ‘primary community’ based on dialect, kinship, and native
place, and the ‘secondary community’ based on supra-dialect, supra-kinship and pan-Chinese
principles (Kuhn 2008: 170–171). The Chinese state played an important role in this process as
new migrants arrived from China, and as cultural and political identification became a central
issue. In combination with a new wave of migration, especially with female migration being
permitted, communities that consisted of Chinese of ‘pure’ Chinese heritage born in China
expanded. Both the Chinese and intermediate communities such as the Babas were therefore
faced with choices regarding identification: they could preserve their distinct identity, integrate
further into the host societies, or pursue ‘re-Sinification’. The latter meant adopting Chinese
language and customs and identifying with the social and political interests of the Chinese com-
munity at large, a choice that was sometimes driven by local community leaders rather than the
Chinese state (McKeown 1999). Here, diversity existed in the form of the distinct identification
choices that members of Chinese communities made, with dialect and kinship divisions coexist-
ing with pan-Chinese nationalism.
Identification choices were complicated by the presence of reformers and revolutionar-
ies who competed with the government for the support of the Chinese diaspora. Between
1900 and 1911, revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen, reformers under Kang Youwei, and the
Qing government alike courted the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia and elsewhere to
support their causes. With the Qing government failing in its protection of the Chinese
overseas against exclusion laws that emerged in the settler societies of North America, New
Zealand, and Australia, the revolutionaries exploited anti-Manchu sentiment in overseas
Chinese communities (Yen 1978: 8). Here, again, the term huaqiao served to unite the
Chinese diaspora and to win their hearts and minds. Southeast Asian Chinese played an
important role in Sun’s efforts, with the Singapore branch of the Revolutionary Alliance
founded in 1906. It became the Nanyang headquarters of the Alliance in 1908, but due
to limited support, Sun Yat-sen relocated the headquarters to Penang in 1909 (Wang
1981:133). Even so, the majority of huaqiao in Singapore and Malaya did not support the
revolutionaries (Duara 1997;Yen 1978: 13–14). In 1909, China proclaimed a nationality law
based on jus sanguinis or right of blood. Under this law, all those born of Chinese parents
were Chinese.
The identification with China was the strongest during the 1930s. The 1911 Revolution
was thwarted by the attempts of Yuan Shikai to restore the monarchy. The Beiyang gov-
ernment in Beijing and Sun Yat-sen’s Kuomintang in Guangzhou competed for legiti-
macy in a country torn apart by warlord factions. After unification in 1927, and especially
after the Japanese occupation during the 1930s, Chinese communities abroad chose ‘re-
Sinification’: they increasingly identified with China as a nation-state rather than just with
their hometowns, and sent massive amounts of remittances to China (Clammer 1975: 13;
Hsu 2000). Singapore played an important role in this ‘Nanyang Chinese nationalism’ dur-
ing China’s war with Japan. It was home to the headquarters of the biggest global overseas
Chinese relief fund organisation, the Federation of China Relief Fund of the South Seas,
which raised almost C$200 million [Chinese currency during the Republican era] and
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relying on the principle of ius soli or place of birth as a basis for nationality, the resulting de facto
dual nationality became a predicament during the period of decolonisation (Kratoska 1993).
In response to this, the Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty of 1955 ended this ambiguity.
Chinese nationals abroad were asked to choose a nationality, and they were usually encouraged
to take up local nationality. Huaqiao who intended to return to China were separated from
huaren, who chose host country nationality. Even though the treaty was not always applied, the
disengagement with the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia continued throughout the 1960s and
1970s.
Between 1949 and 1961, about half a million Chinese arrived in or returned to the PRC,
driven by patriotism towards China and tensions in Southeast Asian countries, such as anti-
Chinese movements (Fitzgerald 1972). In 1965–1966, thousands more arrived in China when a
coup in Indonesia was followed by an anti-Communist purge that also targeted ethnic Chinese.
The ‘returned overseas Chinese’ (guiqiao) were given a distinct legal status and many were seg-
regated from local Chinese on overseas Chinese farms (huaqiao nongchang), and in special vil-
lages and schools, resulting in a ‘unique form of ethnicity’ (Ford 2014: 240). As class struggle in
the PRC intensified, the ‘foreign relations’ of the ‘disobedient’ returned overseas Chinese were
considered problematic; they were labelled as members of an exploitative class in the early 1960s
(Chan 2014: 233). During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), policies towards the Chinese
overseas were discontinued and relatives of the Chinese overseas were persecuted because of
‘capitalist’ associations (Fitzgerald 1972). Hence, regarding the Chinese state claiming ‘its’ dias-
pora, this period witnessed the tension between engagement for the purpose of remittances and
disengagement because of the perceived ‘capitalist’ ideology of the Chinese diaspora.
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the Mestizos in the Philippines and the Peranakans in Indonesia. Apart from the celebration of
Chinese ancestry, Chinese rituals and holidays have also been reinstated in certain Southeast
Asian countries, even though these are manifestations of a totok (‘pure’) and not a Peranakan
Chinese culture from a local perspective (Hau 2014). As such, there are certain parallels with
the early 2 0th century, when the rise of nationalism and the arrival of new migrants confronted
Chinese communities in Southeast Asia with political and cultural identification choices that
transcended identification based on dialect, class, or native place. However, during the late 20th
century, Mainland Chinese capital was an important driver behind these choices.2 Nevertheless,
the local support for this renewed emphasis on ‘Chinese’ identity signifies an important shift
from previous historical periods during which this identity was suppressed.
Adapting to new needs, voluntary organisations have transformed themselves into trans-
national and even global organisations. Although membership of some of these organisations
has remained based on kinship or locality, it has become more open in practice and oriented
towards business networking both with China and within the Chinese diaspora. New types of
organisations have emerged, such as professional or alumni organisations. These organisations
have set up regular large-scale events, often with the support of hometown governments in
China (Liu 1998). New migrants have also set up their own organisations. Hence, during this
latest period, diaspora as group identity has centred around the question of the relation between
the older and newer communities and the renewed influence of Mainland Chinese culture on
the existing communities.
The family structure itself has also undergone massive changes. For some of the new
migrants, education has become a migration strategy, with children being placed at prestigious
universities in the West. New types of ‘astronaut families’, in which family members are spread
between continents and shuttle back and forth to combine business with family reunions, have
emerged (Waters 2005). Discourses on transnationalism have gone hand in hand with notions of
‘flexible citizenship’ shaped by strategic considerations and ‘deterritorialised’ forms of belonging
(Ong and Nonini 1997; Ong 1999). Here, diaspora as the erosion of fixed and static boundaries
appears most manifest. Even Chinese talent migration policies have made increasing room for
contributions of highly skilled Chinese from abroad. In this ‘temporal-spatial stretch’, policies
have facilitated contributions from abroad and the transnational circulation of talented Chinese
(Leung 2015). Diaspora as homeland ties has equally been transformed in the internet era,
which permits ‘transmigrants’ to become multi-local and to ‘manage and mirror their physical
mobility in a globalised world’ (Ip and Yin 2016: 166).
In spite of the seeming erosion of boundaries, however, the Chinese state has become once
again proactive in claiming its diaspora. Although the PRC relaxed its emigration restrictions
during the early 1980s, it also promulgated the 1980 Nationality Law of the People’s Republic
of China, which reiterated the no-dual-nationality principle of the 1955 Sino-Indonesian Dual
Nationality Treaty. During the first stage of economic reform (1978–1994), China particularly
sought investment from the Chinese diaspora, with the majority of investments coming from
the Chinese in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia (Smart and Hsu 2004). Since
2000, it has focused on the development of high-tech industrial development parks and knowl-
edge-intensive development models, with highly skilled Chinese being the focus of policies.
Hence, the Chinese state continues to play a significant role in regulating mobility patterns
through a well-established system of diaspora policies and institutions (Liu and van Dongen
2016). We should also note that, in this process, China is becoming an immigration country in
addition to a country of origin of ‘new migrants’ (Li and Yu 2015).
As China emerges as the second largest economy in the world and takes on a more asser-
tive foreign policy, the age-old question of identification and of divisions within the Chinese
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diaspora has resurfaced. For the first time in modern history, a rising China defines the dynamic
relationship with its diaspora. It has shaped Chinese communities in the neighbouring coun-
tries, where China’s presence is much more visible and impactful. Hence, ‘re-Sinicisation’ at the
turn of the 21st century has been driven primarily by the Southeast Asian Chinese communities
as a strategy to ingeniously respond to the opportunities presented by a rising China.The revival
of Chinese culture and ethnic pride and the multi-dimensional efforts by the Chinese state
also play a significant role in facilitating this process (Liu 2016). In the meantime, the Chinese
diaspora’s engagement with China has evolved in the different national and regional contexts
of firmly established Southeast Asian states, thus exercising a much stronger degree of political,
economic and cultural control over their ethnic Chinese populations. Re-engagement with the
Chinese in Southeast Asia, driven by economic interests and based on Mainland understandings
of ‘Chineseness’, ignores the complex identity processes of those who belong to different gen-
erations, classes, dialect groups, and places of origin, and who have been subjected to a variety
of identity politics in their countries of residence.
Conclusion
The tension between the three meanings of diaspora in the five main ‘moments’ discussed
above reflects not only the changing nature and interests of the Chinese diaspora, but also the
changing nature and interests of the Chinese/Southeast Asian states. Firstly, group identity, even
though based on a set of stable organisational principles, altered in tandem with both policies in
China and in the host societies. Initially condemned by the Chinese state as traitors, the bach-
elor communities of Chinese ‘sojourners’ set up trading partnerships, utilised vast networks, and
gradually secured their socio-economic position during the early colonial period. With mass
migration, they set up native-place and other organisations, schools, and newspapers, which
received support from the Chinese state during the height of political and cultural identifica-
tion with China at the turn of the 20th century. During the period of decolonisation and the
Cold War, Southeast Asian governments suppressed the same community organisations for fear
of being extensions of the Chinese revolution of 1949. Since the start of reform and opening up
in the late 1970s, ‘re-Sinicisation’ efforts or the explicit cultural identification with ‘Chineseness’
reflect the tension between local and Mainland understandings of ‘Chineseness’. Changes in the
relation between Chinese communities and the homeland are also manifest in shifts in migra-
tion patterns.These evolved from the willingness to return to China permanently, not only dur-
ing the early period but also in the case of returnees during the Cold War, to complex patterns
of re-migration and temporary migration.
Secondly, that diaspora is not a singular and static entity is clear throughout the various
historical periods. Merchants, artisans and labourers already constituted part of the Chinese
diaspora during the early colonial period. They furthermore organised themselves based on the
intersecting principles of dialect, native place and surname, even though supra-dialect organi-
sations were already present. Class distinctions are equally important, as petty merchants and
labourers complicate the image of the socio-economically established middlemen. Specific con-
nectivities, networks, and flows demonstrate the relevance of thinking of ‘diaspora-as-difference’
in addition to the broader strokes of homeland ties as discussed above. Variations in political
and cultural identification and the tension between local and trans-local identification marked
the early 20th century, when the Chinese government actively reached out to Chinese com-
munities in Southeast Asia. With decolonisation, local policies in Southeast Asian countries
with regard to community organisations, Chinese language schools and newspapers further
influenced differences regarding political and cultural identification with ‘China’. Since the
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44
reform and opening up, the arrival of ‘new migrants’ in Southeast Asian countries adds another
layer of dynamics regarding identity-as-difference. Finally, we should note that increasing vari-
ation in channels of migration, types of employment, places of origin, motivations for migration,
class backgrounds, and religious diversity add to the lack of the existence of ‘a’ Chinese diaspora.
In spite of this diversity and fluidity, however, the Chinese state has long laid claim on ‘its’
diaspora, even though the markers of belonging and unbelonging have shifted over time. At
first unwilling to accept migration and considering its diaspora as traitors, the claiming took
the form of preventing emigration. The Chinese state first actively reached out to its diaspora
during the late 19th century, with a peak during the early 20th century. During this period,
the Chinese diaspora was part and parcel of the struggle for ideological legitimacy between
the CCP and the KMT. After decolonisation, the Chinese state engaged in a precarious bal-
ancing act of engagement for the purpose of remittances and disengagement because of ideo-
logical distrust. Since reform and opening up, this ambiguity has made room for a full-fledged
charm offensive and the promotion of a Mainland understanding of ‘Chineseness’, driven by
economic investment and, more recently, regional infrastructure projects under the ‘One Belt
One Road’ initiative that was launched in late 2013 to economically and strategically connect
China with its neighbouring countries alongside the maritime Silk Road and Central Asia. It
remains to be seen what the long-term implications of the dynamic interaction between older
communities, new migrants, and the renewed Sino-Southeast Asian connectivity in the context
of a rising China will bring. The latest diasporic ‘moment’, in short, has yet to run its course.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the editors of this volume for their constructive comments, and
Wang Gungwu for his insightful feedback to the panel on ‘Beyond Fixed Geographies: Diaspora
and Alternative Conceptions of Southeast Asia’ at the SEASIA conference in Kyoto, 12–13
December 2015. Els van Dongen and Hong Liu received funding from Nanyang Technological
University (M4081271, M4081020) respectively for this research. The authors are responsible
for any remaining errors in this chapter.
Notes
1 According to McKeown (2010, 2011), the overall figure of 2–8 million Chinese migrants for this period
is too low because it is mostly based on a limited number of Chinese and English sources that count
contract labour and ‘coolie’ migrants only. Based on Chinese-language sources, he argues that more than
20 million Chinese left South China between the 1840s and the 1930s.
2 We thank Wang Gungwu for bringing this point to our attention.
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PART II
3
TEMPORARY LABOUR
MIGRATION
Michiel Baas
Introduction
Temporary labour migration might be one of the most easily recognised forms of migration
because of its immediate association with disenfranchised migrant workers. Yet, the ostensible
straightforwardness of its three inherent components –temporary, labour and migration –also
makes it one of the most illusive ones. Although the focus in many studies is indeed on migrant
workers with temporary work visas, undertaking hard labour over long hours and with limited
rights, other studies take a much broader approach and include virtually any person migrat-
ing to another country for the purpose of finding employment. While both strands of research
have their obvious reasons for doing so, the primary aim of this chapter is to disentangle the
three different components that make up the concept and, by doing so, argue that each in
their own way –temporary, labour and migration –builds on problematic assumptions. These
assumptions tend to replicate the way receiving nations organise and manage their inflow of
migrants through highly specific categories. By taking a critical approach to the way migration
research is generally organised along the lines drawn by migration regimes of receiving nations,
this chapter seeks to contribute to a growing awareness that this is ultimately an inadequate
way of understanding migration. Although the analysis will specifically zoom in on the case of
Singapore, other Asian nations that receive a large number of migrants organise their inflow in
a similar matter. Moreover it can be argued that increasingly this way of organising migration
is replicated outside the Asia region as well (see Asis and Battistella, this volume, Chapter 21).
In order to better understand what temporary labour migration actually entails in terms of
theory, policy and practice, this chapter is organised around the three components that create
the illusion of a coherent whole. In the first section, the chapter engages with the ostensi-
ble temporal aspect of migration and seeks to put forward the argument that labelling labour
migration as ‘temporary’ draws on an inherently contradictory assumption. At a macro level
temporary labour migrants form a more or less permanent presence in most developed Asian
nations, which contrasts rather ironically with ‘labour migration’ at an individual/micro level
which tends to be ‘permanently’ temporary.
The second section aims to unpack the meaning of labour when we speak of ‘labour migra-
tion’. It is here that we will encounter a problem in the literature on labour migration itself;
some studies define it in terms of low-skilled and low-waged, while others include all migrants
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seeking employment in another country. Investigating the way ‘labour’ itself is interpreted will
take us deeper into the way migration itself is actually organised across the Asia-Pacific region.
Labour may reference ‘work’, but it often also points at a particular hierarchy whereby certain
migrants are privileged over others.
In the final section the implied or assumed meaning of ‘migration’ itself will be unpacked.
In the most general interpretation of migration it is imagined to describe a cross-border tra-
jectory whereby a migrant moves from one country to the next. While numerically this may
be unjustified –there are many more internal than international migrants –it continues to
define the way migration is understood by the public at large, impacting both politics and
policy, and it guides the vast majority of academic research into migration (see Skeldon, this
volume, Chapter 13).The ‘question of migration’ is not simply one of internal vs. international,
though. What constitutes migration references a political process of inclusion and exclusion
as well as othering, whereby the idea of the ‘migrant’ needs to be reiterated on a regular basis.
Globalisation and the potential for ‘transnational’ lives are crucial to understanding this, but
perhaps even more so the way migration programmes are continuously fine-tuned to control
and regulate the inflow and temporary/permanent stay of migrants even further. Based on this,
the chapter suggests that an increasing number of migrants actually never quite ‘migrate’ in the
classical sense any more.
In short, what this analysis will finally reveal is that the three elements that ‘define’ temporary
labour migration are not only problematic in themselves but also as an allegedly coherent phe-
nomenon. In the conclusion, this chapter will make some suggestions for future research and
will suggest that we need to start adopting a more critical stand to the way we conceptualise the
idea or question of migration itself.
Temporary migration
Temporary becomes permanent
In recent years there has been growing awareness that the temporal dimensions of migration
deserve our specific attention (Robertson 2016; Robertson and Ho 2016), especially since an
increasing number of migrants can be characterised as ‘permanently’ temporary or their path-
ways as ‘continually’ circular (see also Zapata-Barrero et al. 2012). While previously permanent
residency permits and dual citizenship statuses were observed to facilitate transnational lifestyles,
the fact that a growing number of migrants have no access to (eventual) ‘permanency’ has pro-
duced a different kind of transnationality characterised by marginality, inequality and exploita-
tion. The way migrants negotiate, engage with and experience the various temporal aspects of
their individual trajectories, often faced with the structural constraints imposed by the architec-
ture of a particular migration programme, has thus become a pressing concern.
Receiving nations in the West as well as the East have been organising, streamlining and
managing their inflow of various migrants via skilled migration programmes for decades. An
important difference, though, is that while Europe and North America have gradually shifted
towards immigrant incorporation –thus offering routes towards permanent residency –migra-
tion in Asia continues to be premised on the idea of exclusion (Lian et al. 2016: 3) and differ-
ence. This means that Asian migration programmes tend to be more hierarchically organised
than their western counterparts, with migrants categorised in highly specific groups on the basis
of education, skill and wage levels. These categories not only correspond with specific rights in
terms of staying on (for instance in case of job loss), eligibility for permanent residency, or fam-
ily reunion, but also determine who is allowed to apply for the particular visa he or she qualifies
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for. In the case of low-skilled migrants, the procedure often requires the involvement of specific
professionals, such as brokers or agents, who charge a considerable fee for their services. The
intermediation by such professionals is another feature that sets Asian migration programmes
apart from their western counterparts (see also Battistella 2014: 14; Lian 2016: 4). A brief history
of how these programmes developed over time illustrates their divergent trajectories.
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In Western Europe, temporary labour migration thus often resulted in the formation of ethnic
communities in the host nation. Although this was initially the product of so-called ‘non-return’ –
meaning that the scheme under which these migrants had entered the country had intended it to
be temporary –at present most European nations offer routes towards citizenship. Until the 1990s
this was a relatively straightforward affair; however, in more recent years additional requirements
regarding minimum income, guaranteed length of employment and knowledge of local culture
and language have been added. Concerns over the formation of ethnic enclaves, issues of non-
integration and ‘Islamisation’ seem to have fuelled these developments the most.
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to be employed in the city-state. Basic skilled construction workers, for instance, can only be
employed for up to ten years, while higher skilled ones are permitted to stay as long as 22 years.3
Furthermore, the categories of construction and foreign domestic worker also come with spe-
cific age-limits. In terms of eligibility for permanent residence both countries also entertain
specific rules.While South Korea restricts this to so-called ‘special talent’ –excelling in a specific
field such as science, management, education, cultural arts, or athletics –Singapore excludes its
Work Permit holders (thus low-skilled workers) from eligibility.
Labour migration
The fuzziness of labour
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are currently 105 mil-
lion persons working in a country other than where they were born.4 These migrants make
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up 90 per cent of the total number of international migrants worldwide. As the ILO fur-
ther elaborates, only an estimated 7–8 per cent of migrants are refugees or asylum seekers,
some of whom are also regularly employed. The labour mobility that organisations such as
the ILO speak of basically encapsulates virtually all migrants, and thus does not differenti-
ate between the various categorisations that nation-states themselves use. This also contrasts
with the popular notion of ‘labour’, which tends to reference work that is of the low-skilled
and low-waged variety. Within migration literature, this interpretation of labour reverberates
in the bulk of studies on labour migration, though there is certainly no clear consensus on
what ‘labour’ actually means. Graeme Hugo’s (2009) study distinguishes six types of tempo-
rary labour migrants in Australia who, in terms of skills, wages and temporalities, could not
be more different from each other. Besides low-skilled contract and seasonal workers, Hugo
includes highly skilled professionals as well as those coming in as international students or
on so-called Working Holiday Maker visas. His approach is an attempt to cover the whole
gamut of different types of migrant ‘labour’ which resonates with the migration infrastructure
of countries as diverse as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore or South Korea. However, the
study of migration itself continues to be strongly bifurcated between low-and highly skilled
migrants in its focus. In doing so, studies tend to reflect the way receiving nations organise
and manage the inflow of migrants themselves. A brief return to the Singaporean case will
prove illuminating in this regard.
While low-skilled migrants by far outnumber highly skilled ones in Singapore, the city-state
mainly envisions itself as a destination for highly skilled or so-called ‘talent’ migrants, and has
thus implemented a whole range of policies and other initiatives to attract them to its shores
(e.g. Shachar 2006; Yeoh and Eng 2008; Ho 2011; Yeoh and Huang 2011). The use of the term
‘talent’ is particularly interesting here, denoting a whole interplay of factors ranging from skills
and education to the notion of being ‘global citizens’. The latter is clearly also imbued with the
idea of high mobility, which is adorned with an aura of cosmopolitanism and success and infused
with a considerable amount of symbolic value or capital (Yeoh and Eng 2008: 236). This kind of
symbolism seems partly a by-product of the rhetoric of the global war for talent itself, which has
led to the emergence of a new type of global meritocracy. Influenced by this, the Singaporean
government, as well as other Asian nations, has changed its social and economic policies with the
aim of attracting the ‘best and brightest’ (Ng 2011: 262). For such talent migrants a wide variety
of nomenclature has effloresced in recent years, ranging from elite transnational subjects and astro-
nauts to frequent flyers, globalites and transnational nomads (for a more wide-ranging discussion
of this, see Baas 2017).
What stands out in the Singaporean case is the alternative trajectory that is envisioned for
both low-and highly skilled migrants. While low-skilled ‘workers’ strictly come in as tem-
porary labour, highly skilled ‘professionals’ are afforded more permanent pathways. Besides
envisioning these highly skilled migrants as important to the country’s ambition to remain
globally competitive, they are also imagined to provide a solution with respect to certain
demographic concerns brought about by an ageing population and low fertility rates. Both
these problems are experienced by other Asian nations such as Japan and South Korea as well,
something which has received significant scholarly interest in recent years. As we will see
below, not only does the bifurcation between low-and highly skilled migrants in migration
studies divert from the way local populations engage with questions of migration, it also does
not always adequately reflect the actual level of education, skills and/or income of migrants
themselves. In short, what we need to engage with more critically is migrant categorisations
themselves.
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temporary labour migration. The primary question that the final section will engage in, then,
is that if both ‘temporary’ and ‘labour’ are in themselves problematic in terms of what they
are assumed to stand for, what does this tell us about commonly held ideas of migration itself?
Mobilities paradigm
The introduction of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ by Mimi Sheller and John Urry (2006) has
confronted the study of migration with new questions about how to understand the mobile
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trajectories of migrants across the globe. Introduced as a fundamental recasting of social science
by drawing attention to the constitutive role of movement within the functioning of social
institutions and practices, it is important to underline that this new paradigm is not simply about
asserting that the world is more mobile than ever (Sheller and Urry 2006). Rather, it seeks to
highlight that the complex character of mobility systems draws upon the multiple fixities or
‘moorings’ –often on a substantial physical scale –that produce fluidity elsewhere (Sheller
2011). From this it follows that the systems which regulate or lubricate mobility are deeply
infused with notions of il/legalities that are constructed upon sociocultural and political ideas
of belonging and what the nation-state is imagined to stand for.What is crucial to this new way
of thinking about (transnational) mobility is that its focus is not necessarily only on questions
of movement but also, perhaps even more importantly, on the power of discourses, practices and
infrastructures that both facilitate as well as obstruct, pause and even bar movement (Sheller
2011: 2).
The new mobilities paradigm’s influence on migration research cannot be denied, especially
in terms of refocusing its orientation towards questions of who gets to migrate, under what condi-
tions, and how discussions in receiving nations about this often centre on deeply neoliberal notions
of benefit and profit. Aihwa Ong’s (2006) conceptualisation of neoliberalism as exception, through
which she addresses the way governing activities are recast as non-political and non-ideological,
thus mainly requiring a technical approach, has been instrumental in rethinking what migration
actually entails in this respect.What follows from this is that denying citizenship to some migrants
while fast-tracking the applications of others depends on one’s marketable skills and ultimately
usability for the receiving nation.With the fine-tuning of migration programmes, especially those
of countries such as Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore that are highly dependent on a sizable
inflow of variously skilled migrants, this has partly resulted in a refocus within migration research
on questions of ‘immobility’, rather than the idea of frequency and fluency of mobility that seems
to imbue transnational lifestyles. As Cresswell (2012) notes, this immobility is characterised by
notions of stillness, waiting and being stuck, in effect not moving forward. Increasingly this ‘not
moving forward’ within the context of the system itself is about not being eligible for a more per-
manent residency status and thus also about denying –even in the very long term –certain groups
of migrants to ever have equal rights to other groups of migrants and local citizens.
Migration has thus increasingly become about the opposite of what it was inherently and
historically layered with. From a perspective that initially drew heavily on push-and-pull models
and described a one-way trajectory in which non-return was assumed, the study of migration
has increasingly become about describing transnational lifestyles in which frequent mobility
seems key and notions of settling locally (integrating, assimilating) are gradually eroded to make
way for lifestyles that appear to exist betwixt and between country of origin and destination.
More recently, however, we have come to realise that with the fine-tuning of migration rules
and regulations, limited mobility or immobility have become undeniable elements in many
migration trajectories as well. One could even argue that for an increasing number of migrants,
migration, as previously observed, is not what characterises their trajectories at all. It is here that
we need to return to the concept of temporary labour migration itself, because while for a large
group of migrants in the Asia-Pacific region it does capture the pathways they are on, at the
same time the very opposite could also be argued.
Conclusion
A number of recent publications have engaged with the question of temporary labour migra-
tion in terms of ethics and ideology (e.g. Lenard and Straehle 2011; Lenard 2012), especially
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with regards to the idea of a triple-win of which the International Labour Organization is an
advocate. The first two wins are for the migrants and economies of receiving nations, while the
third is for the economy of the sending nation (Dauvergne and Marsden 2014a: 227; see also
IOM 2008: 92). Essentially it links questions of migration to those of development, while also
engaging with notions of (in-)equality, constraints and opportunities. Such discussions about
the ethics of temporary labour migration are rarely about all labour migrants; instead their focus
is on a very particular labour migrant who is defined largely in terms of the category he or
she falls into with respect to a particular migration regime.Yet as we have seen in this chapter,
temporary labour migration is a troublesome concept.
The concept of temporary labour migration is indicative of two problems which together
point at a more general problem within migration research. First of all the concept reflects a way
of thinking about migration that is in essence too narrow and too oriented towards capturing
particular groups of migrants within highly specific categories. The second problem is directly
linked to this in that the concept fails to connect with the on-the-g round experiences of tem-
porary labour migrants. In fact the migration experience is often permeated by contradictions
produced by the very terminology used. Temporary can be a permanent status, but also a ‘tem-
porary’ phase on the road to a permanent status. Furthermore, while at a macro level ‘labour’
includes all migrants seeking employment in another country, in practice receiving countries
treat variously skilled migrants in completely different ways. Highly developed nations in the
Asia-Pacific region that are on the receiving end of a significant number of migrants –even
more so than elsewhere, perhaps with the exception of the Middle East –have implemented
migration architecture that treats different groups of migrants in a deeply hierarchical fashion.
This is reflected in regulations regarding the maximum age of migrants and possible length of
their employment, the eligibility to apply for permanent residence permits, the freedom to
switch employers, and even reproductive rights. Natalie Oswin (2014) captured it well by argu-
ing that in Singapore migrant workers are put on a different trajectory of life and death from
higher-skilled migrants and the local population.
Finally, there is the issue of migration itself. As the recent paradigmatic shift in terms of a
renewed focus on mobilities has indicated, our focus as migration researchers should be much
more oriented to the notion of immobility, of migrants not ‘migrating’ as such. I would argue
that an increasing number of migrants actually are not migrants at all, but should perhaps be
thought of as cross-border workers who simply move to another country temporarily without
ever going through an actual and more traditional migration process. The creation of migrant
enclaves in Hong Kong, Singapore, and also in the Middle East is indicative of this. Housing
migrants far from city centres, in dormitories that may have all the facilities that a migrant
would require for his day-to-day needs, but which at the same time are oriented towards segre-
gating him from ‘local’ daily life, is an undeniable element in this. It is here that the question of
the future of migration itself presents as one that ought to feature prominently on the research
agenda for years to come.
Notes
1 Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek: statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37325&D1
=0&D2=a&D3=0&D4=0&D5=a&D6=l&HDR=G2,G3&STB=G1,G5,T,G4&VW=T (checked 19-
09-2016). Turkish: 397.471; Moroccan: 385,761; Indonesian: 366,849; Surinamese: 349,022.
2 Please note that it concerns ‘gross’ migration here, meaning that a significant number of these migrants
did in fact return. This chapter does not engage in discussions of how much the ‘net’ migration eventu-
ally turned out to be.
3 This rule does not apply to Malaysians.
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4 See: International labour migration. A rights- based approach, available here: www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/
groups/public/–ed_protect/–protrav/–migrant/documents/publication/wcms_208594.pdf (visited
15-09-2016).
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4
INTIMATE MIGRATIONS
The case of marriage migrants and
sex workers in Asia
Introduction
Intimate migrations refer to cross-border movements that fulfil the intimate needs of individu-
als, particularly those that pertain to the emotional and sexual realms, which can include migra-
tion for marriage, sex work, or romance.1 Building upon a narrower definition of intimacy, we
distinguish this type of migration from those of domestic workers. Eileen Boris and Rhacel
Parreñas (2010) formulate an expansive definition of intimacy and include care and domestic
work in their definition of ‘intimate labour’. In so doing, they consider the meeting of personal
needs to be an intimate matter, which is a logic that agrees with that of V iviana Zelizer who
sees intimacy as entailing the sharing of ‘knowledge and attention that are not widely avail-
able to third parties’, including ‘such elements as terms of endearment, bodily services, private
languages, emotional support, and correction of embarrassing defects’ (Zelizer 2005: 14–15). In
our definition of intimate migrations, we make a distinction between the personal and intimate
needs of individuals. Met by domestic and care workers, and family members, personal needs
involve the work of care and reproduction. In contrast, we narrowly define intimate needs to
refer to one’s sexual and emotional desires.
The intimacy sought through intimate migrations includes the pursuit of love, marriage, and
romantic partnerships, and can be fleeting or long-lasting. Intimate migrations fulfil the inti-
mate needs of the migrant or other individuals. V arious historical flows of women’s migration,
including those from and within Asia, fall into the category of intimate migration, including
those of Asian migrant women who crossed borders as sex workers (Warren 2003; Y ung 1995)
or brides (Gardner 2009; Glenn 1986; Luibhéid 2002). Likewise, although the contemporary
feminisation of migration has been characterised by the rise in women’s migration as workers,
including those who pursue sex work (Cheng 2010; Cheng and Kim 2014; Chin 2013; Parreñas
2011), many women continue to migrate as family members, whether as wives, fiancées, or
daughters (Choo 2016; Constable 2003; Faier 2009; Freeman 2011; Friedman 2006;Thai 2008).
In other words, many are primarily intimate migrants.
Despite its prevalence, intimate migration is a highly stigmatised process. Cross-border mar-
riages are typically accused of constituting not just ‘fake marriages’ (Freeman 2011; Friedman
2006) but also of being abnormally unequal heterosexual partnerships that can result in
abuse of women (Constable 2003). Indeed, cross-border marriages are often correlated with
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Intimate migrations
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66
by the legal status of their migration. Across the globe, foreign spouses are rarely granted
citizenship immediately upon marriage but are instead relegated to a temporary status that
is conditional to their continued marriage to their citizen-spouse before they can gain
eligibility for permanent membership. The length of conditional residency varies. It is for
instance two years in the United States, three years in Japan, and five years in Germany.
During this time, the foreign spouse is a legal dependent of the citizen-spouse, which results
in a status of unequal dependency that in turn leaves the foreign spouse vulnerable to abuse
(Iglauer 2015). Indeed, many scholars have observed higher rates of domestic violence in
foreign marriages than in other marriages (Abraham 2000; Choo 2016). As one writes, ‘for-
eign women who marry American men are between three and six times more likely to be
victims of domestic abuse than American women’ (Kusel 2014:173). A similar problem has
been cited in South Korea where foreign women represent a disproportionate number of
domestic violence abuse victims (Iglauer 2015). Historically, in the United States abuse vic-
tims had no legal recourse as they risked facing deportation if they left their marriage before
the end of their conditional residency. Yet, even with recourse, women are often unaware
of their legal rights, as many are forced to live in isolation from local communities by their
husbands (Choo 2016).
Of the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees hiding in China, in 2008, it was
estimated that a disproportionate number, nearly two-thirds of the refugee population,
were women. Of these women, 70 to 80 percent of North Korean refugee women are
trafficked into forced marriages, commercial sex exploitation, and exploitative labour.
More recently, North Korean refugee women have also been forced into Internet
stripping. Attributing increased incidents of trafficking to the increasing profitability
of selling North Korean women, an aid worker estimated in 2010 that women make
up 80 percent of North Korean refugees in China and that more than 90 percent of
North Korean refugee women become victims of trafficking
(Kim 2010:455).
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Intimate migrations
While we doubt the veracity of Kim’s claims, we quote her at length to provide an example
of the prevailing view on foreign brides and the reduction of their experiences to nothing but
abuse. If not a trafficked person, then they are victims of domestic violence.
Despite the prevalence of such claims, there remains a concerning lack of reliable data on
sex trafficking. Still, there is a preponderance of academic writings on the subject. In a recent
survey of the literature on gender and migration, Donato and Gabaccia found that ‘one-third
of scholarly articles appearing after 1983 that address the feminisation of migration focus exclu-
sively on the sexual trafficking of migrants or on women working in the sex industry’ (2015:
36). One central reason we question the reduction of international brides to trafficking victims
is the contrary depiction of their marriages provided in empirically grounded research.
The adverse reaction against intimate migrations and the unverifiable claim that they would
likely lead to abuse is due not only to the influence of radical feminist thought and anti-prostitu-
tion beliefs, but also because of negative sentiments against the purchase of sex. Indeed, from South
Korea to Germany to the United States, prospective husbands pay a few thousand US dollars to
marriage broker firms to help arrange the migration of their wives. Such payment is dismissed as
immoral because it defies the ‘hostile worlds view’ (Zelizer 2000, 2005) on intimacy and economy.
By ‘hostile worlds view’, Zelizer refers to the ‘rigid moral boundaries between market and inti-
mate domains’ (2000: 823). The intersection of love and money –and of intimate social relations
and economic transactions –is said to result in moral contamination, because intimacy and the
private sphere are shaped by sentiment and solidarity while economics and the public sphere
are motivated by calculation and efficiency. To put it simply, the ‘hostile worlds view’ assumes
that love and money are mutually exclusive. In this perspective, sex for money would be morally
wrong while sex for love would be considered proper. T he moral stronghold of the ‘hostile worlds
view’ over mainstream views on intimate migrations, and the anti-prostitution sentiment that it
espouses, eliminates the need for evidence in unsubstantiated cries of the human trafficking of
intimate migrants. It also allows for the prevailing negative views on intimate migrations to linger,
which, in turn, unavoidably shape the experiences of intimate migrants.
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68
migrations are indeed vulnerable to exploitation and violence, these cross-border movements
can also be avenues for women to experience love and romance (Constable 2003), self-g rowth
(Choo 2016; Faier 2009), mobility (Thai 2008), and cosmopolitan aspirations (Chin 2013),
despite the insecurities that may arise from their migration. Scholars highlight the experiences
of marriage migrants as workers (Piper and Roces 2004) and their economic contribution to
sending communities in the form of remittances (Bélanger, Tran, and Le 2011). Likewise, the
work of young scholars like Catherine Man Chuen Cheng (2016) spotlights both the unpaid
reproductive labour that migrant wives perform for the families of their spouses and their
economic contribution arising from their paid labour in receiving communities. Challenging
reductionist discourses, these empirical researches pay attention to the vulnerabilities of intimate
migrants without denying their agency.
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Intimate migrations
(jia jiehun zhen maiyin) made the association of sham marriage with sex work virtually unques-
tionable during the early years of the 21st century when the interview system was being
established’ (2015: 60).
That women are ‘likely to become’ or are in fact economic migrants in guise as marriage
migrants animated many receiving countries to impose more stringent immigration require-
ments for marriage migrants. In South Korea, for instance, anthropologist Caren Freeman
(2011) documented how the government promoted and subsidised the brokering of marriages
between Chosǒnjok women and South Korean farmers to remedy the growing bride deficit
in rural areas. The South Korean government envisioned these unions as a form of ‘marital
diplomacy’ that would unite the Korean diaspora across nation-state borders. As Freeman (2011)
notes, in addition to recruiting wives, the government initially instituted an open-door policy
that also invited Chosǒnjok migrants to work in South Korea’s factories under the industrial
trainee programme. However, as the word Chosǒnjok became synonymous with ‘illegal migrant
workers’ in the 1990s, not only did the government begun to view Chosǒnjok migrants with
suspicion in general but Chosǒnjok wives, first idealised as innocent brides, were later demon-
ised in popular narratives as opportunistic women who use marriage with unsuspecting Korean
farmers for ulterior –often economic –motives. Thus, in 1998, the new nationality law also
imposed a longer naturalisation waiting period for foreign spouses, from six months to two
years. Such a prolonged ‘graduated citizenship’ process (Yeoh et al. 2013) has in fact become
the norm in destination countries’ immigration policies. In 1996, the United States Congress
passed the Immigration and Marriage Fraud Amendments, requiring a two-year Conditional
Permanent Residency status for foreign spouses before they can obtain a Permanent Residency
(Constable 2003). Likewise, a spousal visa in Japan requires yearly renewal for three years before
the migrant spouse becomes entitled to permanent residency (Parreñas 2011).
Many destination countries’ contemporary policies on international marriages are premised
on principles of coverture, which regard women as dependents of their spouses for financial and
legal support while awaiting entitlement to permanent residency and naturalisation (Constable
2014; Yeoh et al. 2013). In Singapore, the entry of Vietnamese women is restricted to a visi-
tor’s pass until their husbands sponsor their permanent residency. Until then, they are barred
from working and are not entitled to citizenship rights, including access to health care (Yeoh
et al. 2013). Migrant women’s legal dependence upon their husband places them in precarious
migration status, as a husband’s refusal to sponsor an application for permanent residency, or
the dissolution of a marriage prior to obtaining residency or citizenship, can render migrant
women deportable. As Nicole Constable (2014) notes in her study on domestic workers who
become wives and mothers, an abusive husband or a divorce can then propel women into an
undocumented status. Thus, contemporary immigration policies on marriage migration serve
to exacerbate women’s dependency on their husband and consequently leave them susceptible
to abuse.
Although most empirical research focuses on the regulations imposed by receiving coun-
tries, the lack of a sending-country perspective is partially remedied by research conducted
in the Philippines and Vietnam. Pressured to address the problem of human trafficking and
the exploitation of migrant women, the Philippines has instituted policies regulating the
emigration of brides (Constable 2003). In 1990, the Philippine Congress passed the Republic
Act 6955, also known as the Mail-Order Bride Law, which prohibits the recruitment of
Filipino women for marriage to foreign men. Today, Filipino women who seek to migrate
as fiancées or spouses must attend pre-departure orientation and guidance counselling with
the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. While these emigration requirements aim in part to
make women aware of the risks involved in ‘mail-order bride’ migration (Constable 2003),
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70
they also compound the bureaucratic hurdles that marriage migrants endure, as those who
fail to complete these requirements are disallowed from leaving the country. The regulation
of marriage migrants by the Philippine government reflects a gendered pattern of policing
by migrant-sending countries, whereby women are closely monitored while men face lit-
tle restrictions on their mobility (Oishi 2005). In Vietnam, the state remains ambivalent in
its approach to regulating marriage migration. As Bélanger (2016) illustrates, although local
state officials recognise the economic benefits of marriage migration, they are nonetheless
required to endorse the central government’s position in defining it as a form of human
trafficking.
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Intimate migrations
Conclusion
This chapter analyses the concept of ‘intimate migrations’ from the perspective of marriage
migrants and sex workers, the majority of whom are women. We draw upon an interdisci-
plinary body of scholarship that interrogates the experiences of Asian women who migrate
to traditional destination countries in the West but also to developed economies in Asia. We
examine the stigma surrounding intimate migrations and in particular its conflation with
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72
human trafficking and migrant women’s exploitation. In doing so, this chapter illuminates the
moralistic logic of the ‘hostile worlds view’ (Zelizer 2005) that shapes both emigration and
immigration policies that disproportionately affect migrant women. As we illustrate, stigma on
intimate migrations results in the heightened regulation of women’s mobility, which serves to
exacerbate women’s existing vulnerability due to migration and citizenship regimes in sending
and destination countries. Finally, the conflation of intimate migrations with human traffick-
ing, and in particular the trafficking of women, has left the lives of other intimate migrants
under-examined. As the work of Masako Kudo (2009) on Pakistani husbands of Japanese
women and of Parreñas (2011) on transgender hostesses in Japan illustrate, expanding our
analysis to include the experiences of not only women but also men and transgender migrants
allows us to understand the gendered politics of intimate migrations across and beyond gender
binaries.
Note
1 Deborah Boehm first introduced the concept of ‘intimate migrations’, defining it as ‘flows that both
shape and are structured by gendered and familial actions and interactions, but are always defined by the
presence of the US state’ (2012: 4).
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5
INTRA-A SIA HIGHER
EDUCATION MOBILITIES
Rochelle Yun Ge and Kong Chong Ho
Introduction
This chapter introduces intra-Asian higher education mobility as a relatively new trend, which
is an outcome of the dynamic economic changes occurring in East Asia, propelled by state poli-
cies towards higher education, and sustained by a strong interest among Asian youths to move
overseas in search of education and a broader experience. While reviewing pertinent literature
in this field, this chapter uses findings from a unique mixed-method study, conducted in nine
universities spread across five Asian countries, to illustrate diverse higher education migration
experiences in East Asia.
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Note: Except the figures for China and Taiwan, data were retrieved from a UNESCO statistics release:
stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/tableView.aspx. The definition of international (or internation-
ally mobile) students, according to UNESCO, refers to ‘students who have crossed a national or territorial
border for the purpose of education and are now enrolled outside their country of origin’: glossary.uis.
unesco.org/Glossary/en/Term/2242/en.
Data for Taiwan was retrieved from the website of the Ministry of Education, Republic of China
(Taiwan): depart.moe.edu.tw/ED4500/cp.aspx?n=1B58E0B736635285&s=D04C74553DB60CAD. The
figure includes both long-term and short-term overseas Chinese and foreign students.
The source for the China figures was ‘Statistics of International Students in China, 2011’ (‘laihua
liuxuesheng jianming tongji’ in Chinese). The figure includes both degree and non-degree international
students. The data is also available from the website of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic
of China: www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s7567/list.html.
universities and research institutes, while at the same time attracting academics, researchers
and students to staff the expanded research infrastructure (Sidhu, Ho and Yeoh 2011, 2014).
Malaysia, on the other hand, has been pushing international education programmes in order to
establish itself as a regional education hub aimed at attracting fee-paying students to its private
universities (Padlee, Kamaruddin and Baharun 2010; Knight and Sirat, 2011). As an Islamic
country, Malaysia has also become an attractive higher education venue for students from the
Middle East (Sirat 2008;Yusoff 2011, Graf 2016).Thailand, a relative late-comer to international
education, is making efforts both in quality and human resource development, and has managed
to attract a substantial number of students from other ASEAN countries (Pimpa 2011).
An important feature of international students in East Asia is that they tend to be over-
whelmingly from within the same region. In all of the seven cases represented in Table 5.1, the
share of international students from within Asia is more than 65 per cent. The regional student
support for East Asia universities is understandable. Centuries of migration within Northeast
and Southeast Asia have resulted in sustained ties between societal segments in receiving and
sending countries, allowing students from these countries to fit in easily (British Council 2008;
Ge and Ho 2014: 210 [see Table 6]; Ho 2014a: 179). Intra-region trade continues to remain
very strong, creating a strong familiarity and social ties among the business communities of these
countries.The short distances between host and home countries also allow for regular visits (Ho
2014a: 179).
Foreign students support the internationalisation efforts of Asian universities and their
respective countries in a number of ways. There is considerable evidence to suggest that inter-
national students in science and technology fields have immediate importance for the research
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capacities of the university and to the host economy after they graduate. The experience from
the United States shows that international students are more likely than local students to opt
for science and technology programmes (She and Wotherspoon 2013: 2). Meanwhile, PhD stu-
dents in science and engineering have a positive impact on total patent applications and patents
awarded to the universities, industries and other enterprises (Chellaraj, Maskus and Mattoo
2005: 25). Even as academic research positions shrink, graduate students and post-doctoral
students in biomedical sciences continue to gravitate towards non-academic research careers
(Fuhrmann et.al. 2011: 244; Gibbs et.al. 2015: 6). During their stay in the host country, foreign
students play a sociocultural role by increasing global awareness for domestic students (Elkin,
Devjee and Farnsworth 2005). And after graduation, they are seen as potential ambassadors for
the host country (Byun and Kim, 2011).
Thus, as universities and countries see international students as important resources in higher
education, our research attention must focus on the economic and cultural factors which shape
the international students’ mobility (Pimpa 2003; Liu- Farrer 2009). This attention should
include aspects of the university system (e.g. reputation, facilities and programmes) that are
attractive to university students (Joseph and Joseph 1997; Mazzoral and Souter 2002; Price,
Matzdorf, Smith and Agahi 2003;Veloutsu 2004). And as these students spend years in the host
countries, research focus should include the nature of the adjustment process, for example, the
relationships international students form with other students, their use of city amenities, and
their relationship with local residents in the host environment (Al-Sharideh and Goe 1998; Sam
2001; Kashima and Loh 2005; Sawir, Marginson, Deumert, Nyland and Ramia 2008).
Lastly, we should look at international student mobilities from a life-course perspective.
International students are, in most cases, single young people who move for study at a point
in their life course when they are in a position to discover, create and define their individual
identities. The overseas study period is significant because it coincides with their transition to
adulthood. As Hopkins (2006) discovered, conceptions by youths about being an adult and
going to university include a mixture of responsibilities (such as making decisions and achiev-
ing goals) and having fun (including social life, drinking, making new friends, etc.). The latter is
also emphasised by Waters, Brooks and Pimlott-Wilson (2011:456) who argue that “the accu-
mulation of cultural capital… are placed alongside a desire for excitement, fun and adventure.
Furthermore, an overseas education can also be seen as a means of ‘escape’, escape from manifold
pressures and expectations within the UK system and escape to a new life abroad.”
It is important to highlight that this critical period occurs within a context where youths
are away from home, family and friends, and are therefore driven to make new contacts, experi-
encing a new cultural context in which friendships are formed and for a substantial amount of
time defined by the duration of their study. Giddens (1991) as well as Patiniotis and Holdsworth
(2005: 85) argued that the study abroad period represents a fateful moment in youthful lives
precisely because the journey takes the student away from established practices and domains,
requires them to negotiate unknown terrains, and has significant implications for their futures.
For this group of students, the study abroad period intensifies a ‘do-it-yourself ’ biography
(Prazeres 2013: 814). For this group of students, their journey abroad to study also implicates
their transition to work, in terms of their imagination of a working future after college.
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experienced dramatic decline of fertility rates in the last three decades. As this has translated
into lower numbers of youths entering the labour force, low fertility countries such as South
Korea and Singapore have started to allow skilled migrants to augment the domestic labour
force. International students, as potential human resources, are looked upon favourably by the
host governments. As international education often results in host country friendships, familiar-
ity with the host language and cultural adaptation, international students often graduate with a
more intimate knowledge of the host society along with a local social support system. The host
government thus often regards student migrants as potential skilled immigrants with recognised
credentials and better chances to integrate into the society. As foreign students tend to choose
universities in countries where they would also like to work after graduation (Baruch, Budhwar
and Khatri 2007), universities play a significant role as a broker organisation to ease youths into
the country and eventually into the labour force (Liu-Farrer 2009; Hawthorne 2010).
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experiences which are noteworthy milestones in a student’s life course. This implies a higher
possibility for systematic integration into the host society. It is especially so for intra-Asia move-
ment, as the important rationales for Asian students to study in another Asian country are the
considerations of geographical proximity and cultural similarity (Ho 2014a: 179).
Third, this group of education migrants is highly mobile. Moving overseas for education is
likely to be the first time for many to be overseas for an extended period of time. While there,
they are also likely to develop a strong education background and use the host country as a
stepping stone to move on to other countries after graduation. Universities that adopt English
as the medium of instruction are especially favoured by students who plan to eventually work
in English-speaking countries. Graduates not only have the option of remaining in the host
country after graduation, but also have high possibility of returning home or going to third
countries (Collins, Ho, Ishikawa and Mah 2016).
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universities currently get the bulk of their enrolment from local students, they are increasingly
working with labour brokers from other developing countries to train their students in the
Philippines for similar employment niches (Ortega 2016). These students are likely to exhibit
a two-step mobility pattern of moving from home country to the Philippines to study, and
then on to a third country after study.
Given the inherent difficulties of describing the enormous diversity of university con-
texts in East Asia. This is the flagship university, which has been the focus of key government
higher education policies. Our chapter introduces the cases of China, a rising global political
and economic power with a strong higher education focus; South Korea, a high-technology
newly industrialised country and also a growing cultural power due to its media industries;
and Singapore, a cosmopolitan global city state. These three diverse cases will be used to illus-
trate how students enrolled in these universities make their selections, their adjustment process
within the host countries, and their future plans after graduation.
Note: Result from the GUISM project: National University of Singapore represented the Singapore
figure (n = 474), Renmin University and Sun Yat-sen University were selected to represent China’s case
(n = 735), and the sampled universities in South Korea were Seoul National University and Korean
University (n = 1002).
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81
Note: The groups a, b and c are based on the ANOVA result. *p < .05, ***p < .005, ****p < .001
Actually, (in) Malaysia, we have the Look East policy, it’s like learning from Japan and
Korea, these two countries… They are from different schools but all on government
scholarship. (Female Malaysian student, Seoul National University).
In addition, ethnic and cultural similarities influence where students move to. Overseas Chinese
choose to study in China and Taiwan, and ethnic Korean students from China choose to study in
South Korea.The multi-ethnic composition of Singapore draws students from China and India.
Study abroad represents the fulfilment of many objectives for young people. Among these
three countries, reasons associated with education quality, reputation of the university, pro-
gramme and staff, are the primary consideration for migration (See Table 5.3). Singapore shows
its advantage in both educational quality and social reasons such as religious tolerance; while
China and South Korea excelled in their cultural attractions, as local customs, host language
and cultural heritage were cited as key reasons for students choosing these countries. Moreover,
the relatively lower cost of studying in Asia also features, compared with the more expensive
traditional education destinations such as the US and the UK.
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China’ scheme, and recruiting large numbers of international students, is to ‘expand the inter-
national influence and enhance soft power of China’.5 Having achieved a significant level of
economic and military power, the Chinese government has begun to emphasise the need to
increase China’s soft power (Hunter 2009: 385; Mok and Ong 2014; 151–152;Yang 2015: 24).
International students are seen as potential cultural ambassadors for the host country, as they
have better opportunities to develop a deeper involvement in the host society via language
learning and longer-term stay. Moreover, their student status allows them to be more openly
received by the Chinese since they are seen as being in the country to learn. Policies adopted
by the Chinese government to target certain types of international students in terms of the pro-
grammes and home countries can be seen as a reflection of the intention of the host country in
expanding its own influence and network. Broad and systematic policies that focus on attracting
degree students and diversify international students show the ambition of the Chinese govern-
ment in promoting its soft power on a global scale.
Over the years, the Chinese government has increased the number of scholarships to encour-
age international students to study in China (See Figure 5.1). Among these scholarship students,
those from Asia have remained the largest group, while the strong ties between China and Africa
are reflected in the highest proportion of scholarship recipients among African students (See
Table 5.4). The efforts of the Chinese government are reflected in students’ perceptions. The
survey results of the GUISM project show that ‘Good relationship between Chinese and home
country government’ is the top social reason for educational migration. As was mentioned in
the earlier section, there is an embedded government-to-government (G-to-G) tie of educa-
tional migration in China’s case, and many of the international students in the GUISM survey
mentioned that they are funded by either Chinese or home country scholarship.
The rise of China, both economically and politically speaking, has led to a growing
interest in the country. For both International students, GUISM survey statistics show that
‘being in China’ and ‘learning Chinese language’ are important considerations for interna-
tional students who choose China as their educational destination. International students are
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Note: The data excludes the scholarships provided by local government or other sources.
Source: Statistics of International Students in China, 2009 and 2011. (‘laihua liuxuesheng jianming tongji’ in
Chinese).
Table 5.5 Comparison between Asian and non-Asian students on the reasons for studying in China
Non-Asian Asian
(n = 239) (n = 461) t df
Learn more about local customs and way of 3.32 2.93 5.51**** 698
life
(SD) (0.86) (0.89)
Rich heritage 3.15 2.71 5.99**** 698
(SD) (0.94) (0.91)
Good relationship between home country and 2.51 2.74 -2.81*** 396.19
China
(SD) (1.10) (0.88)
Good job prospects upon graduation 2.59 2.79 -2.41*** 398.04
(SD) (1.12) (0.90)
attracted to China by its cultural factors, including aspects such as local customs and China’s
rich heritage, remain a significant attraction, especially for non-Asian students (See Table 5.5).
For Asian students, the growing economic links between China and other East Asian countries
will continue to have a significant impact on the intra-Asian higher education mobility.Young
people tend to follow the established economic ties and seek job opportunities between the
host and home country. Liu-Farrer’s (2009: 198) reference to ‘bridge software engineers’ where
‘bridge’ not only refers to software skills, but also language and communication skills (and, we
will add, a strong familiarity with host culture and customs), applies to a range of other disci-
plines, allowing these students to be effective bridges between host and home business enter-
prises in a variety of fields.
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Because in these few years, Korea has had a great influence on China, so a lot of girls
started to like things from Korea, for instance their drama series. I was also influenced
by this and felt that Korea was quite a good place, so I came over.
(Female Chinese student, Seoul National University)
The terms ‘girls’, ‘drama’, ‘influence’ and the phrase ‘Korea was quite a good place’ in the passage
allow us to think of three interlinked points which shape student mobility. Beech (2014: 171–
173) used Edward Said’s idea of imaginative geographies to describe post-colonial discourses of
power and superiority, linking the imperial power and its colonies, which in turn shape imagi-
nations of where to go for further studies. While Beech and Said referred explicitly to political
power, we make a similar argument for the cultural power of the Korean media industry in
constituting an imaginary among its audience and the media source country. And since these
are cultural products, this imaginary is more significantly shaped by desire (Collins, Sidhu, Lewis
and Yeoh, 2014). The Korean cultural industry is especially appealing to youth, not just because
of their propensity for cultural consumption; it is youth’s propensity for excitement, fun and
adventure (Waters, Brooks and Pimlott-Wilson 2011:456) in the context of cultural consump-
tion that motivates them to move.
The effect of cultural economy not only has an impact on the students’ pre-migration
decision-making, but also on their post-graduation career. Many international students have
seen the market for Korean cultural products in their home country. They can take these as
business opportunities after obtaining sufficient knowledge and networks in Korea during their
study. For instance, there has been a trend among Chinese students who studied at and gradu-
ated from Korean universities to sell Korean cultural products, such as fashion items, food and
cosmetics. The local Chinese media have already depicted this phenomenon as an emerging
entrepreneurial form among internationally migrated youth.6 Such businesses continue to rein-
force the growth and expansion of Korea’s cultural influence in Asia.
Among the international students in Korea surveyed in the GUISM project, those who came
from China accounted for over 45 per cent of foreign enrolment. At the same time, Korean
students are also the largest group of international students in China (33.5 per cent). This pat-
tern of student mobility between the two countries highlights another characteristic of higher
education migrants in Asia: that by studying in the host country and returning home, these
students have become an effective bridge between home and host countries, especially when
this pattern occurs between neighbouring countries like China and South Korea. As Liu-Farrer
(2011) observed, the thickening of economic ties between two countries created occupational
niches for international students as bridges between home and host countries. These niches
can be in the host country, when such workers utilise their language, communication and skills
to help the host country companies manage a variety of economic and business transactions
originating from their home country. Likewise, occupational niches in the home country allow
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85
Note: The table was made based on data collected for the GUISM project. In this table, the group of
Chinese students studying in Korea and the group of Korean students studying in China were compared.
As listed in the table, these international students were asked to choose among eight types of job for their
plan after graduation. They were also asked to indicate where they planned to apply for the jobs they
selected.
international students to return home to assume beachhead positions which facilitate the host
country to enter home country markets.
Student future plans detailed in Table 5.6 suggest a reinforced between-country tie as a result
of educational migration –Chinese students in Korea and Korean students in China tend to work
in their home and/or host country after graduation. For both groups of students, training in the
host country and the intention to return to a job with home country government accounts for
the most popular future career path, implying established and strengthening government rela-
tions between China and Korea. The well-established economic ties between China and South
Korea have been reflected in their consideration that the host country education would lead to
‘good job prospects after graduation’. In particular, the two groups of students’ prefer to work in
branches of Korean companies either in the home or host country corresponds with the percep-
tion of the economic power and presence of Korean firms in East Asia.
This idea of being the ‘bridge’ and ‘middle man’ is also captured in biographical interviews.
The students see their Korean education and experience as advantages, and that learning the
host country language and absorbing its culture are essential features which will make them
more competitive when they return to their home country, as the following account illustrates:
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Korea such as Samsung, LG and the likes that have branches in China as well. Or to
return to China to look for a job that is related to the Korean language that I’ve learnt,
such as the Korean companies in China and the likes. It should be like this. (Male
Chinese student, Seoul National University).7
Note: The table was made based on data collected for the GUISM project. International students were
asked to choose among eight different types of job and indicate where they planned to apply for these
jobs. Among the eight types of jobs, on average there were 1.42 types that students wanted to apply for
in host country Singapore, followed by 1.20 types of job in home country and 0.77 types of job in a
third country.
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Note: The table was made based on data collected for the GUISM project.
International students were asked to list the nationality of their top seven
closest friends.
Concluding remarks
The growth of international students in Asia has developed in tandem with the internationali-
sation of flagship universities and the spread of transnational education, as well as the recruit-
ment strategies of other home-grown private universities. In particular, East Asian countries have
become emerging players in terms of their share in international student populations. National
governments in East Asia have also continued to play an active role in encouraging, guiding and
facilitating inbound student migration, often via political and economic agendas. Taking the
three countries presented in this chapter as examples, the Chinese government, which largely
sees educational migrants as potential ambassadors who will facilitate trade and cultural ties,
developed a broad and systematic strategy to attract students driven by different motivations; the
South Korean government announced plans to expand its foreign student enrolment to 200,000
by 2023 with the considerations of its low birth rate as well as soft growth in the national econ-
omy; Singapore has long considered locally trained international students as foreign talents for
the country’s economic development. With strong state agendas towards attracting international
student migration, competition for students will increase significantly in the future. Cooperation
between universities in the form of partnerships to strengthen teaching and research, and also to
facilitate student exchanges to strengthen learning and cultural exposure, will also increase as East
Asian universities become increasingly active in their plans to become internationally relevant.
The use of English has been increased in university programmes in Asia, as universities attempt
to attract more international students and make their degrees more portable.
The phrase ‘learn to move, move to learn’8 is an apt description in understanding inter-
national students. In the process of study abroad, these youths learn to move when they hear
of opportunities through friends, acquire new ambitions as they go through school, gradu-
ate with a degree which is portable and facilitated by a new, useful language, and a social
network they can count on. In particular, as students acquire the host country language and
become fluent in the host country’s culture and customs, they naturally move into employ-
ment and business niches which allow them to act as effective bridges between home and
host countries.
Intra-Asian student mobility within East Asia is likely to develop in tandem with the
economic dynamism of the region, as new education migrants are attracted by after-study
work opportunities and are incentivised by the offer of scholarships. The growing region-
alism encouraged by regional institutions such as ASEAN and ASEAN plus three (Akhir
2016) creates thickening of economic, political and cultural ties, and these facilitate intra-
Asia student flows. As students move within Asia for education, they are likely to remain in
Asia after study.
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Notes
1 This research project was conducted from September 2009 to November 2012. Over 4,000 inter-
national students hosted by nine universities (National University of Singapore, Tokyo University,
Osaka University, Asia Pacific University, Renmin University, Sun Yat-sen University, Seoul National
University, Korean University and National Taiwan University) in five Asian countries (Singapore, Japan,
South Korea, China and Taiwan) were surveyed. About 198 international students, 86 university officials
and 86 alumni were interviewed. See Ge and Ho (2014) for a more detailed discussion of the research
design.
2 Information regarding the number of American students has been released on the website of China’s
Ministry of Education: www.moe.edu.cn/moe_879/moe_329/moe_1798/tnull_35559.html.
3 Information retrieved on 21 May 2016 from the website of the Embassy of the United States in
China: beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/100k-strong.html.
4 Information retrieved from the website of the Central People’s Government of PRC (translated by the
authors) on 19 April 2013: www.gov.cn/zwgk/2010-09/28/content_1711971.htm.
5 Information retrieved from the website of Education in China on 4 May 2013: edu.china.com.cn/
2010-09/30/content_21045439.htm.
6 Refer to the article published by China News entitled ‘Overseas purchase as emerging entrepreneurial
form among international students: cheers and worries’ (‘liuxuesheng haiwai daigou cheng xinxing chuangye
xingshi: rangren huanxi rangren you’ in Chinese) on 28 October 2014: www.chinanews.com/hr/2014/
10–28/6725844.shtml.
7 That said, there is every potential for relations between the two countries to sour, and the worsening ties
may in turn affect the decisions of students to study or to stay. In a paper we are currently developing
on after-study lives, we present the biographies of Chinese students whose plans to study in America
were adversely affected by the Tiananmen incident and who subsequently chose to study in Japan. At
the time of this chapter’s final revision in March 2017, the decision to allow the installation of United
States missiles in South Korea has led to a spat between China and South Korea, affecting economic
activities between the two countries.While such incidents may lead to tensions which may last for vary-
ing periods of time, these have the effect of reducing the size of occupational niches and in turn affect
the time-sensitive job search decisions of graduates.
8 We attribute this phrase to Brack (2004) who used it as the title of her 2004 book. Ai-hsuan Ma, who
worked with us on the GUISM project, used the phrase with regard to international students in one of
the research group discussions.
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6
DIASPORA ENGAGEMENT
AND STATE POLICIES OF
RETURN MIGRATION IN ASIA
Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho and Madeleine Lim Pei Wei
Introduction
Countries across Asia have adopted migration-for-development as a strategy to mitigate unem-
ployment in home countries and extract remittances to boost their national revenue. Under this
approach, diaspora-centred development connotes a set of strategies that focuses on engaging
the diaspora in order to derive benefits for development in the country of origin (see Hickey,
Ho and Yeoh 2014). Emigration was once seen as traitorous to the countries that migrants left,
or resulting in a brain drain for countries that need human capital to drive development. Under
diaspora-centred development, a growing number of migrant-sending countries across Asia and
beyond now recognise the benefits to be derived from emigration, such as through migrant
remittances or the knowledge and skills that migrants accrue from their stint abroad and sub-
sequently transfer to the countries they have left. But migrant-sending states also encourage
return migration as a means through which the savings, knowledge and skills that emigrants
have acquired can be channelled to national development alongside enabling family reunifica-
tion. Diaspora strategising allows migrant-sending states to engage emigrants while they are
overseas and also to prompt them towards or prepare them for return migration.
Under neoclassical models of migration, return is frequently explained as the outcome
of a failed migration experience in which labour migrants did not yield the benefits they
predicted. Another model, the new economics of labour migration (NELM) approach,
on the other hand, tends to portray return as the outcome of a successful stint abroad.
Neoclassical models and the NELM approach posit contrasting interpretations of return
migration (Cassarino 2004). Since the 1990s, a paradigm shift in migration policies has trans-
formed understandings of migration-and-development, emigration and return migration.
A new field of policy initiatives in migrant-sending countries, popularly referred to as ‘dias-
pora strategies’, aims to better leverage the transfer of resources from diaspora populations
to their ancestral lands (Ho and Boyle 2015). State agendas to promote return migration
are implemented through diaspora strategies that seek to strengthen the national loyalty of
migrants, induce return, prepare migrants for return, and mobilise the resource they have as
returnees. Even if migrants remain abroad for good, it is in the interest of the sending state
for migrants to hold on to the myth of return and longing for the ‘homeland’ (Bauböck
2003; Kalm 2013).
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Diaspora engagement
This chapter examines three manifestations of ‘return’ migration observable in Asian coun-
tries: first, the return of labour migrants in unskilled and semi-skilled work; second, highly
skilled and capital-bearing (i.e. high net worth) migrants; and third, diasporic descendants
who were born and bred abroad but subsequently re-migrated to the ancestral land. Through
discussion of the aforementioned migration streams, the chapter draws out patterns of re-
migration (associated with circular migration or transnational sojourning) that complicate
policy and policy perceptions premised on the view that emigration and return migration
function as linear journeys resulting in immigrant settlement elsewhere, or permanent reset-
tlement once returnees move back to the country of origin. The chapter also underlines the
different modalities of diaspora engagement evinced in selected Asian countries depending on
the characteristics of emigrants and the goals such states expect to achieve through managing
emigration and return migration. These countries are chosen to allow the penultimate section
to develop a discussion on the interconnected aspects of the different migration streams fram-
ing this chapter.
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migrants, the OWWA runs a reintegration programme, which encompasses psychosocial wel-
fare (e.g. family counselling and stress management) and economic welfare (e.g. livelihood
projects, community-based income-generating projects, skills training and credit lending) (ILO
2012). It also extends loans for returnees to set up livelihood programmes through entrepre-
neurship (Agunias and Ruiz 2007). The NRCO runs programmes focusing on personal, eco-
nomic and community reintegration. It partners government agencies, including the OWWA
and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), as well as banks and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) to deliver services concerning economic reintegration
(ILO 2012).
Indonesia has an estimated 4.3 million nationals registered as currently working abroad (i.e.
documented migrants). Its reintegration programmes target the returnees, prospective migrants
and their families (Gould et al. 2015: 6). Government agencies such as the Ministry of Social
Affairs’ Directorate of Social Protection for Violence Victims and Migrant Workers (PSKTK-
PM) and the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers
(BNP2TKI) conduct programmes that seek to protect, assist and counsel migrants at the initial
stage of return, before referring them to other institutions that can better provide relevant ser-
vices. Returnees undergo social and cultural reintegration (i.e. community assistance and capac-
ity building) and a series of activities aimed at enhancing their access to economic resources
(i.e. capital, skills improvement and job training) so that they can find suitable employment and
establish their own businesses (Gould et al. 2015).
These government agencies work with other ministries such as the Ministry of Women
Empowerment and Child Protection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry
of Home Affairs, along with NGOs or businesses and donor institutions such as the TIFA
Foundation, Australian Aid, the Japan Sustainable Development Fund (JSDF), the World Bank,
the International Organisation for Migration and the Bank of Indonesia, to ensure not only
the protection and welfare of migrants abroad, but also the economic and social reintegration
of returning migrants (Bachtiar and Prasetyo 2014). NGOs also organise programmes that deal
with specific issues. For instance, through community-level activism, the Women’s Solidarity
for Human Rights advocates for better protection of migrant labourers abroad, improved gov-
ernment regulation of migrant workers’ conditions, increased awareness about migrant issues
and lends professional legal assistance and counselling to returned migrants in need (Gould
et al. 2015).
To provide returning migrants with a safe and reasonably priced transport option, Indonesian
authorities established ‘Terminal 3’ in 1999, to receive returning Indonesian migrant workers
at the international airport. Returning migrant workers, in particular females, are identified by
their bodily comportment and the special documentation they carry as migrant workers, and
are then redirected to coaches that ferry them to the address on their passport.While this meas-
ure is meant to ensure safe passage home for migrant workers who have been abroad for years,
it also prevents returning migrants from going to Jakarta or another locality where migration
brokers there might arrange for them to undertake a new work stint abroad immediately, and
often illegally.This state policy curtails the freedom of returning Indonesian migrant workers to
choose a destination apart from the address stated in their passports. The government-arranged
coach journey also exposes returning migrants to a different set of vulnerabilities, such as when
coach drivers extort bribes from them or work in collusion with money exchange and street
vendors who sell goods and services to them at exorbitant prices before guaranteeing them a
safe journey home (Kloppenburg and Peter 2012).
Of the reintegration programmes designed by state agencies and partner organisations in
both Indonesia and the Philippines, financial literacy and technical assistance dominate the
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services offered to returning migrants.These are meant to develop alternative livelihood options,
to ensure that remittances are spent on productive activities and so that migrant workers are
less likely to re-migrate. But a comprehensive reintegration programme should also focus on
wage employment programmes and provide a choice to re-migrate or work at home (e.g. see
SMERU 2015). Reintegration policies tend to be presented as initiatives of individual organi-
sations, and are often sporadic and insufficient (Bachtiar and Prasetyo 2014).Yet in totality, the
multiple organisations involved result in a duplication of work among agencies, and a complex
bureaucratic maze that returnees have to navigate in order to access service delivery.
Moreover, re-migration remains a popular choice amongst returned migrants. Re-migration
means they can continue to channel remittances for longer-term family goals. On a personal
level, returning migrants also experience changes in their identities and subjectivities, such as
gender roles in the family or lifestyle expectations after living overseas, which makes adjusting
to life back home difficult (Soco 2008). Female migrants who took on work in the sex industry
may experience discrimination or judgement. For a variety of reasons, re-migration provides a
route for migrants to aspire towards a better future for themselves or their families, and should
remain an option to them. Patterns of re-migration also characterise the journeys of highly
skilled and capital-bearing migrants courted by countries of origin. We discuss this in the next
section.
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integration such as de-skilling and social isolation, or desire for family reunification back in
China. More of such returnees who had emigrated to Canada, Australia and New Zealand are
converging in China today. This led to the relaxation of Chinese visa regulations in recognition
of their desire to return to China to be reunited with family members or to work in China
(Ho 2015). Yet such returnees often intend to re-migrate to their country of immigration in
the future, which they perceive as ideal destinations for their children’s education or for retire-
ment; their return to China is only temporary (Ho 2011; Ho and Ley 2013). They identify as
persons of Chinese ethnicity who claim birthright and cultural belonging to China, yet their
legal status identifies them as foreigners in China. Chinese authorities grapple with how to
situate this group of co-ethnics in wider framings of emigration, return migration and onward
re-migration.
Just as with China, the Indian state organises conventions targeting highly skilled and capital-
bearing Indians abroad (Mani and Varadarajan 2005) so to extend symbolic membership, dis-
seminate information about employment or investment opportunities in India, and to promote
return migration. These overtures are meant to harness the skills and capital assets of Indians
abroad, including the transfer of human and financial capital to India during return migration,
so as to advance national development (Chacko 2007). While China’s overtures towards the
Chinese diaspora remain at the level of policies and programmes, the Indian state has enacted
far-reaching legislative changes as part of its diaspora strategising. An earlier classification known
as ‘Persons of Indian Origin’ (PIO) affords bearers of this status a PIO card, which grants special
rights including visa-free travel in or out of India, and to work or study in India. Persons of
Indian Origin are foreigners who bear another country’s nationality but can prove their ances-
tral ties to India (up to four generations). Subsequent changes to India’s citizenship law in 2005
now allow foreigners of Indian descent who hold another country’s citizenship to apply for the
Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI).
Since India bars dual nationality, both the PIO and OCI statuses function as a type of long-
term visa that enables foreigners of Indian descent to maintain legal and material ties with the
ancestral land, which includes facilitating temporary or long-term return.
Despite the reference to ‘citizenship’, holders of the OCI card do not enjoy political rights
such as voting or to stand for elections (similarly for the PIO card). Nonetheless, such schemes
give overseas Indians and returnees bearing these cards an advantage over others, as their quasi-
citizen statuses make them attractive employees for multinational corporations with operations
in India. Also, both PIO and OCI cardholders are entitled to the economic and educational
privileges that Non-Resident Indians enjoy, including a reserved quota for higher education.
In 2015, the PIO scheme was replaced by the OCI scheme, which is deemed more desirable
and fuss-free.
Unlike the PIO which is applicable for up to fourth-generation descendants and their
spouses, the OCI restricts eligibility for this status to overseas Indians up to the third generation.
Spouses of co-ethnics are not eligible for the OCI status. PIO cardholders enjoy visa-free travel
to India for a period of 15 years from the date of issue of the PIO card, but OIC cardholders
are granted multiple entry and life-long visas for visiting India. Both PIO and OIC cardholders
enjoy the freedom to work, study and live in India, but PIO cardholders have to reside in India
for a minimum of seven years before qualifying to apply for citizenship. On the other hand,
OCI cardholders enjoy a shorter route to citizenship. They are eligible to apply for Indian citi-
zenship if they have been OCI cardholders for the previous five years and have resided in India
for at least one of those five years (India Bureau of Immigration 2015).
The policy overtures made by China and India to promote return migration are clearly not
limited to first-generation emigrants but extend to diasporic descendants as well. We examine
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next the policies in other Asian states that aim to encourage the ‘return’ of diasporic descendants
so as to fill specific labour gaps in the economy, while also prioritising co-ethnic and ancestral
ties that diasporic descendants bear (also see Tsuda, this volume, Chapter 7). It is questionable,
however, whether such ethnically privileged migration policies catering to diasporic descend-
ants should be considered ‘return’ or a type of immigration, since these diasporic descendants
were born abroad, hold a foreign nationality and had not lived in the ancestral country previ-
ously (Ho 2013).
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against the ITTP. In 2004, the Employment Permit System (EPS) replaced the ITTP, and under
this the H-2 visa is a preferential scheme for ethnic Koreans from 11 countries, China included,
through which short-term employment visas are obtainable (provided applicants pass a language
test) (Seol and Skrentny 2009).
Diasporic descendants who return to Japan or Korea, particularly if they belong to the
low-waged 3D sector (dirty, dangerous and difficult), experience integration struggles in socie-
ties that uphold cultural homogeneity. Despite co-ethnic relations and the concomitant privi-
lege that diasporic descendants have over other foreigners, they embody distinct cultural habits
and speak the native language differently from Koreans or Japanese who are born and bred
locally (in Korea or Japan respectively). The joseonjok (for Korea) and nikkeijin (for Japan) are
socially excluded because they remain identifiable as foreign-born co-ethnics to the locally
born Korean and Japanese citizens. As co-ethnic immigrants who take on low-paying and low-
skilled work, they also tend to live in residentially segregated cheap housing districts and face
difficulties due to unstable employment, poor working conditions and access barriers to good-
quality education for their children (Tsuda 2003; Seol and Skrentny 2009). Even highly skilled
returnees experience difficulties of integration because of expectations of cultural homogeneity
and conformity in Japanese and Korean societies. Membership and the social acceptance of co-
ethnics remain incomplete even if the state grants them citizenship. Nonetheless, state policies
in both countries are starting to provide a variety of migrant support services to deepen the
integration of co-ethnics from foreign backgrounds. For example, the Japanese government has
established National Strategic Special Zones to attract and house international schools to ease
transition for foreign and returning families (Oishi 2014).
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(ibid). In other words, the challenges of managing the return migration of labour migrants in
Vietnam resonate with those faced by the Philippines and Indonesia. Comparing how Vietnam
responds to these challenges through state level bilateral programmes or working with the pri-
vate sector may provide insights for other Asian countries.
With Korea, the Vietnamese state has established a bilateral programme to send workers
through the Korean Employment Permit Scheme (EPS) so as to minimise desertion rates
amongst Vietnamese labour migrants. Reflecting sustained concerns of desertion, the Korean
government did not renew the memorandum of understanding for this partnership when it
expired in 2012 until later in 2014 (Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014). In comparison,
Japan receives Vietnamese labour migrants through the Japanese Industrial Training Programme
(ITP) and the Technical Internship Program (TIP). Unlike the bilateral programmes between
the Korean and Vietnamese states, labour migration from Vietnam to Japan is handled primarily
through private migration brokers. Ishizuka (2013) highlights that private migration brokers
may be better suited to provide services that benefit both migrants and potential employers,
such as by delivering culturally appropriate pre-departure training, involving employers directly
in the selection process after applicants are trained, and providing job placements for returning
migrants.
With the support of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Vietnamese
state has also set up the Migration Resource Centre (MRC) to provide information and sup-
port services to returning Vietnamese migrant workers. Nonetheless, the broad policy brush-
strokes observable in the Vietnamese case should not be taken at face value as ‘best practices’ for
Asian countries. Ground-level observations, particularly ethnographic studies, of return migrant
experiences in Vietnam are fewer compared to equivalent research that has been conducted in
the Philippines and Indonesia. There remains a pressing need to assess the realities of policies as
experienced by migrants, returnees and their families in the Vietnamese context.
Another set of useful insights can be found through comparing ethnically privileged migra-
tion policies in Vietnam with those evinced in Korea, Japan, China and India (as discussed in the
previous sections).Through earlier cohorts of refugee exodus and labour migration, generations
of Vietnamese have settled overseas and their children bear foreign nationality status (Viet Kieu).
Whereas Japan and Korea’s policies on the nikkeijin and joseonjok respectively have focused on
encouraging the ‘return’ of diasporic descendants so as to fill labour shortages in the domes-
tic economy’s low-paid and low-skilled sectors, the goal of the Vietnamese state is to entice
capital-bearing overseas Vietnamese to invest and open businesses in Vietnam. In this respect,
the policies promoting the ‘return’ of highly skilled and capital-bearing diasporic descendants
to Vietnam are similar to the policies that have been advanced by China and India, including
through diaspora strategising.
For example, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has signalled its intentions to
reform and create new systems of incentives and rewards to maximise overseas Vietnamese
brainpower for national development. The CPV also seeks to tap on Viet Kieu experts and
intellectuals to advise state agencies on management, the transfer of technology, and national
arts and cultural development. Domestic agencies and institutions are strongly encouraged
to work with these highly skilled overseas Vietnamese, and seek collaboration with them
to lobby for Vietnamese interests in countries where they reside. With these policy goals in
mind, the CPV has advanced policy changes to help overseas Vietnamese to resolve issues
concerning property purchase, inheritance, marriage, family, and more, so as to facilitate
their return migration. In 2015, a visa exemption for the Viet Kieu was introduced to stream-
line administrative procedures. Under this scheme, the Viet Kieu are entitled to stay for up
to six months in Vietnam with an additional visa extension for another six months. It allows
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Viet Kieu to return home without entry visas, opening up legal channels for reintegration in
Vietnamese society (Anh et al. 2003).
Conclusion
This chapter has considered three manifestations of ‘return’ migration and how state poli-
cies seek to prompt or manage return outcomes. It focuses attention on the ‘return’ of labour
migrants, highly skilled and capital-bearing emigrants, as well as diasporic descendants. The
chapter argues that diaspora strategising provides a means for migrant-sending countries to
reach out to emigrants and diasporic descendants so as to influence return migration decisions.
As part of the migration-and-development nexus, ‘return’ migration across the three migration
streams is promoted by state policies with the view that it will facilitate national development
through the transfer of human capital and financial assets to countries of origin, or to meet gaps
in the domestic labour market.
The chapter also shows that in some cases, return and reintegration planning are already
incorporated into pre-departure programmes for labour migrants such as in the Philippines and
Indonesia. Even so, such labour migrants might face challenges to do with directing their savings
and skills to sustainable livelihood outcomes through entrepreneurship or paid employment, and
psychological adjustments upon their return. The process of return and reintegration must be
managed effectively to enhance the positive impacts of migration on development, and to protect
the rights and interests of migrants who experienced negative outcomes (IOM 2015). The case
of Vietnam brings into view some of the interconnected aspects of labour migration policies and
return migration policies across migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries, particularly
how the mechanisms of labour migration can promote or deter positive outcomes during return
migration.The case of Vietnam also highlights the convergences in ethnically privileged migration
polices mooted in countries such as Korea and Japan, even if such policies have been tailored to
meet the specific labour market needs or economic sectors that these countries want to develop.
Discussion of the three migration streams framing this chapter also signals that the notion
of ‘return’ is complicated by the re-migration patterns demonstrated both by labour migrants
and highly skilled or high net worth migrants discussed, as in the preceding sections. When
it comes to labour migration, state policies of return still focus on reintegration meas-
ures, despite patterns of re-migration evinced amongst labour migrants in the Philippines,
Indonesia and Vietnam. State policies of return, such as in India, China and Vietnam, have
been more ready to acknowledge and support the re-migration intentions of the highly
skilled and high net worth migrants who hold citizenship status in other countries. At the
same time, applying the label ‘return’ to the case of diasporic descendants reinforces a slip-
page premised on national imaginaries, even though such migrants may not have lived in the
ancestral land previously (Ho 2013). The re-migration routes highlighted across the different
migration streams discussed in this chapter suggest that ‘return’ has to be studied with an
openness to the ongoing geographical journeys that migrants chart across their life course
(Ho and Ley 2013).
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7
ETHNIC RETURN MIGRATION
IN EAST ASIA
Japanese Brazilians in Japan and
conceptions of homeland
Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
Ethnic return migration refers to later generation descendants of immigrants who ‘return’ to their
countries of ancestral origin after living outside their ethnic homelands for generations (Tsuda
2009).This type of migration is quite significant in East Asia, especially in Japan and South Korea,
which rely on ethnic return migrants for the bulk of their unskilled immigrant labour force. Close
to a million second-and third-generation Japanese and Korean descendants scattered across Latin
America, Eastern Europe and China have return-migrated to Japan and Korea since the late 1980s.
China and Taiwan have also been receiving ethnic Chinese descendants from various Southeast
Asian countries. There has even been limited ethnic return migration to various Southeast Asian
countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam (Tsuda 2009: 1–3).
Although such ethnic return migration may appear to be more ethnically driven than other
types of international migration, most of the migrants are not returning to their ethnic home-
lands to reconnect with their ancestral roots or explore their ethnic heritage. Instead, they are
generally migrating from less-developed countries to more economically prosperous ances-
tral homelands (often in the developed world) in search of jobs, higher incomes, and a better
standard of living. Nonetheless, when faced with economic pressures, these migrants choose to
return to their ethnic homelands instead of migrating to other countries because of the nos-
talgic attachment and ethnocultural affinity they feel toward their countries of ancestral origin.
In addition, ethnic return migration has been made possible because homeland governments
have adopted immigration and nationality policies that reach out to their diasporic descendants
born and raised in various countries abroad and enable them to return to their ethnic home-
land (see Skrentny et al. 2007; Joppke 2005; Tsuda 2010; Ho and Lim, this volume, Chapter 6).
Governments have extended the right of ethnic return partly in recognition of their historical
ethnic connections and obligations to their diasporic peoples, but also for economic reasons,
such as to fill labour shortages and encourage investment from descendants overseas.
As John Skrentny et al. (2007) note, nation-states in East Asia (Japan, South Korea, China,
Taiwan) have invited back their diasporic descendants mainly for economic purposes (see also
Joppke 2005: 158–9). Japan and South Korea have imported large numbers of ethnic return
migrants in response to acute unskilled labour shortages caused by decades of economic pros-
perity coupled with low fertility rates. South Korea and China (and to some extent, Southeast
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Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
Asian countries) have encouraged wealthy and high-skilled ethnic descendants in the diaspora
to return-migrate in order to promote economic investment from abroad and to tap their
professional skills. These countries (especially Japan and South Korea) have decided to allow
diasporic return for economic reasons because they assumed ethnic return migrants would find
it easier to culturally assimilate and socially integrate (compared to racially and culturally differ-
ent foreigners) and not disrupt their ethnic homogeneity.
In contrast to ethnic return migrants to Europe and Israel, who are given citizenship before
or upon ethnic return (Cook-Martín and Viladrich 2009; Iglicka 1998: 1008; Joppke 2005: 245–
247; Skrentny et al. 2007), those in East Asia are generally given only preferential visas, since
they are being imported primarily as immigrant workers for economic purposes. The Japanese
government issues indefinitely renewable short-term visas to ethnic return migrants, and China
has even offered permanent residence to its high-skilled ethnic returnees (Skrentny et al. 2007).
In South Korea, ethnic Koreans from China and the former Soviet Union have been offered
only a limited number of work visas (industrial trainee visas in the past and, more recently, a
five-year work visa). Because most of its diasporic descendants are located in neighbouring
China, the Korean government has been concerned about a flood of Korean Chinese labour
migrants and has therefore not adopted a more open policy toward them.This has caused many
of them to immigrate illegally, but with the tacit consent of the Korean government which has
conveniently looked the other way (Lim 2006: 241).
Homeland marginalisation
Although ethnic return migrants share a common bloodline and ancestry with the host popula-
tion, their privileged status as ‘co-ethnics’ does not lead to the expected social pay-off in their
ethnic homelands. In fact, they often have the same problems as other immigrants in the host
society and become ethnically and socioeconomically marginalised minorities in their coun-
tries of ancestral origin (see Tsuda 2009: 325–333).
In contrast to ordinary labour migrants, who view the receiving society as mainly a place
of economic opportunity, ethnic return migrants often expect an ethnic homecoming of sorts,
and indeed they are initially admitted as ethnic compatriots and brethren by homeland gov-
ernments. Yet, despite this official welcome, few ethnic return migrants experience the warm
reception they anticipate in their ancestral homelands. Most ethnic return migrants simply lack
the linguistic and cultural competence necessarily for acceptance as ‘co-ethnics’ in their ances-
tral homelands because they have been living for generations abroad and have become culturally
assimilated to their respective countries of birth. Therefore, when they ‘return’ to their ethnic
homelands, despite their shared bloodline, their ethnic heritage is seemingly denied on cultural
grounds by their ancestral compatriots when they are identified as foreign nationals. The cul-
tural marginalisation and social exclusion that return migrants experience is especially acute in
more ethnically homogeneous East Asian societies like Japan and South Korea, with restrictive
ethno-national identities that demand not only shared racial descent, but complete linguistic
and cultural proficiency for national inclusion and even social acceptance.
Most ethnic return migrants are also socioeconomically marginalised since they are fre-
quently offered only low-status, unskilled immigrant jobs that are shunned by the majority
populace. Because many of them are from relatively well-educated, middle-class backgrounds
before migrating, ethnic return migration involves considerable loss of social status and declass-
ing. Not only must they toil as unskilled, manual labourers in difficult, stigmatised jobs, they must
also psychologically cope with a serious decline in status from former, respected middle-class
occupations to degrading working-class jobs, which can have negative effects on self-worth and
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esteem. Because of their marginalisation as immigrant minorities, many ethnic return migrants
remain socially unintegrated in their homelands. In some cases, they are segregated in immi-
grant ethnic communities and interact primarily amongst themselves in their own languages,
often resisting attempts by mainstream society to culturally assimilate and socially incorporate
them (see e.g. Song 2009; Tsuda 2003b: 155–219).
Therefore, despite their ethnic affinity with their ancestral homeland, the ‘homecomings’
of ethnic return migrants are quite ambivalent, if not negative experiences, as they become
culturally foreign immigrant minorities confined to low-status jobs and subject to social seg-
regation. In fact, they often experience levels of ethnic and socioeconomic marginalisation
equivalent to ordinary labour migrants. Such negative ethnic receptions are disappointing, if not
dismaying, for many of them and shatter their previously favourable, romantic images of their
ethnic homelands. Because ethnic return migrants have prior expectations of ethnic belong-
ing in their country of ancestral origin, most of them are quite surprised, even shocked by
their ethnic rejection and social exclusion (Cook-Martín and Viladrich 2009; Song 2009;Tsuda
2003b: 155–219, 2009: 329). As their previous idealised and nostalgic images of their ancestral
country are seriously disrupted, they become culturally alienated immigrant minorities who are
strangers in their ethnic homeland.
Therefore, ethnic return migrants are often forced to reconsider the meaning of homeland.
This is especially important because they technically have two homelands: the ethnic homeland,
where their ethnic group originated, and the natal homeland, where they were born and raised.
Unlike other types of immigrants, who are often part of the majority society in their natal
homeland, most ethnic return migrants were ethnic minorities in their country of birth because
of their foreign descent. However, when they migrate to their ethnic homeland, they become
minorities all over again because of their foreign cultural upbringing, causing some of them to
feel that they are a people without a homeland.
Quite often, the negative homecomings and sociocultural alienation that most ethnic return
migrants experience challenge their previously idealised and nostalgic affinity for their ethnic
homeland. As a result, their country of ethnic origin comes to no longer feel like a homeland
(cf. Christou 2006: 1048; Fox 2003: 457; Tsuda 2009: 342), and instead, they may redefine their
natal homeland as the true homeland (see Pilkington 1998: 194; Capo Zmegac 2005: 206;Tsuda
2009: 242–247). Although they did not initially regard their country of birth as a ‘homeland’ per
se, when they are separated from it through migration and are confronted by a negative ethnic
reception abroad, they become homesick and develop positive nostalgic sentiments for their natal
country as the place where they truly belonged. In this manner, homelands are often discovered
through migration and physical absence, causing ethnic return migrants to prioritise their natal
over their ethnic homeland. In East Asia, ethnic return migrants who have such experiences
include Korean descendants from China and Japan residing in South Korea, and Japanese-descent
nikkeijin from South America residing in Japan.The next section will examine the experiences of
Japanese Brazilians in Japan and their reconsideration of the meanings of homeland.
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Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
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dilemma: an effective way to deal with the labour shortage without threatening Japan’s ethnic
homogeneity.
A Justice bureaucrat I interviewed who was involved in the immigration debate described
the situation as follows:
Not only did the nikkeijin allay the ethno-national concerns of the Japanese state, the govern-
ment was also able to obtain a much-needed immigrant labour force, thus meeting its eco-
nomic labour demands without contradicting, at least on the level of official appearances, the
fundamental principle of Japanese immigration policy that no unskilled foreign workers will be
accepted (see also de Carvalho 2003: 151). Although it is evident that the government viewed
the legal admission of the nikkeijin as a convenient means to alleviate a crippling labour shortage
and reduce the influx of illegal foreign workers (Kajita 1994: 172; Kondo 2002: 424), officials
from various ministries claimed that this was not the true intent of the policy and did not offi-
cially recognise the nikkeijin as unskilled foreign workers. Instead, the policy was ideologically
justified as an opportunity provided by the benevolence of the Japanese government for those
of Japanese descent born abroad to explore their ethnic heritage and visit their ancestral home-
land (see Kajita 1994: 170; Kondo 2002: 424).
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Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
strongly with positive images of Japan and Japanese culture. While acknowledging their sta-
tus as Brazilian nationals, they maintain a transnational ethnic identification as ‘Japanese’ in
Brazil and believe they have retained many positive aspects of their ethnic heritage (Tsuda
2003b: 65–82).
As a result, when Japanese Brazilians return-migrate to Japan, they are quite disconcerted by
the ethnic exclusion and socioeconomic marginalisation they confront, in turn prompting them
to strengthen nationalist sentiments as Brazilians and rethink the meaning of homeland (see
Tsuda 2009: 242–7). Although they have been officially welcomed by the Japanese government
as co-ethnic Japanese descendants, they are ethnically excluded in Japan and treated as foreigners
because of their Brazilian cultural differences. When talking about their migrant experiences,
they frequently say ‘we were considered Japanese in Brazil, but are seen as Brazilian foreigners
here in Japan’. Their previous assumptions of cultural commonality with the Japanese come
under serious questioning as they realise that their supposedly ‘Japanese’ cultural attributes,
which were sufficient to be considered ‘Japanese’ in Brazil, are woefully insufficient to qualify
as Japanese in Japan, or even to help them gain social acceptance. In the words of a Brazilian
nikkeijin:
We think we are Japanese in Brazil, but in Japan, we find out that we were wrong.
If you act differently and don’t speak Japanese fluently, the Japanese say you are a
Brazilian. To be considered Japanese, it is not sufficient to have a Japanese face and eat
with chopsticks.You must think, act, and speak just like the Japanese
(Tsuda 2009: 243).
Many Japanese Brazilians therefore realise that, in Japan, they are culturally much more Brazilian
than they ever were ‘Japanese’, leading to a nationalisation of their ethnic identity. For instance,
although they frequently adopt a quieter and more restrained, if not shier, ‘Japanese’ demeanour
in Brazil, they discover that in Japan, their manner of walking, dressing, and gesturing is strik-
ingly different from the Japanese. Remarkably, virtually all nikkeijin I interviewed claimed that
it is extremely easy to tell the Japanese Brazilians apart from the Japanese on the streets because
of such differences. For instance, consider the following statement:
I can see a [Japanese] Brazilian coming from a mile away with about 90 per cent cer-
tainty… The Brazilians walk casually with a more carefree gait and glance around at
their surroundings and they are dressed casually in T-shirts and jeans. The Japanese are
more formally dressed and walk in a more rushed manner. The Brazilians also gesture
much more than Japanese and walk around in groups, whereas the Japanese are usu-
ally alone
(Tsuda 2009: 243).
The shift in ethnic identity among the Japanese Brazilians, from an initially stronger Japanese
consciousness in Brazil to an increased nationalist awareness of their Brazilianness, is also a
response to their experiences of social alienation in Japan. Because of their strong personal
affiliation with their ethnic homeland, many expect to be socially accepted by the Japanese in a
manner consistent with an ethnic ‘homecoming’ of Japanese descendants. As a result, when such
expectations are unfulfilled and they experience ethnic rejection as culturally alien foreign-
ers and socioeconomic marginalisation as low-status, unskilled migrant workers in Japan, the
Brazilian nikkeijin feel quite alienated, as shown by their numerous reactions of disillusionment
and even dismay.
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A good number of my Japanese Brazilian informants were surprised, if not ‘shocked’, by their
ethnic and social marginalisation in Japan. In the words of one of them:
In Brazil, we were always proud of our Japanese ancestry and our ties to Japan and
thought of the Japanese people in positive ways. Although I don’t speak Japanese that
well, I thought the Japanese would accept us because we are Japanese descendants.
Coming to Japan and being treated as a foreigner despite my Japanese face was a
big shock for me, a shock I’ll never forget. I think it’s unfair that we are not socially
accepted here simply because we’ve become culturally different
(Tsuda 2009: 244).
A number of times, the Brazilian nikkeijin referred to their social segregation in Japan as ‘dis-
crimination’; some even used the more ethnically charged term ‘racism’. For example, consider
the comments of an older nikkeijin man:
The Japanese always keep us separated from them because of the prejudices that they
have. I was offended when I first saw this social separation. There are some Japanese
who simply don’t like us and don’t trust us because we are Brazilian. If you don’t
understand Japanese culture and act just like the Japanese, they discriminate against
you and you can’t enter their group. The Japanese are racists, so even the [Japanese]
Brazilians experience discrimination here
(Tsuda 2009: 244).
The social alienation that Japanese Brazilian ethnic return migrants experience in Japan there-
fore completely undermines their previously favourable images of, and nostalgic attachment to,
their ethnic homeland of Japan. As Japan comes to take on a quite negative meaning for them,
many of them emotionally distance themselves from the country and no longer experience it
as an ethnic homeland. Homeland is not simply a place of origin –it must be imbued with
positive emotions as a place of desire and longing to which the individual feels a strong sense
of attachment and identification (cf. Al-Ali and Koser 2002: 7). Therefore, even though Japan
technically remains the country of ethnic and ancestral origin for the Japanese Brazilians in an
objective sense, it is no longer associated with the feelings of affiliation and fondness that make
homelands subjectively meaningful.
As the Japanese Brazilians are alienated from their ethnic homeland of Japan, they strengthen
their nationalist attachment to Brazil as the natal homeland where they truly belong and origi-
nated. In this manner, their country of birth is reconceptualised in nationalist terms as the true
homeland in contrast to their country of ethnic origin. A common sentiment is encapsulated
in the following words:
We come to Japan and realise Japan is not our country. It is the country of our parents
and grandparents. Although we are Japanese descendants, we don’t belong here. We
can’t enter Japanese society because the Japanese don’t accept us. Instead, our country
is Brazil. It is where we were born and where we grew up
(Tsuda 2009: 245).
However, Brazil does not become the true homeland for the Brazilian nikkeijin simply because
they have been denied their ethnic homeland in Japan. In order for a country of origin to
become subjectively meaningful and significant as a real homeland, and therefore as a source
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Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
of nationalist identity, it must be viewed in a positive and desirable manner. For the Japanese
Brazilians, Brazil emerges as the true homeland through the migration process because it is
imbued with positive meaning and affect when contrasted with the negative social experiences
they have in Japan (see also Linger 2001: 266–267).
When they return-migrate and are confronted by the exclusionary nature of Japanese soci-
ety, they begin to value and appreciate the ethnically receptive and inclusive nature of multi-
ethnic Brazil to a much greater extent than before. The supposedly cold and impersonal nature
of Japanese social relationships causes many of them to reminisce (almost nostalgically) about
the emotionally warm and affectionate social relationships they had in Brazil. Others (espe-
cially Japanese Brazilian women) also note the gender inequality prevalent in Japan, both at the
workplace and in spousal relationships, in contrast to Brazil, which is portrayed as a society of
more equality and mutual respect among the sexes. Other aspects of the Japanese which are fre-
quently brought up for specific criticism are the excessive dedication to work and company at
the expense of fulfilling family or social lives, group conformity and obedience, and the overly
restrictive and structured nature of their lives, which many Brazilians nikkeijin again contrast
with the more favourable social experience of Brazilians’ ability to enjoy life. In this manner,
as they discover negative aspects of Japan and distance themselves from their previous ethnic
identification as ‘Japanese’, the Japanese Brazilians simultaneously rediscover and reaffirm the
positive aspects of Brazil that they had previously taken for granted, which produces a renewed
appreciation of their status as Brazilian nationals.
As Brazil is favourably reconstituted in this manner by the Japanese Brazilians abroad, it no
longer remains an affectively neutral place of birth, but becomes an emotionally charged, almost
idealised object of desire worthy of a true homeland. As a result, many of them ironically feel a
greater sense of nationalist loyalty and identification with Brazil in Japan than they ever did in
Brazil. Some of my informants (especially those who had been living in Japan for several years)
recalled their natal homeland with rather fond memories. Although the Japanese Brazilians were
frequently critical of many aspects of Brazilian society back home, I observed a notable ten-
dency among them to praise Brazil in Japan, even to an exaggerated extent. Brazil is still char-
acterised as a country with serious political, economic, and social problems, but other aspects
of Brazil are spoken of highly and contrasted favourably with Japan, such as its people, culture,
material living conditions, natural resources and agriculture, sports heroes, and food. One of my
informants spoke about this positive reassessment of Brazil in the clearest terms:
Brazilians always think other countries are much better. The Japanese Brazilians saw
Japan in this way too. But now, I realise we were wrong. We didn’t know what we had
in Brazil. There is no better place than Brazil to live, especially because we were born
there and have no cultural problems.The people are better there and so are the condi-
tions of living. I value Brazil much more now
(Tsuda 2009: 246).
Some Brazilian nikkeijin in Japan even used affect-laden terms such as patriotism and love to
express their renewed, emotional affiliation to their natal homeland. ‘In Brazil, I never gave too
much value to the country, but now I do,’ a woman interviewee said. ‘I feel more patriotism
towards Brazil.’ Another declared: ‘My sentiments for my homeland of Brazil and my love for
the country will never leave me no matter how long I stay in Japan.’ Others expressed similar
feelings.
A number of Japanese Brazilians make a point of asserting their Brazilian nationalist identi-
ties in their daily behaviour. This ranges from constantly identifying themselves as Brazilian
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111
foreigners to avoid being mistaken as Japanese, to more overt, if not defiant, demonstrations of
their cultural Brazilianness by wearing ‘Brazilian’ clothes, speaking Portuguese loudly in pub-
lic, dancing samba in the streets, and ‘acting Brazilian’ in other ways (Tsuda 2003b: 263–287).
This greater sense of Brazilian national allegiance and pride among the nikkeijin in Japan is also
symbolised by the prominent display of the Brazilian flag in their ethnic stores and restaurants,
although the flag is hardly ever displayed in Brazil. During the 2002 FIFA World Cup (held
in Japan and Korea), thousands of Japanese Brazilians waving the Brazilian flag and dressed in
national colours showed up in stadiums all over Japan to cheer on their national team, causing
the American TV broadcasters to wonder why so many ‘Japanese’ were so fervently rooting for
the Brazilian team.
In this manner, the dislocations of migration can produce a form of deterritorialised national-
ism where national loyalties to natal homelands are articulated outside the territorial boundaries
of the nation-state. In fact, countries of birth are often discovered and articulated as homelands
in the process of migration and travel (see also Clifford 1997). Absence from a place of origin
often causes it to become the object of nostalgic desire and longing, and to be reconceptualised
as a homeland. Migrants’ encounters with foreign societies frequently disrupt the taken-for-
granted nature of their own country, causing them to re-evaluate it in a much more favourable
light when compared with the negative experiences of social rejection and alienation abroad.
This produces a greater sense of national allegiance and identification toward the country of
origin as the true homeland.
Because of the alienation that the Brazilian nikkeijin experience in their ethnic homeland of
Japan and their heightened sense of national loyalty toward Brazil, it is not surprising that few
initially wish to live in Japan long-term or permanently and many eventually return to Brazil.
However, a good number of them end up re-migrating to Japan for economic reasons, initiating
a pattern of circular migration. When the Japanese Brazilians return to Brazil, they experience
considerable difficulty re-establishing themselves occupationally and economically. Since most
either quit their jobs in Brazil or closed their private businesses before migrating, few are able to
resume their previous occupations. Many Japanese Brazilians find that their savings accumulated
in Japan are quickly depleted if they cannot find a steady source of income in Brazil. As a result,
when they return to Brazil, they eventually end up confronting the same problems of economic
insecurity, insufficient job opportunities, and low wages that caused them to migrate to Japan
in the first place. For many of these individuals, re-migration to Japan to earn more money
becomes the only option. Therefore, once they migrate, some Japanese Brazilians are caught in
a self-perpetuating cycle in which they become dependent on circular migration for financial
survival. This leads to a liminal existence where they are economically marginalised in Brazil
and socially marginalised in Japan.
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Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
2001: 55–56), the two places do not always correspond for migrants. Homeland is a place of
origin to which one feels emotionally attached whereas home is simply a stable place of resi-
dence that feels secure, comfortable, and familiar (see also Constable 1999: 206–207; Markowitz
2004: 24; Stefansson 2004: 174). While it may often be the case that homeland is where indi-
viduals feel at home, home and homeland are not always the same place.
For many ethnic return migrants, their ancestral homeland definitely does not feel like
home. However, this has not prevented them from settling in the host society and eventually
making it into a new home because of economic and social reasons, even if it remains an inhos-
pitable place where they are not socially well integrated. Although ethnic return migrants in
East Asia are temporarily admitted for economic needs, a good number have prolonged their
stays in an attempt to achieve their financial goals, called over their family members, and are
becoming immigrant settlers (see Tsuda 1999). As noted above, even some Japanese Brazilians
who return to Brazil end up remigrating to Japan, increasing the chances that they will settle
there in the future.
The settlement of ethnic return migrants is causing another disjuncture between home and
homeland. Although the ethnic homeland does not feel like a homeland to many of them, it
has definitely become a home over time, as many have decided to settle long-term with their
families and have grown accustomed to life in these countries. For instance, Japanese Brazilians
in Japan have created very cohesive immigrant ethnic communities with a wide range of ethnic
businesses, various services, organisations, and churches, and an active ethnic media, all supported
by extensive transnational economic, political, and social connections with their sending coun-
tries (see Tsuda 2003b: Chapter 4). Although they remain socially alienated in the host society,
they feel well situated and comfortable living in these self-contained immigrant communities,
where they can conduct their daily lives amongst family and compatriots in culturally familiar
settings without much contact with mainstream society, while remaining actively in touch with
their countries of birth. As a result, they have created a home away from the natal homeland.
Undoubtedly, the immigrant host society does not have to be experienced as a homeland for
it to be considered as a home. In fact, immigrants around the world have shown a remarkable
ability to create homes in alienating, foreign places (see Constable 1999: 208; Markowitz 2004:
25), and ethnic return migrants are no exception, enabling them to resist the negative effects of
their social alienation and homesickness abroad (Tsuda 2003a).
Note
1 The statistics can be found online via www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001111183.
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———. (2003b). Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational
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———, ed. (2009). Diasporic Homecomings: Ethnic Return Migration in Comparative Perspective. Stanford:
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— — — . and Cornelius, W. (2004). Japan: government policy, immigrant reality. In W.A. Cornelius,
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———. (2010). Ethnic return migration and the nation-state: encouraging the diaspora to return ‘home’.
Nations and Nationalism, 16 (4), pp. 616–636.
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8
CONCEPTUALISING ASIAN
MEDICAL TRAVEL AS
MEDICAL MIGRATIONS
Andrea Whittaker
Increasing numbers of people across Asia are travelling across national borders for health
care. Stereotypical depictions of medical travel typically describe the movements of wealthy
western patients travelling large distances to seek health services in developing countries.
But as many authors have noted, such descriptions do not capture the complexity of medical
travel and its articulation with other forms of mobility (Connell 2013). Medical travel is not
a singular phenomenon, but one that varies depending on region, country of origin, destina-
tion, financial status, type and status of the medical treatment required, legal status of patients,
language and cultural affinity, distance travelled, citizenship and social support (Whittaker and
Chee 2016). There are divergent motivations, experiences and circumstances under which
such movements take place (Roberts and Scheper Hughes 2011; Whittaker, Manderson and
Cartwright 2010).
This diversity of medical mobilities is reflected in the terms used across the public health and
health services, tourism, geography, ethics, migration studies, anthropological and sociological
literature: ‘international medical travel’, ‘cross-border care ‘, medical tourism’ or ‘transnational
healthcare practices’ (for example, Bell et al. 2015; Kangas 1996, 2007; Whittaker 2008; Connell
2011, 2013; Snyder, Dharamsi and Crooks 2011; Ormond 2013b; Ormond and Mainil 2015;
Lunt et al. 2015; Stan 2015). The various terms chosen to describe this mobility reflect both
the empirical realities described by various authors in particular destinations or associated with
particular medical procedures, and also the disciplinary background and focus. Each term brings
a particular analytic lens to our understanding of the phenomenon. Work on medical travel has
tended to be largely descriptive, documenting north/south disparities and equity issues involved
in the trade; the push and pull factors that influence patient motivations and decision-making;
the risks associated with patients going abroad, and returning home for follow-up care; and
the advantages and disadvantages for sending and receiving countries’ health systems and com-
munities (for summaries see Johnston et al. 2010, Crooks et al. 2010; Connell 2013; Hopkins
et al. 2010; Whittaker 2008, 2015b). There is an emerging literature which I review within this
chapter that is focused on Asian settings, which adds to our understanding of the complexities
of such travel and its relationships with other flows of people.
Viewing medical travel within a framework of migration allows us to view the continuities and
ruptures of medical travel with other kinds of global mobilities and migrations. Anthropologists
Elizabeth Roberts and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (2011) first used the term ‘medical migrations’
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for considering travel in the pursuit of biomedical treatments, body interventions or biologi-
cal logics. They suggest that ‘migration’ refers to the ‘directed, regular or systematic movement’
(2011: 4) of people, technologies and biological materials which are involved in or used in the
health services trade. The use of the term medical migrations ‘emphasise(s) their production
within particular political-economic configurations of globalised bio-medicine, which involve
the disparate and unequal distribution of health and sickness, health care, and the maintenance
of borders between bodies, social collectivities (classes, castes, races), polities and nation-states’
(2011: 4–5). Mobile patients cross not only geographical boundaries, but traverse different
health systems, regulatory systems and economic disparities in health care resourcing between
their home and destination countries.
In this chapter I respond to Roberts and Scheper-Hughes’s (2011) call for a consideration of
medical travel as a form of migration, describing its common characteristics with other trans-
national movements and how it articulates with other forms of migration. I concentrate upon
movements for biomedical health care, although smaller trades have long existed across Asia
for traditional medicines and healers, Chinese or Ayurvedic treatments (Golomb 1985;Vafadari
2015).The various relationships between medical migrations in Asia and other movements may
be conceptualised as in Figure 8.1.
In this figure each circle represents a transnational social field overlapping with movements
for medical care. In reality the boundaries between these various fields are not neatly defined
but blurry and dynamic, and at times overlapping. They are intersected by national bounda-
ries, geographical space and social networks, and structured by state policies governing the
Retirement
Expatriate
Tourism work
migration
Medical
Other trade, migrations
education and Forced
social network migrations
flows
Diasporic
Medical staff return
migrations
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Andrea Whittaker
movements of people, the growth of trade in health services and the education of medical staff.
The spaces of clinics and hospitals are transnational spaces also intersected by economic status,
and ethnic and cultural differences (Whittaker and Chee 2015).
Arjun Appadurai (1990:6–7) describes globalisation’s flows through the concept of ‘scapes’.
He identifies five global flows: ethnoscapes (flows of people, both temporary and permanent),
mediascapes (flows of images), technoscapes (flows of technology and information), finanscapes
(flows of capital) and ideoscapes (ideological flows). These concepts have proved productive for
authors describing forms of medical travel such as reproductive travel (i.e. Inhorn and Shrivastav
(2010) on ‘reproscapes’) and cosmetic surgery travel (i.e. Holliday et al. (2015) on ‘beauty-
scapes’). In this chapter I primarily explore the ‘ethnoscapes’ associated with medical travel,
the various flows of people that intersect within the international medical travel trade in Asia.
Although not discussed here, medical technologies, other care workers, body tissues such as
organs or ova, capital, media images and new imaginations of bodies also move across these
fields to service and facilitate the trade.
In the first part of this chapter I describe the major medical hubs that have developed in Asia.
I then explore how intra-regional medical travel to access quality medical services is becoming
pervasive in many parts of Asia. These movements trace similar paths to other migratory flows
for trade, education and work, and carry cultural meanings and values associated with care
for family and kin members. Finally, I explore how Asian medical migrations intersect with
other forms of migration such as: the movements of expatriate workers, retirement migrants,
diasporic returnees seeking medical care in familiar surroundings, as well as the movements
of forced migrants and refugees, or those forced to travel due to failing health systems in their
home countries. In addition, these migrations are implicated in movements of medical staff (and
technologies) across the region (Beladi et al. 2015) and linked to existing networks of people
travelling for education. In the final part of this chapter I consider the regular and systematic
movements of people within the region for medical care across these various categories. This
chapter synthesises material from a range of ethnographic studies in the region and also draws
upon fieldwork undertaken by the author, the collaborating researcher (Chee Heng Leng) and
research assistant (Por Heong Hong) on medical travel in Malaysia and Thailand (see Whittaker
and Chee 2015, 2016; Whittaker, Chee and Por 2015 for details).
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Thailand is a leading medical hub in Asia, drawing upon a skilled medical workforce, exten-
sive tourism infrastructure, and service industries (Wilson 2010: 119). A study of patient records
from the five largest private hospitals in Thailand found that a total of 104, 830 patients defined
as ‘medical tourists’ visited in 2010, accounting for 324,926 separate visits and generating
US$180 million (Noree et al. 2014). The source countries for patients are diverse. In 2010 the
top three countries of origin of patients to Thailand in 2010 were the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) (accounting for 20 per cent of total foreign patients) (see Whittaker 2015a), Bangladesh
and the US, followed by Myanmar, Oman and Qatar, then the UK (Noree et al. 2014).
Singapore planned to make the country into an international medical centre since around
1986 (Pocock and Phua 2011; Phua 1995). The Singapore state supports medical tourism
through Singapore Medicine, a multi-agency government-industry body carrying out promo-
tion and marketing, led by the Ministry of Health and supported by the Singapore Economic
Board and other government agencies. The major flows of patients to Singapore are from
Malaysia and Indonesia although the country has undertaken to further diversify source coun-
tries. Singapore has less competitive prices than neighbouring Malaysia and Thailand, but is
known for its high-tech medicine and surgical expertise. The significance of medical tourism
to the private hospitals is reflected in the percentage of foreign patients, which is about 30 per
cent in the Parkway hospitals, and 30–40 per cent in Raffles Medical Hospital in Singapore
(Chee 2008, 2010).
The estimated number of patients travelling for care to India is 450,000 a year, generating
US$350 million annually (Smith 2012). India draws a significant proportion of its patient cli-
entele from neighbouring South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and the
Maldives (see Knoll 2015), or from the non-resident Indian diaspora (Connell 2011: 70), but has
also been an important destination for government-sponsored medical travel from the Middle
East and Gulf Cooperative Council (see Kangas 2007). A number of major medical corpora-
tions such as Apollo, Max and Fortis dominate the Indian market for medical travellers. These
benefit from ‘soft’ forms of support from the Indian government, including tariff reductions for
expensive equipment, discounts on land prices to hospitals, and regulatory relaxations as well as
a 2002 National Health Policy that explicitly encourages medical tourism, state medical tourism
councils and a visa category for foreign patients and their accompanying caregivers (Solomon
2011: 108).
Malaysia has positioned itself as a medical tourist destination offering inexpensive, high-
quality medical treatment. The majority of patients coming to Malaysia for treatment are from
its nearest neighbour, Indonesia. Out of a total of 671,727 foreign patients in 2012, more than
three-quarters were Indonesians (76.6 per cent in 2011).1 As Ormond and Sulianti (2014) note,
Indonesian patients increasingly manage chronic care needs by commuting on a regular basis
to Malaysia for treatments, prescriptions and check-ups. The state of Penang is the top medical
tourist destination in the country, treating 60 per cent of the country’s total foreign intake of
patients. Most of these patients are from neighbouring Indonesian districts.
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Andrea Whittaker
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There are four types of patients; poor sick men, low-mid, and mid, and first-class.
Those who are first-class, they will definitely prefer Singapore, Thailand, even then
one of my friends was asking me, he said, ‘Okay let’s go to Australia, now medical
science is very developed in Australia for your problem. So those who can afford
Australia, those who can afford Singapore, they will not come to the local hospital.
Sending a family member across borders for medical treatment is also an expression of care to
a family member. For example, Beth Kangas (1996) notes the efforts and economic hardships
undertaken by Yemeni families to send sick family members overseas to India for treatment are
understood as signs of the family’s filial devotion.
The experience of medical migrations also involves affective transitions. Harris Solomon
(2011) writes of the ‘grid of sentiment’ that structures medical travel to India. Narratives rang-
ing from a sense of betrayal, to gratitude, and postcolonial critique of the uncaring West are
expressed by foreign patients in Indian hospitals along with their negotiations around notions
of risk, healthcare costs, and cultural difference. Whittaker and Chee (2015) note how hospitals
themselves as spaces and institutions negotiate the differing cultural and affective expectations
of differing groups of patients. The experience of high-quality care within a foreign medical
system may itself lead to questioning of the source country’s responsibilities and care for its
citizens (Whittaker 2015a).
In some cases the number of patients moving across borders for care is so significant that
local governments appeal to values of patriotism and communal solidarity in efforts to curb the
flow. Ormond (2015b) describes how Indonesian patients describe themselves as undertaking a
valid and justifiable yet ‘reluctant exit’ from their local health system. Laotians crossing for medi-
cal care are criticised as unpatriotic by Laotian authorities (Bochaton 2015: 369).
Local transnational circuits for medical migration often depend upon social networks for
information about doctors, transport and accommodation (for example, see Bochaton 2015).
As in other forms of migration, the social network influences decisions about where and how
to travel, and may also be crucial in supplying the economic means to do so through loans or
collective payment. Informal and formal agents also form important sources of information and
may themselves be transnational, travelling between locations regularly, or having married into
the destination and hence using their local knowledge as the basis for their service (Chee, Por
and Whittaker 2015). In addition, contacts gained in the course of the actual journey may prove
significant in influencing patients’ decision-making. Meghann Ormond’s (2015a) work describ-
ing the actual travel experiences of cross-border patients from Indonesia to Malaysia notes not
only the physical hardship and logistics involved, but the significant role of informal contacts
met en route (see also Bochaton 2015).
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Andrea Whittaker
to foreign men and living in another country, wishing to undertake assisted reproduction in
a familiar health system and culturally and socially supportive setting (Whittaker 2009). These
diasporic populations form a significant part of the medical travel market. Non-resident Indians
(NRI) constitute over 22 per cent of medical tourists in India, alongside second-generation
overseas Indians (Connell 2013; Smith et al. 2009). Studies of South Asian communities in
Britain note the importance of accessing medical services in Indian for these communities,
especially for accessing fertility treatments and to access phenotypically suitable ova and sperm
donors (Culley et al. 2006). Cohen (2011) also describes the movements of overseas Chinese
Malays and diasporic Indians travelling back to their homeland to procure purchased kidneys.
Retirement/lifestyle migration
Retirement migration also intersects with medical travel as Asian countries play host to an
increasing number of retirees relocating for more affordable long-term domestic or institutional
living and care arrangements (Toyota 2006; Ormond and Toyota 2016). In Asia, studies of retire-
ment migration include those from Japan to Southeast Asia (Toyota 2006, 2013; Ono 2008),
from Hong Kong to south China (Ma and Chow 2006), and of retiree enclaves in Malaysia,
Bali and Thailand (Green 2013). Much of this literature describes such migration in terms of
‘lifestyle migration’ (Benson and O’Reilly 2009), but there is increasing recognition of the
importance of health services and carers to these flows. For example, in his study of British retir-
ees living in Penang, Paul Green (2013) notes the importance of access to, and cheaper costs of,
health services as a consideration in people’s narratives. Likewise, Toyota and Xiang (2012: 712)
note that concerns over medical and social care were common motivations for the movement
of Japanese retirees to relocate to Southeast Asia.
Malaysia and Thailand annually attract 20,000 foreign retirees entering on various types of
visas for long stays (Ormond and Toyota 2016). Part of the attraction for retirement in Asia is
the availability of high-quality medical services accessible to many retirees through portable
national health care insurance, as well as the opportunities for live-in domestic care. For example,
Ormond and Toyota (2016) describe how countries of Southeast Asia have become the main
international retirement migration destination countries for Japanese seniors. Indonesia, Taiwan
and more recently Laos and Cambodia are also emerging destinations for Japanese retirees.
Such movements of retirees are embedded in aged care deficits ‘back home’ (Ormond
and Sothern 2012). As Toyota and Xiang (2012) note, the movements of retirees emerge
from national contexts, sociodemographic profiles, welfare and health policy settings in send-
ing and receiving countries. Like medical travel, the retirement industry in Asia has been
endorsed and promoted by states as national development strategies. For example, Thailand,
Malaysia and the Philippines have introduced special visa categories and schemes for those
wishing to retire in their countries with sufficient savings or pensions: the Philippine Leisure
and Retirement Authority, the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) scheme and the Thai
Long-Stay and Health Care Project. At the same time, restrictions exist to discourage less
affluent retirees who rely upon short-term tourist visas and regular ‘visa runs’ to renew their
stays, and there are concerns over increasing numbers of elderly expatriates in locations such
as Phuket failing to pay hospital bills (Chuenniran 2011; Hoff Sonne 2016). Such retiree/
lifestyle migrants are often recorded in hospital statistics as ‘medical travellers’ even though
they may be resident in the country. For example, in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur in 2013 we
found numerous MM2H visa holders resident in Malaysia were included in statistics as ‘medi-
cal tourists’, thus inflating that hospital’s medical travel statistics.
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Cosmopolitan workers
Transient elite professionals are another important group whose work brings them into trans-
national spaces to work, live and seek treatment when sick. These forms of globalised work and
production dovetail with globalised spaces of medical travel and social reproduction (Whittaker
2009). Such expatriate workers are commonly encountered in hospitals catering to medical trav-
ellers due to their company health insurance arrangements. For example, two Australian patients
interviewed in a Bangkok hospital were living in Laos; one was an engineer and another the
spouse of an engineer involved in large construction projects in Laos. Their company insurance
covered costs for treatment in this hospital which has Joint Commission International (JCI)
accreditation. Another US citizen interviewed was an expatriate in the petrochemical industry,
living in Thailand but whose work required constant movement between various countries.
Likewise, in the hospital in Kuala Lumpur we encountered Lee who was admitted with cellulitis
in his leg. He works in Singapore for a UK company but lives in Johor Bahru in Malaysia, daily
commuting across to Singapore. Such patients highlight the linkages between medical migra-
tions and other forms of migration for work.
Illegal movements
Not all medical migrations are legal. ‘Circumvention’ medical travel involves the movement
of patients to avoid legal restrictions or bans on medical procedures in their home countries.
Examples of this include the movements of patients from the Middle East to receive illegally
obtained donor organs such as kidneys from impoverished providers in the Philippines (Yea
2010; Scheper-Hughes 2003), China or India (Cohen 2011). As Cohen (2011) notes, the traf-
ficking of organs highlights how issues such as nationalism and citizenship status (and money)
help define bodies and therapies, a reminder of the role of ‘biological citizenship’ in structuring
access to medical care (see also Whittaker and Chee 2016). Likewise, until recently India and
other countries such as Thailand and Nepal have had thriving (legal and illegal) international
trades in assisted reproduction, primarily by foreigners seeking commercial surrogacy and ova
donation services and non-medical sex selection (Pande 2014;Whittaker 2011, 2016). China has
been a popular destination for experimental stem cell therapies banned or unavailable in other
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Andrea Whittaker
countries (Song 2010; Petersen, Seear and Munsie 2014). Linked with such trades is the move-
ment of human tissue, surrogates and ova donors and children across borders.
Movements of medical staff
Medical staff involved in caring for international medical travel patients also move. Firstly, they
move for overseas education and training. Foreign credentials are a source of cultural capital
important in reassuring prospective international patients of the quality of health care provided
(Casanova and Sutton 2013). Such previous education migrations equip staff with the ability
to translate both language and culture for patients. In turn, foreign migrant medical staff are
employed in international hospitals either as clinical staff or within the international medical
coordination centres as bicultural facilitators.
Secondly, specialist medical staff may move between hospital locations to provide their
expertise. For example, in Cambodia, fertility specialists and embryologists fly in and out regu-
larly to staff a clinic providing assisted reproductive services to locals and foreigners.
Thirdly, the growing volume of medical travel in the region intersects with the movements
of medical staff and may exacerbate existing inequities within health systems (Whittaker 2015c).
In Thailand, the medical travel trade is causing an internal brain drain of specialists away from its
public hospitals, attracted by higher salaries (Kanchanachitra, Lindelow et al. 2011; Na Ranong
and Na Ranong 2011; Wibulpolprasert and Pachanee 2004; 2008). This is within the context
of an overall shortfall in the number of physicians and a lack of doctors in poor rural com-
munities, affecting access for the local population (Connell 2011; Pocock and Phua 2011). A
similar trend in the number of public sector health professionals has been observed in Malaysia
(Wibulpolprasert and Pachanee 2008) prompting the Malaysian government to encourage the
return migration of doctors from overseas through tax incentives and removing the require-
ment that returnees work for the public sector for three years (Chee 2008). Likewise, Hazarika
(2010) reports that India suffers drastic shortages of doctors, nurses, dental surgeons and medical
specialists, while Indian health care professionals move to the better pay and conditions in the
private sector as well as in other countries (Skeldon 2009). There is concern that the free flow
of skilled labour under GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) within ASEAN, com-
bined with the disparities in salaries in the region, will encourage further migrations of medical
staff within the region, particularly those with English language skills or specialist medical skills,
to service private hospitals catering to foreign patients, resulting in shortages in other countries.
Conclusions
An analytic focus upon Asian medical travel as medical migrations offers a range of insights.
Firstly, anthropological theories of migration direct attention to the ‘cultures of migration’
across Asia, in which travelling for health care has become a regular and commonplace occur-
rence, particularly for those living in countries with inadequate or poor-quality health systems.
Such travel is not just the privilege of the wealthy and growing middle class of Asia, although
it is stratified by class and economic status. Rather, a diverse range of hospitals offering ser-
vices at various price points has emerged to service a range of patients. Empirical studies note
the regional, point-to-point relationships involved in these movements, and the importance
of social networks in patients’ decision-making and as sources of information, and economic
support. These transnational networks and spaces are patterned with class, ethnic and historical
divides. Empirical work also describes the affective dimension to medical migrations: the mean-
ings it holds, the care it demonstrates and the status it displays.
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Secondly, a focus upon migration highlights how medical migrations are articulated with
many other forms of migration. Medical migrations often facilitate or intersect with other
transnational relationships between people, production and care. Descriptions of various migra-
tory flows imbricated with medical migrations suggests a complex intersection of mobilities,
place and biology (Roberts and Scheper-Hughes 2011), but also a need to understand: the ‘spa-
tial’ dimension of medical migrations, describing the pushes and pulls in origin and destination
countries; the ‘temporal’ dimension, exploring why migration streams begin, grow or dissipate
over time; and the ‘volitional’ dimension, exploring how migrants respond and make choices
within the changing contexts (Fussell 2012). Finally we should add citizenship, the relationships
of patients to their home countries and legal status within the destination countries as further
dimensions to this travel (Whittaker and Chee 2016).
Viewing medical travel through the analytic lens of migration also raises new questions and
suggests an agenda for further explorations. It suggests that the flows of people, or ethnoscapes
of biomedical care, are highly complex, multi-directional, and riven by multiple differences in
class, ethnicity, corporeality, motivations and volition. We need to consider how the scale of
analysis (i.e. micro-level or macro-level analyses) affects how we study and understand medical
migrations. We need to understand better the linkages between medical migrations and other
forms of migrations and in particular how medical migrations relate to broader care markets in
the region (Huang, Thang and Toyota 2012). We also need to identify the historical, economic,
political and institutional characteristics of places that send and receive patients, and the role of
the state in the promotion of the trade. We need to explore the affective experience and mean-
ings of medical migrations and problematise assumptions that technologies, understandings and
expectations of biomedical care move immutably.
Medical migrations trace inequities that shape access to medical care globally and regionally.
The trajectories of these movements follow contours of regulatory settings, and the invest-
ments and speculations of private capital and medical corporations. Within Asia it is no longer
adequate to consider health systems through national perspectives alone, but rather as complex
ethnoscapes that extend across borders, diverting and filtering patients across the region. Further
empirical studies are needed to adequately theorise these diverse and complex inter-relationships.
Note
1 Figures from the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council website, accessed 13 February 2014.
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9
FROM ASIA WITH MONEY
The emigration of the wealthy
Gracia Liu-Farrer
Introduction
A 2015 Barclays Wealth Insights report titled Rise of the Global Citizen?, based on a survey of
2,000 millionaires from Europe, North and South Americas, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and
Africa, discovered that nearly half (43 per cent) of these so-called high net worth individuals
(HNWIs) have lived in different countries, and the majority see their children to be even more
mobile.1 The wealthy citizens from emerging Asian economies seem to be particularly inclined
to move abroad. Using immigration statistics from different immigrant destinations, New World
Wealth and LIO Global report that a total of 91,000 Chinese and 61,000 Indian millionaires left
the country and settled overseas in the first 14 years of this millennium.2 Moreover, according
to the Hurun Report issued by a consulting firm that publishes China’s Rich Lists, among a
sample of 393 Chinese who had net worth of over 10 million RMB in 2014, 64 per cent had
already emigrated to a foreign country or would be attempting to do so in the near future.3
Most of the 90,000+ Chinese millionaire emigrants migrated in recent years. While fewer
than 3,000 Chinese applied for an EB-5 visa4 in 2011, in 2014 the US Consulate General in
Guangzhou, China issued 8,237 visas, using up more than 80 per cent of the annual limit of
10,000 visas set by the US Congress.5 Chinese nationals were also the main recipients of busi-
ness investment visas in Australia. Their share of the Business Innovation and Investment pro-
gramme was 72.2 per cent of the total 7,010 granted in the financial year of 2012–13, rising
from 11.3 per cent in 2002–03.6 According to numerous reports from media and consulting
firms, Chinese millionaires leave their countries to search for better climate, property protec-
tion, a nurturing educational environment for their children, and a more wholesome life in
general (Liu-Farrer 2016).
This exodus of wealthy citizens is not a recent phenomenon. The hundreds of thousands
of rich Hong Kong and Taiwan businessmen who left for Canada and Australia in the 1980s
and the 1990s created no less a sensation and, in some cases, moral panic, and made important
impacts on both source and destination countries (see, for example, Skeldon 1994; Ley 2010).
These examples were preceded by the flight of the Chinese and Cuban capitalist class in the
mid-20th century and the exile of Russian aristocrats in the early decades of that century due
to regime changes. Because of the limited population that is involved and the peculiarity of this
strand of migration, the cross-border migration of the wealthy remains but a specialised and even
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somewhat marginal phenomenon in the research on global human mobilities. Nonetheless, the
migration of rich citizens matters. As a publicly visible and often emulated status group, their
flight has the potential to instigate anxiety in the general population. The amount of money
they take with them is large enough to have direct economic impacts on both the source
countries and the destination countries. For source countries it often spells the loss of capital,
revenues and, in cases of the closing down of businesses, the loss of jobs; and for the destination
countries, particularly cities, this form of migration sometimes leads to a sudden rise of property
market prices, among other effects (Ley 2010). As Birtchnell and Caletrío (2014) point out,
the movement of a few can affect complex social systems, from property ownership, politics to
infrastructure design and investment.
This chapter explores the forces that have made and shaped such contemporary migration
of wealthy citizens from East Asia by reviewing existing literature on the emigration of business
investors out of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s, and the more recent emigra-
tion among the wealthy Mainland Chinese. It pays particular attention to the rising global trend
of the commodification of citizenship and residency in recent years, and its consequences. An
increasing number of nation-states have initiated ‘citizenship or residency by investment’ pro-
grammes, promising foreigner investors citizenship or permanent residency statuses with very
little requirement for physical presence in the country. These programmes essentially hang a
price tag on passports or long-term resident visas, and have significant impacts on not only the
settlement patterns of migrants but also the social meanings as well as political implications of
citizenship.
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Communist China. Geopolitical threats were also at least part of the driving force of the flows
of affluent businessmen out of Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s before the Chinese takeover
of this British colony in 1997, as shown in a sudden increase in the volume of emigration after
the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 (Lam 1994; Li 2005; Ley 2010).
The recent migration out of Mainland China, again, has been attributed to the growth of a
general anxiety in the wake of political and social instabilities (Osburg 2013; Liu-Farrer 2016).
One reason many wealthy Mainland Chinese have been leaving China is their concerns over
the security of their wealth in a country where private property rights are ambiguously deline-
ated and not necessarily guaranteed. Chinese media reports that asset insecurity is a ‘shadow’
looming over the wealthy Chinese. The historical precedents of Communist persecution of
the wealthy gave the current rich little assurance that their assets will be safe. Wealthy Chinese
business people are also haunted by the discourse of ‘original sin’ (yuanzuilun) –an accusa-
tion that most successful enterprises obtained their wealth, at least initially, by partnering with
corrupt government officials and by illegally appropriating public resources. In recent years,
President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has heightened these insecurities (Liu-Farrer
2016). Underlying these concerns is the knowledge that very few countries grant visa exemp-
tion to holders of a Chinese passport, a document that provides little capacity for international
mobility, and is clearly disproportionate to what their wealth should have bestowed on them.
Migration decisions –even among the wealthy –are also conditioned by the prevailing immi-
gration regimes in destination countries, which in turn are influenced by global as well as local
economic situations. The creation of visa categories for business investments is often the desti-
nation country’s attempt to attract capital and entrepreneurial experiences.The reason that hun-
dreds of thousands of Hong Kong business people were able to relocate to Canada in the 1980s
and 1990s is because of the opening of immigration channels following the sluggish Canadian
economy in the 1970s and 1980s. While Canada suffered economic decline, on the other side
of the Pacific, Japan and four little tigers –Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore –experi-
enced phenomenal economic growth. The Business Immigration Programme which started in
1978 and expanded in 1986, and especially the introduction of the ‘investors’ category which
stipulated the minimal asset eligibility, were seen as the Canadian government’s opportunistic
measures to tap into the economic energy in East Asia and channel them into the nation state
(Wong and Ng 2002; Ley 2003; Ley 2010). As a result, between 1980 and 2001, close to 330,000
new immigrants –and one third of those from Hong Kong –who entered Canada arrived on
one of the categories in the Business Immigration Programme (Ley 2010).
Such an effort in ‘touting’ wealthy foreign citizens is seen in many countries. The aforemen-
tioned EB-5 visa programme has been bringing the US billions of dollars (Zamora and Brown
2015). In fact, ‘residency/citizenship by investment’, where foreigners can obtain citizenship or
long-term or permanent residencies by donation or by investing into these countries’ federal
bonds, industrial development programmes or properties, has become a national economic
strategy for many cash-strapped or capital-desiring nation states. The list of countries offering
such ‘economic citizenship’ has been lengthening.The price tags range from around a hundred-
thousand US dollars for a passport from the small Caribbean island of Dominica to millions
of British pounds in the UK for several years of renewable residency and potential citizenship.
While some business immigrant programmes, such as the ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘self-employed’
categories in Canada, stipulate immigrants’ actual business involvement in the destination
countries as well as residency requirements, these recent cash-for-residency or citizenship pro-
grammes have nearly no requirement for actual business efforts and only minimal requirements
for residency in the destination countries. It is revealing that the more desirable the destination
country is –as measured by the freedom of mobility its passport confers –the higher the price.
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For the same destination country, the more money one possesses and is willing to invest, the
lower the requirement for actual business engagements and physical residency.
Controversial as some of these programmes are, there is a substantial interest among wealthy
citizens from countries where the mobility capacity of their passports is limited. Mainland
China is currently the largest source country. Among the recipients of the US EB-5 visas in most
recent years, over 80 per cent are Chinese millionaires. In February 2014, when the Canadian
government announced the cancellation of the country’s Immigrant Investor Programme,
which allowed foreign nationals to gain Canadian residency by loaning 800,000 Canadian dol-
lars (US$726,720) interest-free to any of the provinces for five years, Hong Kong’s South China
Morning Post revealed that among the 59,000 applications pending, more than 45,000 were from
Mainland Chinese.7 As discussed in the following section, this trend in commodifying residency
and citizenship is both a response to and a force in changing individuals’ migration motives, and
is reshaping the social meanings of emigration for the rich.
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emigrants. When David Ley (2010) approached his survey respondents –the Hong Kong,
Taiwan and South Korean entrepreneurs living in Greater Vancouver –several years after they
had immigrated, over half of them expressed that the top reason for immigrating to Canada
was ‘quality of life’. According to Ley (2003, 2010), although Vancouver was not the place that
offered the best economic opportunities in Canada, it was the most popular immigration desti-
nation for Asian business investors because of the perceived quality of life there. Such migration
has accumulative tendency. Once the ethnically defined social world is established, more and
more immigrants are attracted to the same location.
While a minority of wealthy immigrants chose emigration to slow down or even retire in
the destination country, a good many of them, especially those who were too young to retire or
not rich enough to be completely idle, had to work to maintain financial security (Ley 2005).
However, only a small number of business people were able to establish profitable businesses in
Canada (Ley 2010). For the majority, entrepreneurship in the destination country was largely a
frustrated aspiration and an aborted attempt. Most Hong Kong and Taiwan businessmen found,
once they landed in the new country, that what they had been successful in doing was neither
needed nor practical (Smart 1994; Lam 1994; Ley 2010).Their business propositions were often
drafted to satisfy immigration requirements (Smart 1994); their lack of language ability and
social networks made them dependent on ethnic resources (Wong 1997); and the lack of infor-
mation about the host market and unfamiliar institutional frameworks for business operation
made either continuing old businesses or establishing new profitable enterprises difficult. Most
immigrants who relocated in Canada and Australia through business investment programmes
became unemployed or underemployed (Lary and Luk 1994; Inglis and Wu 1994). The actual
incomes of Asian business immigrants living in million-dollar houses in Vancouver and Toronto,
as reflected in their income taxes filed in Canada, were phenomenally low, with many house-
holds below the poverty line in 2000 (Ley 2010: 229). As a consequence, ‘astronaut families’
became a common social formation, in which the primary breadwinners, most often the hus-
bands, returned to home regions to continue their businesses and then shuttled between their
financial base in East Asia and their emotional base in Canada (Ley 2005). This transnational
mobility eventually evolved into a functionally differentiated geography –‘Hong Kong for
making money, Canada for quality of life’ (Ley and Kobayashi 2005).
In recent years, with the expanding choices of ‘economic citizenship’ and ‘residency by
investment’, emigration has increasingly become a form of consumption. Immigration consult-
ing firms in urban China in the 2010s promoted the concept of ‘yimin bu yizhu’ (emigrating
without settling), affirming that ‘business investor’ is but a visa category, a status (shenfen) to be
purchased.Very few rich Mainland Chinese emigrants intended to be engaged in serious busi-
ness enterprising in the destination country, and for many, a residency there was for vacation
(Liu-Farrer 2016).
In the process of delinking emigration from physical residency, the act of emigration has
also acquired new meaning as a status symbol which signifies one’s class position. Among the
rich Chinese, there is a strong desire for social distinction, but converting their wealth into
social prestige presents some difficulties. In China, ostentatious consumer practices have been
targets of public ridicule, gaining those who exhibit them the satirical nickname ‘tuhao’ – the
country millionaires –that projects an image of crassness and lack of taste. In response, an
industry has been expanding in China to coach the rich to embrace an elite consumer culture.
Through magazines such as Best Things in Life by Hurun Report, wealthy Chinese businessmen
learned and emulated the consumption style of other global elites. ‘Emigration’ (yimin 移民)
was publicised as one of the items the rich acquired, along with other coveted commodities
(Liu-Farrer 2016).
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Emigration has the ability to signify class status because the freedom to move is ‘perpetually
a scarce and unequally distributed commodity’, and ‘in our late-modern or postmodern times’
has fast become ‘the main stratifying factor’ (Baumann 1998: 2). It is an especially prized com-
modity in countries where passports have less mobility potential, accounting for why ‘residency
and citizenship by investment’ has attracted more millionaires from China, Russia and Middle
Eastern countries than elsewhere. Decades of restriction through passport control and house-
hold registration have intensified the desire for mobility among Chinese people. From the ‘fever
to go abroad’ (chuguore 出国热) to the sense of ‘displacement’ at home, emigration has become
a ticket to a better life (Chu 2010). With the loosening of passport control and economic
development in recent decades, accompanied by the flourishing study abroad or travel agencies,
mobility itself is no longer unattainable.Yet manners of mobility now represent different levels
of power and resources (Urry 2007). Emigration through business investment comes with a
much higher price tag and brings immediate long-term residency with no demand for physical
labour and very few institutional constraints. It ensures a higher degree of freedom of move-
ment and thereby signals a higher social status.
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However, in a world where East Asia has increasing economic power, transnational cultural
capital also includes ethnic cultural capital (Mitchell 1997; Waters 2008). Wealthy Chinese emi-
grants therefore emphasise bilingual education. Some have designed a transnational education
for their children, such as sending their children first to elementary school in China so as to
acquire enough reading and writing ability in Chinese (Liu-Farrer 2016).
Aside from language skills, emigrant parents want elite education credentials for their chil-
dren. Emigration is a means to circumvent the competition they witness in China. Chinese
parents, while delighting in their children’s opportunity to have a freer and less test-driven
education in the West, expect them to go to a top college there, preferably an Ivy League uni-
versity in the US. Some parents resort to paying for various education services in order to enter
their children into good schools.While a ‘happy education’ is a lifestyle that affluent parents feel
their wealth could provide for their children, it also comes with the expectation that cultivating
transnational cultural capital will place their children above others within China itself, similar to
what many affluent Hong Kong families had aspired (Liu-Farrer 2016).
Wealthy Chinese parents’ aspirations for their children go beyond skills to include elite
habitus, in the forms of character and dispositions, which a western-style elite education will
hopefully cultivate. As a result, the Financial Times reported that English public boarding schools
were receiving a rapidly increasing number of Chinese applications.8
A desire for class reproduction is also manifested in the concerns rich parents have toward
their children’s future marriage prospects. One potential emigrant, when discussing migration
options with an immigration agent, mentioned that he would stay in China to continue his
business enterprise, but he wished to send his children to a foreign country. His rationale was
simple, ‘People like us are all emigrating. If staying in China, my children will have to marry the
children of my drivers and employees’ (Liu-Farrer 2016).
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that the state is not necessarily losing control over its subjects, as some globalists proclaimed
(e.g. Sassen 1996). Rather, it is willing to adopt a system of selective governing and give some
corporate entities more rights and autonomy. A system of ‘variegated citizenship’ is the result
of such ‘graduated sovereignty’ in which populations of different ethnicities, class positions and
legal statuses are ‘subjected to different valuation, enjoy different kinds of rights, disciplines, car-
ing and security’ (1999: p. 217).
While Aihwa Ong (1999) looks at the strategic adaptation of sovereignty in a globalising
world from the point of view of the source countries, David Ley’s (2005) concerns with the
‘shaky borders’ take the perspective of western destination countries. Using the Asian business
immigrants’ experiences and settlement patterns in and out of Canada, Ley points out that the
Canadian government’s plan to integrate these desirable human resources into the framework of
the nation-state was not successful. The most economically active people were those ‘astronaut
families’ whose business activities remained in the source regions. In addition, a strong trend of
return migration appeared among Hong Kong emigrants. Skeldon (1995) estimated that in the
mid-1990s at least 30 per cent of emigrants to Australia returned after three years. By the early
2000s, at least 200,000 people living in Hong Kong carried Canadian passports (Ley 2010).
Among the recent wealthy emigrants from China who subscribe to the philosophy of ‘yimin
bu yizhu’, engagement in the social and political life of destination countries is of an even
lesser degree. Although immigrants’ transnationalism is not necessarily incompatible with their
integration into destination countries (Snel et al. 2006; Vertovec 2009; Wessendorf 2013), such
prolonged physical absence entailed in the practice of ‘immigrating without settling’ among
Mainland millionaires has reduced citizenship to just a residential right. Moreover, because the
motives for emigration are to obtain a vacation home overseas and to build up insurance poli-
cies for future rainy days, most recent Mainland Chinese emigrants maintain businesses in their
home country. Considering the potential institutional hurdles for doing business in China as
foreign citizens, moreover, the rich Chinese that I interviewed had no interests in obtaining
foreign citizenship (Liu-Farrer 2016).
Whether labelled as ‘variegated citizenship’ produced under ‘graduated sovereignty’, or ‘eco-
nomic citizenship’ awarded by cash contributions, the recent trends of wealthy migration make
it clear that people who have money are subject to far fewer institutional constraints and enjoy
many more degrees of freedom. Mobility, in this sense, loudly speaks of class privilege. At the
same time, by peddling citizenship to wealthy customers, nation-states essentially reduce the
obligations of citizenship to singular cash contributions, and in many ways erode the institution
of citizenship, at least in the western democratic sense.
Conclusion
The mobility of rich citizens is nothing new. Historically, whether motivated by the hint of
threat or a promise of fortune, an interest in adventure or an admiration for foreign cultures,
the wealthy, with the resources they could muster, have always been the most able to move.
In late modernity, under conditions of globalisation and in the wake of superior technologi-
cal advancement in transportation, the rich are more capable of embracing mobility than at
any time in history. At the same time, passports and visas were inventions of the 20th century,9
designed to allocate the freedom of mobility unequally among nation-states. As a result, the
migration of the wealthy in search of higher-value passports has been triggered, while citizen-
ship –reshaped by changing institutional contexts –takes on different meanings.
Since the early-20th century, the sudden exodus of the rich has always had to do with vari-
ous forms of political and social instabilities in their home countries. In Asia, the emigration
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Gracia Liu-Farrer
of both affluent Hong Kong and Taiwan business people in the late-20th century and the
Mainland HNWIs in the 2010s were to different degrees a reaction to the perceived threats
stemming from Communist China. For the former, it was the fear of an imminent Communist
authoritarian regime and its geopolitical dominance, and for the latter, domestic political crack-
downs and uncertainties of property rights. Emigration, with the freedom of mobility it prom-
ises to bring, is perceived as a political insurance against these uncertainties. At the same time,
the emigration of rich East Asians is also a response to the invitation of destination countries
that has opened up migration channels to lure in their capital and skills. The escalating compe-
tition to sell residency and citizenship to the highest international bidders by some countries
further enhances the commodity nature of foreign residency and citizenship. When citizenships
are put up for sale with price tags indicating their worth –measured by the number of countries
which allow visa-free entry –it is not hard to understand how emigration has also become a
form of consumption signalling the emigrants’ class status.
Emigration, moreover, becomes a strategy for social reproduction of the wealthy citizens.
It provides their children a more direct access to elite western education, opportunities to
acquire language skills and an environment conducive to cultivating ‘proper’ habitus. These are
important symbolic and cultural capital that will help them maintain advantageous positions in
a globalised economy and bring about further class mobility.
The wealthy emigrants, though triumphant in their efforts to evade institutional control and
to maximise the flexibility and security at some level, have built such flexibility by invoking
an instrumental notion of family that restricts the social and physical mobility of some fam-
ily members. The feasibility of a geographically split household is premised on a division of
labour among household members, and in the wealthy emigrants’ families, it has almost always
regressed toward the traditional gender role assignments.
Finally, while globalisation has already created many challenges to nation-state citizenship,
the migration of the wealthy adds further question marks to the meaning of citizenship. Can
citizenship be a commodity? Is money enough to offset civic obligations? Where does their loy-
alty lie? Aside from their economic impact, substantive investigations are needed to understand
the social and political relationship of these wealthy migrants to their adopted countries, and
how such citizenship and residency affect their identities and belongings.
Notes
1 Barclays’s Wealth Insights Volume 18, The Rise of The Global Citizen. Available at: wealth.barclays.com/
content/dam/bwpublic/global/documents/shared/wealth-inisghts-volume-18.pdf. [Accessed 6
April 2016].
2 Rishi Iyengar, ‘Tens of thousands of “high-net-worth individuals” have left to seek a better life over-
seas,’ Time, 27 July 2015. Available at: time.com/3972744/china-india-millionaires-migration-report-
wealth/. [Accessed 6 April. 2016].
3 ‘Zhishang youpin –Zhongguo qianwanfuhao pinpai qingxiang baogao’ (2014 Hurun Report on Chinese
Luxury Consumer Survey), Available at: www.hurun.net/CN/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=261. [Accessed
23 February 2015].This number is close to the 60 per cent provided in the ‘2011 White Paper on Chinese
People’s Private Wealth Management’, published by Hurun Report and Bank of China. The sample size for
the latter is 980.
4 The EB-5 visa is a US visa granted to immigrant investors that started in 1990. It asks foreign investors
to invest in a new ‘at-r isk’ commercial enterprise either directly or through an EB-5 Regional Centre.
Available at: www.uscis.gov/eb-5. [Accessed 23 February. 2015].
5 Statistics are retrieved from the Consulate General of the United States in Guangzhou, where all
Chinese immigrant visas are processed. Available at: guangzhou.usembassy-china.org.cn/immigrant_
visas/eb5visasfaqs.html. [Accessed 29 April. 2016].
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PART III
10
MIGRATION AND THE
PRODUCTION OF MIGRANT
MOBILITIES
Weiqiang Lin and Marielle Stigum Gleiss
Introduction
For the last two decades, Asia has witnessed a significant speeding up of human migrations.
This does not simply apply to Asia’s ‘traditional’ role as a sending region of (e)migrants, but,
more crucially, to the diversification of mobilities coming into, and circulating within, this
region. Consider the streams of domestic workers, construction labourers, and skilled ‘tal-
ent’ moving between countries with so-called surplus human capital and emerging growth
poles like Dubai, Hong Kong, and Singapore (Buckley 2012; Constable 2007; Oswin and Yeoh
2010); or the growing popularity of Asian destinations to European and North American early-
careerists, professionals and expats in recent years (Lin and Yeoh 2014); or, within China alone,
the 230 million domestic journeys taking place annually around Lunar New Year as part of the
‘Spring Festival rush’ (Crang and Zhang 2012). These anecdotes of itinerancy not only convey
a sense of the quickening pace of migrant flows that are transforming national, provincial and
municipal borders in Asia, but also signal the momentous socio-economic changes that are
affecting Asian countries and their relationship with the world. Indeed, if the 21st century is a
century of mobilities (Urry 2000), it is one whose centre lies in Asia.
Accounting for the dynamics of these intensifying flows, however, takes more than just put-
ting new wine in old conceptual wineskins. It requires a careful engagement with the particular
circumstances that are inventing these heterogeneous flows in Asia. Despite years of trying to
shed its associations with immigration discourses (especially of Europe and North America),
most policy-oriented migration research still adheres to a language that draws strength from
the assumptions of ‘methodological nationalism’ (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002), where the
nation-state (typically ‘under siege’ from migrants) is the undisputed starting point of analysis.
Even in work on transnationalism, the geo-body of the nation often remains intact, with only
a ‘new’ emphasis placed on immigrants’ (problematic?) affinities with multiple territories (Lin
2012). In fairness, some ‘older’ migration causation theories, such as ones subscribing to neo-
classical economics, usefully stress the relational aspects of migration, by attending to the socio-
economic factors that ‘push’ and ‘pull’ migrants across borders; but even these, we argue, have a
tendency to focus on migrants’ places of destination and origin, thus relegating moving –and
what it means to move –to a secondary status. In this context, we see value in tracing anew
what actually produces, fashions and organises migrant mobilities as meaningful phenomena in
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Asia. We are particularly interested in how migrations are mobilised in the region, not because
of any inherent properties found in bounded landscapes, but through specific structural and
technological drivers that cause mobilities to become, and become meaningful, in context.
By concentrating on the ‘production of migrant mobilities’ (paraphrasing Cresswell 1997),
this chapter aims to execute a ‘mobility turn’ on Asian migration studies. It posits that migra-
tion warrants explication not because of the social impacts and turbulences it leaves (behind)
in the places of arrival or departure. Rather, it is always already pertinent in its own right, as a
product of particular social arrangements –oftentimes inequitable ones –that invent, enable
and stretch out the line between A and B (Cresswell 2006) on which migrants embark. Put suc-
cinctly, migration itself, and not just the places it connects, possesses content, by which it also
(re)composes societies, including national ones. Following a brief exposition on the ‘mobilities
paradigm’ (Sheller and Urry 2006), the remainder of this chapter will examine three structural
and technological anchors that we see as having a key influence on migrant mobilities in Asia.
Encompassing the role of political economy, transport, and borders, we interrogate how these
intervening factors have mobilised migration in the region, in ways that reconfigure, rather than
predicate on, national territories.
Mobilising migration
As globalisation becomes the new catchword of the late-1990s, a growing body of literature
allied with the ‘mobility turn’ has emerged to give greater salience to the condition of flux and
restlessness in the 21st century. This has aided a refocusing of social science research from one
that privileges places, sites and territories –or a ‘sedentarist metaphysics’ (Cresswell 2006; Urry
2000) –to one whose ontological concern is on mobilities and their production (Cresswell
1997). Expositing a range of phenomena from vehicular travel to virtual communications to
migration regimes, a whole host of movements once relegated to the background as asocial
passages are now being approached as objects of analysis. Their transitory lines of movement,
not their destinations, have become the new ‘sites’ where the ‘socially pertinent’ takes place,
and where people’s lives are reshaped, reinvented and interrupted. As Adey (2010: 4) puts it,
‘[m]obility, in short, is vital …it appears as if the social is mobility’.
Such an understanding directs attention to facts about movement that were previously
neglected, including its experiences, practices and methods of organisation. In transport studies
especially, there has been an explosion of research seeking to account exactly for such signifi-
cances and meanings imbued in everyday movements, giving a grounded sense of how what is
normally seen as an idle activity, transit, can likewise be a crucible of rich cultural nuances and
social activities. Such delineations do not stop there, but go on to pose further questions on the
politics and inequitable distribution of mobilities among different social groups (Flamm and
Kaufmann 2006). Central to these inquiries is not just which groups are being marginalised and
restricted in their movements, but also how, or through what justifications, relative (im)mobilities
are sanctioned as part and parcel of being on the move (Adey 2006). Put alternatively, mobilities
research’s concerns exceed basic observations of unequal accessibility. Its objective is to foster
a deeper understanding of the rules, logics and norms that processually structure these unfair
distributions of power, which lead to differentiated potentials of (im)mobility.
Tied to these critical understandings are also reflections on the socio-technical mechanics
of movement. To be sure, rules and logics of mobilities do not operate solely in the discursive,
but are accompanied by spatial, architectural and institutional affordances that enable particular
ways of parsing flows. As Salter (2013: 16) argues, ‘the possibility for circulation must compre-
hend equally the ideational and the material, the social, and the bureaucratic, the disciplinary,
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and the sovereign’. Without these material and organisational frames (see Xiang and Lindquist,
this volume, Chapter 11), mobilities risk being activated in a vacuum. One structure that fea-
tures prominently and repeatedly in mobilities is technology, which can be broadly defined as
knowledge applications, and their associated innovations that help mediate, accelerate, and at
times bifurcate, mobilities. Consider the internet and its common uses in travel organisation.
This technology not only proves revolutionary in the way that it has altered the logistics of
mobility (enabling tasks such as fare comparisons, ticketing, and payment); it has also directly
impacted people’s desire to travel by transforming their social milieus (e.g. through facilitating
transnational ties across space) (Aguiléra et al. 2012). Yet, as much as it offers individuals more
options and freedom, the internet simultaneously forms a basis of exclusion for groups that are
structurally distanced from its applications –whether due to cost or because of skills or linguis-
tic barriers. Insofar as technological aids are not democratically shared, but can be organised to
privilege one group over another, they are also tools that may further divide, rather than bridge,
mobility gaps.
It is against such a backdrop of wanting to unearth the meanings and formative processes
of mobilities that we want to advocate a re-opening up of migration –that is, the substance of
its movement, not its aftermath –to analytical reflection. While there exist copious writings
on the frictions, hardships, and discriminations faced by (im)migrants after they arrive at their
host societies, studies that account for the structural production, and constraining conditions,
of their very journeys remain still in the minority. Generating a new epistemological strain
of migration research along these veins in Asia not only benefits from being able to test out
and advance a range of mobilities concepts in an emerging context unclouded by decades of
methodological nationalism; it also corrects a blind spot in mobilities research, pertaining to
its over-reliance on Western European or North American paradigms (Lin and Yeoh 2016).
We begin with a discussion on the politico-economic drivers enabling regional integra-
tion and speeding up intra-Asian mobilities in recent years, before interrogating the role of
transport developments and border governance in further supporting and/or re-calibrating
these flows.
Politico-economic drivers
When explaining the shape and direction of migration flows, classical immigration theories
point to the existence of differences in wage levels and job opportunities between more devel-
oped and less developed regions of the world (Harris and Todaro 1970; Piore 1979; Wallerstein
1974). While such theories clearly bear relevance for understanding contemporary migration
patterns in Asia, the experiences of Asian countries also demonstrate the active role played by
Asian state actors in mobilising, shaping and directing migration streams for politico-economic
reasons. In her cross-national comparison of women’s migration within Asia, for instance, Oishi
(2005) seeks to account for the different levels of out-migration displayed by countries with
similar levels of unemployment, wages and poverty beyond economistic explanations. She
argues for the need to examine how emigration policies put in place by sending states can
encourage, restrict or outright ban out-migration, and how individual (prospective) migrants
and their households, though exercising agency, are in fact responding to policy incentives to
go out or stay at home. These policy incentives are in turn shaped not only by social norms
restricting the out-migration of women to particular age groups, occupations and countries of
destination, but also by the sending state’s overriding concern to mobilise migration in order to
achieve particular politico-economic objectives such as alleviating domestic unemployment or
increasing the flows of economic and social remittances across national borders (Oishi 2005).
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The scope and nature of the emigration policies enacted by Asian states are, of course, not
confined to regulating the migration of women. State policies include different goals, rang-
ing from promoting labour export, controlling worker characteristics and protecting the well-
being of nationals working abroad, to regulating the private migration recruitment industry
and maximising the potential for out-migration to positively influence domestic economic
development. Moreover, the degree of state involvement in labour emigration varies consider-
ably from country to country and over time, from simply allowing or facilitating out-migration
to actively promoting overseas employment (Hugo and Stahl 2004). The Philippines’ strategy
of exporting temporary workers while simultaneously ensuring their continued ties to the
homeland is a case in point which illustrates the active involvement of the state in encouraging
and institutionalising labour out-migration as a national policy. In particular, the Filipino state
has sought to mobilise and direct the mobility of domestic workers and nurses (Constable 2007;
Brush and Sochalski 2007). Rodriguez (2010: xiv, xxi) equates the Filipino state’s involvement
in labour brokerage to setting up an ‘export-processing zone’ that ‘enables the controlled flows
of temporary workers across national borders, mobilising them out of the Philippines and then
ensuring their return back home’. The case also demonstrates the close collaboration between
state actors and private labour recruitment agencies in structuring the scale, direction and com-
position of migrant mobilities, as well as the reach of these joint efforts to include strategies to
market overseas employment to Filipino workers and represent them as ideal global workers to
employers abroad (Guevarra 2010; Rodriguez 2010).
Other Asian countries at the receiving end of intra-Asian flows of low-skilled migrants have
implemented policies to channel these migrants into sectors of the economy with labour short-
ages (Kaur 2010). In Singapore, such policies have in effect created a transnational labour market
for low-skilled labour within sectors such as construction, manufacturing, marine, processing,
services and domestic work. Within these sectors, foreign workers are recruited from neigh-
bouring Asian countries in order to meet the increased demand for labour due to falling birth
rates, the unwillingness of local citizens to take up so-called dangerous, dirty and demeaning
jobs, and a social reproductive vacuum in the domestic sphere left by the increased participation
of local women in the workforce (Yeoh 2006). To regulate this mobilisation, and incorporation,
of labour beyond the national territory, measures such as the dependency ceiling and the foreign
worker levy have been put in place. While the former refers to sector-specific rules about the
ratio of foreign to local workers, the foreign worker levy functions as an ‘import tax’ (Low 2002)
on labour and is differentiated according to sector and workers’ skills level. These two instru-
ments allow the city-state to discard low-skilled workers when their labour is no longer needed,
thereby ensuring a revolving labour regime that flexibly avails to Singapore (and its political
economy) the excess population it needs.
Asian countries not only export workers abroad, but also seek to compete in the ‘global
war for talent’ (Brown and Tannock 2009) by attracting highly skilled foreign professionals
and encouraging diasporic citizens to return home with the skills and experiences acquired
abroad. While such policies have long been in place in Asian countries such as Singapore, they
have been introduced more recently in countries such as Japan (Kamibayashi 2006) and China
(Zweig 2006). In 2012, China, which is slowly transitioning from a country of emigration
to one of immigration (Pieke 2012), passed a new law exactly in reflection of this. In addi-
tion to making it easier to control illegal entry, residence and work (the so-called sanfei ‘three
illegals’ problem), the law also responds to Chinese authorities’ objective to strengthen ties
with communities of overseas Chinese and attract foreign professionals (Haugen 2015). Both
groups of migrants are desired by the Chinese state because their skills –or ‘talent’ –are seen
as key components in realising the state’s new vision for China. Whereas financial capital, hard
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infrastructure and labour-intensive production have been the backbone of China’s economic
development over the past decades, earning China its nickname as the ‘factory of the world’,
Chinese authorities are now seeking to upgrade the Chinese economy and recreate China as a
hub of technology, innovation and creativity. Wang (2010) traces the Chinese discourse on ‘tal-
ent’ back to the Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC) High Level Meeting on Human
Capacity Building that was held in Beijing in 2001. Following this meeting, references to talent
development were included in key governmental documents such as the 11th Five-Year Plan
(2006–2010) and talent promotion was adopted as a strategy to revitalise the country at the 17th
Party Congress in 2007. This strategy is dependent on global flows of not only knowledge and
ideas, but more crucially of people. For this reason, schemes to attract overseas talent such as the
‘Thousand talents scheme’ are a crucial part of the 2010 Talent Development Plan (Wang 2010).
While accounting for the effectiveness of migration policies in achieving their stated
goals is fraught with difficulties (Czaika and de Haas 2013), experiences from the Philippines,
Singapore, China and other Asian countries demonstrate how human mobilities into, out of and
within Asia take place within specific policy environments which seek to shape the nature and
direction of migration flows in ideological and material ways. Moreover, recent aspirations by
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to facilitate freer flows of skilled labour
among member countries point to the supranational character of policy efforts to valorise Asian
integration and accelerate migration flows (Sugiyarto and Mendoza 2014). The enactment of
migration policies therefore involves state actors at different levels of government as well as pri-
vate agencies (see also Zweig 2006). Migration flows do not simply respond to the impetuses of
capital in a push-pull logic, but rather involve states seeking to harness the powers of economic
globalisation to their own advantage by mobilising, constraining and structuring the flows of
people across national borders.
Transport developments
It is not just the rationalities of the political economy that drive movements in Asia; transport
also articulates migration circuits in specific ways, and often with long-lasting impacts on soci-
eties and nations. To draw preliminary insight from the historical Atlantic trade, steam-and
coal-powered ships were extremely instrumental to forging particular realities and imaginations
of European emigration in the 19th and early-20th centuries. The arduous nature of journeys
across a hazardous ocean –especially for steerage passengers (Coye and Murphy 2007) –often
meant that migration was undertaken as a one-way trip, in a more-or-less permanent ‘trans-
oceanic cultural transference’ of people from the ‘Old World’ to the ‘New World’ (Lambert et
al. 2006: 481). Anchoring these settler networks were other authoritative landscapes that clearly
announced the immigrant’s arrival in a new national domicile each time a journey ended, the
most prominent of which being immigration stations like Ellis Island. These offshore zones,
besides being processing technologies meant to exclude the diseased, fugitives and political
subversives, doubled as ‘almost mythical site[s]where multicultural America was formed’; or
where the masses symbolically (and permanently) became nations on a ‘new’ island (Hoskins
and Maddern 2010: 152). Through these procedures, ocean transport not only facilitated a
particular circuit of movement, but also experientially produced a very particular sense of what
migration meant.
In Asia, the affordances of transport and its technologies have likewise impacted migrant
mobilities, if in different ways. Historically, before nation-states became salient, the sojourns
and migrations of Arab, Chinese and Indian populations to Southeast Asia were intricately tied
to the seafaring capabilities of those groups. For instance, while the Chinese were an itinerant
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people for ‘over several millennia’, their mobilities were mostly confined to land routes to places
such as Korea and Vietnam; it was not until the 10th century that ‘Chinese migration increas-
ingly took place on a maritime canvas’ (Lockard 2013: 766), coinciding with the Song Dynasty’s
rising naval power, and the extensive use of large junks. As sinologist Jacques Gernet records,
the junks of the Song era were ‘big sailing ships with four or six masts, twelve big sails and four
decks, capable of carrying about a thousand men’. They were equipped with ‘[a]nchors, rudder,
drop-keel, capstans, canvas sails and rigid matting sails, used according to whether the wind blew
from astern or ahead, pivoting sails which avoided the need to alter the rigging… [as well as]
oars with an automatic angle of attack’ (Gernet 1996: 328). No longer tethered to the whim of
monsoon winds, these vehicles not only established more durable and farther maritime trade
routes for the Chinese –particularly in the Nanhai, or what is known today as the South China
Sea (Wang 2003) –they also instigated commerce-related migrations that gradually reshaped
Southeast Asian societies through establishing a Chinese presence. Remarkably, this change
in the region’s demographic complexion continues to drive migration circuits to this day, by
allowing historical affinities to be invoked between Southeast Asia and contemporary China
(Yeoh and Lin 2013).
In the last century, state-led transport projects have become more prominent in giving shape
to migration in Asia. Rail technologies were, in particular, copiously harnessed for long-range
overland travel in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Momentous in the region’s early rail
history was the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and its eastern branch, the Chinese
Eastern Railway.While largely a Russian project designed to strengthen the empire’s hold on its
Pacific ports, the rail lines doubled as key conduits for long-range movements of people across
Eurasia (Liliopoulou et al. 2005). Not only did the lines’ construction enable the (re)peopling of
the Russian Far East with citizens of European descent, the Chinese extension founded Harbin
as a Russian-administered rail city, which drew tens of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles
and Chinese immigrants to the trisected city, to find work in the settlement’s burgeoning rail-
road economy (Urbansky 2008).The building of China’s Lanxin line from Lanzhou to Urumqi
five decades on, and, more recently, the 2014 opening of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang High-Speed
Railway further reshuffled inter-ethnic contacts. By opening up new, faster networks of con-
nectivity through the historic Chinese Silk Road, these trans-continental infrastructures not
only boosted trade and economic exploitation across large distances, but also became the raison
d’être for the mobility of (more) migrants, including the provocative large-scale movement of
Han Chinese to Xinjiang since the 1950s (Howell and Fan 2011).
Air transport has likewise significantly impacted modern-day Asia’s migrant mobilities, both
by design and through its popular use. While flying used to be an elite reserve, mass aeromo-
bility today has enabled larger numbers of people to partake in air travel’s circulations, if still
in divided streams. Aided by the advent of efficient narrow-body aircraft such as the new-
generation A320s and the deregulation of air traffic rights, the recent proliferation of low-cost
carriers (LCCs) has arisen in response to ‘new’ economic demands for (usually) low-skilled
migratory flows since the 2000s (Zhang et al. 2008). Whereas legacy airlines used to connect
Asian capitals with other large cities globally, LCCs have facilitated much more versatile pair-
ings of origins and destinations, or areas of labour surplus and deficit, with their nimble fleet.
AirAsia, a Malaysian LCC, is an excellent example, offering over 200 flights daily within and
between Southeast Asia, China, Australasia, the Middle East and South Asia. Airlines like it have
made long-haul and regional migration –at least the initial relocation –more affordable and
attainable for millions, while giving migrants and their families cheap options to make frequent
return visits, and other post-migration journeys supportive of transnational living (Dobruszkes
2009). Like the way junks ferried sojourners in search of fortunes abroad for a time, LCCs
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today transport labour migrants who similarly harbour temporary intentions. Only now, they
do so at a spatio-temporal scale that is more extensive, and speedier, in support of current
turnstile-like labour regimes.
Transport’s ability to condition migrant mobilities should not be underestimated despite its
common (mis)representations as little more than conveyances between A and B. At the most
basic level, transport and its technologies directly determine the scope of long-range move-
ments, both dictating the reach of migration, and altering its speeds and meanings as migrants
are ferried across land, sea and air. The manner in which these technologies are arranged as
infrastructures further nuances the nature of migration, at times instigating novel flows to fill an
economic gap, and, at other times, significantly reducing the friction of distance, making trans-
national migration possible. Understanding migrant mobilities through the lens of transport
helps to accent these intervening forces, which transpire in excess of the politico-economic
relations linking places. Without this crucial intertwining of transport and migration, it may be
easy to forget that the latter has a medium, which not only carries the mobilities of migrants,
but is also often ordered to achieve and (re)shape them.
Border governance
Earlier we suggested that disembarkation procedures at the end of each ocean liner journey can
have a pedagogical effect on how early-20th century migrants understood their arrival in the
‘New World’. Processing zones like Ellis Island not only allowed voyagers to be sorted and vali-
dated for their admissibility; they also created their subjectivity as immigrants and new entrants
at the destination. These processing zones were arguably the first prototypes of an elaborate
architecture of border governance that would come to organise and inform today’s migrant
mobilities, founded on a ‘closed’ world of nation-states, each suspicious of intruding human
traffics, and active in (re)classifying prospective entrants who do arrive (Ó Tuathail 1996: 15).
In a sense, border governance lies at the heart of common territorially inflected understandings
of migration, where people’s movements are often articulated in relations to the nation-state.
But as Richardson (2013: 1) also makes clear, migration cannot be understood rigidly ‘without
[first] confronting the ways in which [it is variously] constrained and regulated by borders and
bordering practises’. It is in this context that techniques of border governance, as well as the
technologies empowering their rule, warrant further scrutiny.
As part of the international community, countries in Asia are neither alienated from, nor
averse to, bordering practices. Oftentimes, they are obligated to follow international conventions
with respect to (now-air) passenger protocols in order to continue partaking in the benefits of
global economic integration. The most fundamental of these bordering practices concerns the
institution of a mobility regime predicated on passports. Cho (2013) argues that the passport is
not an innocuous marker of citizenship or identity for the migrant/traveller. It more crucially
functions as a ‘document of suspicion’, an identification paper that ‘must be produced where
there is a cause’, within an international system of mobility control (Cho 2013: 336). While,
for short-term travellers, the use of the passport may prove slightly more straightforward (albeit
requiring visa formalities in some cases), the same travel regime subjects prospective migrants to
more stringent checks by the receiving nation, in accordance to what the passport states about
the bearer’s (foreign) country of citizenship, travel history, and even place of birth. By comply-
ing with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) specifications on the passport
(circa. 1968), Asian countries are complicit in reframing mobilities within their region in the
same territorial light. It is the nation-state, rather than cultural ties or former trade routes, which
now takes precedence through the technology of the passport.
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The adoption of the passport is, however, not a simple case of governance importation from
ICAO. Asian states have been conscientious to embellish this order with other visa stipulations –
effectively an extension of travel documentation –by which the admissibility of migrants can
be further marked and splintered. If the passport locates a foundational, nationality-based nexus
between mobilities and bordering, several Asian countries have additionally incorporated socio-
economic matrices and health-related technologies of surveillance within this passport-and-visa
regime to express the ‘worth’ and ‘safety’ of migrant flows. At the top of the hierarchy, the highly
skilled have long enjoyed relaxed rules for cross-border mobilities in the region, including in
Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, often requiring just proof of prospective employment
before they are granted a work (and usually residency) permit (Iredale 2000). Conversely, low-
skilled migrants are less welcome, as their ‘foreignness’ –and associated ‘dangers’ –abruptly
assumes greater prominence. National authorities often manage the admittance of these persons
on strict terms that inscribe their mobilities with numerous caveats and qualms, as expressed
through advance warnings or prohibitions against marriage, pregnancy and disease (Yeoh 2006)
on their visas, permits and travel documents. In short, more ‘developed’ Asian economies are
policing migration streams surrounding their territories in more complex ways than the pass-
port’s original intentions. By sorting through, differentiating and then making legible per-
sonal ‘merits’ on migrants’ travel documents, they are naturalising, through these ‘formalities’,
a mobility system that selectively erases national borders for some, but implements, for others,
more draconian border rules, even at the scale of the body.
Consider as well the recent embrace of biometric technologies in Asia. Notably, what began
as an American response to 9/11 has spread to heighten national suspicions against ‘threaten-
ing’ migrant (and other) mobilities in the region. Whereas Singapore became one of the first
countries to issue biometric passports to safeguard its own citizens’ mobilities (in part to comply
with requirements of the business-friendly US visa waiver programme), increasing numbers of
Asian countries, including Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and, soon, Singapore, are mandating the
fingerprinting of all foreign nationals intending to cross their borders, pre-emptively pathologis-
ing these movements. Joining the US and European countries in tracking the travel histories
and profiles of, especially, migrants through such personal identifiers, these protocols not only
seek to amass even more intrusive databases about those who move; they have also become the
basis for deciphering and divining ‘truths’ about individuals even before they travel –vicari-
ously through data (mis)matches and algorithmic calculations of ‘risk’ (Amoore 2009). Though,
to be sure, biometric applications are not the brainchild of Asia, the fact that the technology has
gained relative traction in the region is a worrying trend that points to finer, and possibly irre-
versible, differentiations of who is fit (or not) to participate in Asia’s migration streams. Without
a clearer sense of what these technologies of surveillance are actually geared towards, questions
remain as to whether they would lead to truly greater security, or the further marginalisation
of some mobilities.
Borders should not be mistaken as ‘natural’ artefacts that nation-states erect by virtue of
what they are, but a labour –a bordering work –undertaken to precisely give meaning to
nationhood, and, conversely, its mobile outside. At face value, they are what render migration
problematic and potentially disruptive to a nation’s integrity, thereby inciting the temptation
to understand migrant flows through the lens of methodological nationalism. But tracing the
histories of bordering, its embellishments and future trajectories in Asia nuances this picture,
and shows how bordering work can be modified and performed in more complex and affect-
ing ways. In particular, it has caused migration in the region to be treated simultaneously as a
phenomenon to micro-manage territorially (for the low-skilled), and a deterritorialised free-
dom for (highly skilled) talents. These tendencies should prompt further reflections on other
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configurations of mobilities and borders around the globe, including the eradication of national
checkpoints within, but not beyond, the European Union, and the US’s extension of its borders
to extra-jurisdictional airports in Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates.
Collectively, they demonstrate that migration cannot be pinned down to a fixed definition, but
is a fluid condition of mobile (im)possibilities, defined according to how they are made mean-
ingful by the borders nation-states reference it with.
Conclusion
This chapter has charted through three different avenues by which migrant mobilities take on
particular significances and tenors, in accordance to their formative processes. Whether it per-
tains to the demands of the prevailing political economy, or the possibilities enabled by transport
developments, or the bordering work enacted to order movement, ‘migration’ is scarcely an a
priori concept that describes a fixed, undifferentiated condition of relocation from one nation-
state to another. Contrary to this popular notion of what migration is –a notion Wimmer and
Glick Schiller (2002) attribute to methodological nationalism –this chapter has focused on how
migrant mobilities become, by dint of the structural and technological forces that realise them in
particular times and spaces. Using Asia as a backdrop to explore these mobile formations, this
chapter has not chosen to (re)emplace migration onto a pre-determined matrix of bounded ter-
ritories again; rather, it has sought to understand the varied iterations and meanings of migrant
mobilities anew, through the drivers and processes that emergently produce them.
Delineating the production of migrant mobilities as a subject of inquiry, however, does not
preclude the continued entanglements of migration with nation-states. In fact, as the various
examples above intimate, state actors are frequently heavily invested in the assembling of struc-
tural and technological conditions for mobilising people (Salter 2013) –be it in the way they
identify (and classify) migrant groups for circulation, in how they increasingly intervene in the
design and construction of transport infrastructures, or in the manner they make borders porous
(or not) for different migrants. Adhering to a mobilities approach that highlights these inter-
ventions helps retrieve a politics of movement that has so far been obscured by a discourse of
methodological nationalism, which states themselves propound. To the extent that migration is
an uneven process, that further exacts lived consequences on those (im)mobilised thereby, there
is also a need to uncover these manipulations in process, in order to begin a serious critique of
how migrant pathways are made to be so different in ‘mobile’ Asia.
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11
THE INFRASTRUCTURAL TURN
IN ASIAN MIGRATION
Johan Lindquist and Biao Xiang
Introduction
During the past decade we have witnessed dramatic changes in how transnational migration
across Asia and the Middle East is organised. Consider the rise of the mobile phone, the deregu-
lation of the airline industry, the evolution of biometric technology, which have all in different
ways reshaped communication, transportation, and surveillance in the context of migration. For
instance, two decades ago the great majority of Indonesian migrants travelling from the island
of Lombok to Malaysia to work on palm oil plantations, or to Singapore as domestic servants,
would go overland via a complicated network of middlemen and different modes of transpor-
tation. Today most fly directly. When previously labour brokers wanted to get in touch with
prospective migrants in rural villages, they would call a telephone office and someone would
be sent to fetch the person in question. Today a text message will do.1 In the case of low-skilled
migration from China to Japan, internet-based video conferences were recently introduced by
employers in Japan to test workers’ skills. This not only saves employers international trips but,
more importantly, enables them to interview more candidates across larger areas while adopting
stricter selection criteria.2
This, however, does not mean that the migration process has become easier for migrants or
regulators. Along with the development of these technologies there has been a proliferation of
commercial brokerage and government regulations across the region. More generally, labour
migration in and from Asia is increasingly intensively mediated (Xiang and Lindquist 2014). For
instance, in Indonesia, documented international migrants are recruited by a series of licenced
and unlicensed middlemen, are required to apply for a number of government documents –
ranging from birth certificates, to travel permits, to passports –and pass medical tests, are trans-
ported by a range of vehicles, inhabit different forms of temporary housing, and spend time in
training centres prior to departure (Lindquist 2010). Furthermore, technological changes have
not streamlined the regulation of migration. Sophisticated surveillance technologies do not
simplify regulatory procedures. On the contrary, increasing numbers of visa categories and more
complicated regulations have been introduced.The Singapore government, for instance, pigeon-
holes migrants into finely differentiated classificatory grids according to nationality, skill level,
occupation and sector of employment, each subject to varying regulations.The Japanese regula-
tion of labour migration (under the so-called ‘industrial trainee’ programme) is so complicated
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that at least 38 forms have to be filled out when applying for a visa. Even a professional labour
recruiter in China has to spend more than US$120 just to get all documents in order.
In contrast to earlier forms of recruitment, which relied heavily on social networks and less
stringent bureaucratic process, such regulations turn migration in Asia into a form of ‘labour
transplant’, as migrants are extracted from their hometowns and inserted into a predesignated
foreign workplace with great precision. The journey between and the space beyond the two
points are thus minimised in migrants’ experience (Xiang 2012). In sum, the intensification of
mediation in migration has ushered in an ‘arms race’ between regulators and intermediaries
who compete to control the migratory processes (Pieke and Xiang 2009). As such, the compli-
cation of regulation has certainly not led to the demise of migrants’ rights abuses or migration
irregularities.
Behind these seemingly contradictory developments are three inter- related trends that
collectively constitute what we call the infrastructural turn in Asian migration. First, taken
together these developments call attention to how migration is profoundly shaped by changes
in infrastructure, broadly defined as a sociotechnical platform for mobility (Larkin 2013). The
transformations in the sociotechnical means of mobility are so dramatic that their effects on
migration processes are arguably more profound than any previous era. For instance, biometric
technologies have created an interface between individual identity, bodily characteristics and
databases, thus shaping the basis for the increasingly individualised and precise regulation of
migration. Irregular border-crossing becomes more difficult, and formal documentation much
more important. As a result, labour migration across Asia has been transformed: migrants enjoy
safer journeys and fewer injuries, but have higher financial burdens; they face fewer physical
risks, but are more socially constrained.
Second, although mobility is always facilitated and mediated by a diverse range of actors, net-
works and technologies, the contemporary concentration and systematisation of infrastructure
is arguably unprecedented. When people travel overland in horsedrawn carts, for instance, the
roads and vehicles are part of the local landscape, while those who facilitate or deter mobility
are deeply embedded in local communities. By contrast, when people travel by airplane, their
mobility relies to a greater degree on a system managed by highly centralised and standardised
professional bodies. Similiarly, migrant networks that have historically primarily been extensions
of familial and community relations have increasingly been replaced by specialist commercial
middlemen. Migration infrastructure appears increasingly autonomous. More specifically, we
have argued that labour migration from Asia is characterised by a process of ‘infrastructural invo-
lution’, in which the interplay between different dimensions of migration infrastructure make
it self-perpetuating and self-serving, thus impeding rather than enhancing people’s migratory
capabilities, most notably for low-skilled labour (Xiang and Lindquist 2014).
Third, government regulation has increasingly become a key component of migra-
tion infrastructure, particularly with regard to commercial middlemen and the rise of e-
governance. Regulation has become ‘infrastructural’ in the sense that governments do not
simply control the entry of particular individuals, but put in place systems that integrate
different actors such as guarantors and employers, following procedures such as assessing
each application by scoring against pre-set criteria, and forming transnational cooperation
and bilateral agreements between sending and receiving countries as well as private-public
partnerships. This new policy attention to migration infrastructure should be understood
in the context of growing public concern with infrastructure, both as a site of spectacular
economic and political investment and expansion –for instance, through the creation of the
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank –and of general crisis, as public works have ‘splintered’
in the wake of neoliberal reform (Graham and Marvin 2001), not least through recurring
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flooding that illuminates the fragility of expanding urban landscapes across the region. In the
context of migration, biometric technologies and surveillance systems point to new forms of
bordering practices. As a result, there is a sense of urgency among policy makers across the
world to, so to speak, ‘get the infrastructure right’.
While acknowledging the contingent, embedded, and patchwork nature of infrastructure,
and the distributed forms of agency, we claim that migration infrastructure’s autonomy –not
in the sense of existing and operating in isolation, but in becoming a driving force in its own
right –calls for a particular conceptualisation. Following from this, and as outlined in an earlier
publication (Xiang and Lindquist 2014), we define migration infrastructure as the systemati-
cally interlinked technologies, institutions, and actors that facilitate and condition mobility. For
analytical purposes, we stipulate five dimensions of migration infrastructure: the commercial
(recruitment intermediaries), the regulatory (state apparatus and procedures for documentation,
licensing, training and other purposes), the technological (communication and transport), the
humanitarian (NGOs and international organisations), and the social (migrant networks).These
five dimensions point to distinct logics of operation rather than discrete domains. For instance,
commercial infrastructure functions by interacting with regulatory, humanitarian, social, and
technological infrastructures. But in each dimension, the leading actors, the driving forces, the
central strategies and rationalities, and the defining modus operandi differ. The five dimensions
collide with and contradict one another, and this deep entanglement is the key to understanding
migration infrastructure. By defining migration infrastructure in this way we create a new space
for analysis that engages with the intensifying mediation of migration, rather than narrowly
focusing on migrants, social networks, or state policies alone.
In sum, the infrastructural turn is both a turn in migration patterns and in policy and schol-
arly thinking about migration. Our focus on infrastructure follows primarily from a struggle to
understand and conceptualise changes in migration on the ground. At the same time we hope
that our attention to infrastructure will stimulate methodological innovation and link migration
studies more closely to broad intellectual and political debates. This chapter provides an over-
view of the notion of migration infrastructure as the result of a convergence between empirical
changes in migration and the history of conceptualising migration. The chapter will begin by
delineating the evolution of migration infrastructure in both a global and regional context. We
will then discuss how an infrastructural perspective has developed in social research in general
and migration studies in particular. We conclude the article by highlighting the methodological
and theoretical challenges and opportunities that the infrastructural turn may bring about in
migration studies.
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by transportation innovations such as the steamship, as well as temporary housing and labour
depots (Kaur 2004: 51).
The prevalence of private recruitment brokers who facilitated the circulation of labour was
of particular significance in this process. In China, colonial powers set up recruitment bureaus
in key cities and dispatched officers to different parts of the country, who in turn relied on local
brokers to recruit workers. As circular migration or sojourning was a key feature of Asian migra-
tion (Amrith 2011: 4), migrants themselves frequently became brokers. In India, for instance,
the use of return migrants was critical in both kangani and indentured recruitment (Carter
1992). Brokers linked previously separate societies, either between the colonial and the native,
or between formal systems and informal social life, and made the actual recruitment and move-
ment of labour across great distances possible.
In his work on the history of Asian migration, Adam McKeown (2008, 2012) has described
the evolving international concern among lawmakers and reformers with regulating migration
brokers and the infrastructure of mobility during the second half of the 19th century. This was
‘part of a broader process of redefining forms of personal power and obligation, especially in
the context of work relationships’ (McKeown 2012: 22). More specifically, the decline of the
Atlantic slave trade and European indenture in tandem with the increasing demand for labour
supply over long distance led to a focus on improving the process of migration and recruit-
ment, of which brokers were considered an integral part. By the beginning of the 20th century,
however, with the rise of the ‘free labourer’ and the increasing focus on regulating migration
at the border, the broker was increasingly associated with ‘pre-modern’ forms of labour con-
trol and demonised on an international scale, despite the fact that most were a product of the
capitalist economies and mass migrations associated with modernity (McKeown 2008: 116). An
emerging form of proceduralism based on documentation increasingly came to regulate mobil-
ity (ibid: Chapter 10). While previously migration was conceptualised as a process facilitated
by a range of actors embedded in social relations of the migrant, proceduralism fixated on the
migrant as the subject of bureaucratic examination and regulation.
This form of proceduralism was evident, for instance, in the context of regulation of labour
mobility within the Dutch East Indies in the early-20th century, where the colonial state, while
heavily reliant on brokers, was also keen to curtail them.While Recruitment Ordinances aimed
to regulate labour recruitment through documentation, officials hoped that dactyloscopy, the
science of fingerprint identification, would form the basis for a modern labour system in the
Indies through the registration and, as Dutch experts put it, the ‘sieving’ of contract work-
ers. Indeed, labour depots in Javanese port cities such as Semarang, where prospective coolies
would transit, were the first places where fingerprint technology was implemented in the 1920s
(Mrázek 2002: 101–2). The aim was that information connected with the photograph or fin-
gerprint could be organised centrally and be accessed by concerned parties (Breman 1990: 45).
The emergence of proceduralism, however, did not lead to a paradigm shift in practical
terms. Despite the efforts of colonial officials, the newly created regulatory infrastructure did
not become a determining force in shaping migration. A range of licenced and unlicenced
brokers, transport, and housing remained, and continues to remain critical to migration across
Asia. Nevertheless, attempts to identify and regulate individual migrants illuminate processes of
‘state simplification’ (Scott 1998), which came to create an uneasy interface between legality
and mobility that has had profound effects on the regulation of migrants since.
If the period between 1850 and 1930 was the high point of Asian migration, the 1930s until
the 1970s was a period of ‘disconnection’ in the wake of World War Two and decolonialisation
(Amrith 2011: 89). By the 1970s, however, the rise of the Asian ‘Tiger’ and Middle Eastern oil
economies created new opportunities and patterns of migration across an increasingly uneven
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work opportunities, or dreams of modernity –or what happens upon arrival –they often lack
basic rights and are poorly paid –we have limited knowledge of what happens in between.
Scholars of migration have increasingly recognised this process of black-boxing from a variety
of perspectives. Historians have pointed out that brokers were increasingly vilified and pushed
underground with the rise of liberalism (McKeown 2012), thus creating the basis for an endur-
ing ethical binary, while social scientists have called for a shift of focus away from migrants and
their families to the entrepreneurs that make migration possible; in other words, the migration
industry (Hugo 2009). More recently, the concept of migration industry has been broadened
to highlight how ‘humanitarian’ interventions also need to be considered in empirical terms;
thus leading to a focus on the so-called ‘rescue industry’ that includes NGOs and other kinds of
actors that engage in counter-trafficking initiatives (Sørensen and Gammeltoft-Hansen 2013)
and the ‘illegality’ industry that characterises contemporary European engagement with undoc-
umented migration across the Mediterranean (Andersson 2014). From a different perspective,
Feldman (2012) has developed the concept of migration apparatus in order to conceptualise
how the figure of the migrant takes shape through the work of policymakers, Walters (2015)
has focused on politics of transport –viapolitics –while Neilson and his colleagues (2010) have
used logistics as an entry-point for conceptualising labour circulation.
These approaches have in different ways developed alternatives to mainstream migration
studies while avoiding the ethical binaries that characterise contemporary debates surround-
ing the figure of the migrant as either victim or perpetrator. This binary has become exceed-
ingly obvious in contemporary Europe, but is equally evident across Asia and the Middle East,
not least with regard to discussions concerning human trafficking or contemporary forms of
slavery or nationalist xenophobia. In other words, this suggests a shift of attention away from
the dichotomy between the figure of the migrant and the all-encompassing power of the state,
to a focus on how migration is always mediated, albeit on different levels and from different
perspectives.
These perspectives, however, appear unsatisfactory in relation to empirical changes taking
place across Asia and the Middle East. Migration industry construes migration as a form of
business rather than, for instance, considering how brokers also deal with various components
of infrastructure that have regulatory effects, while migration apparatus, in turn, focuses on
governmental operations and policymakers. In contrast, migration infrastructure, as we define
it, highlights a broader range of dimensions and logics of operation that we argue are critical in
describing and conceptualising contemporary forms of migration.
Our attention to migration infrastructure is informed by a widely acknowledged infrastruc-
tural turn in the social sciences (Larkin 2013; Harvey, Jensen and Morita 2017). In contrast to
conceptualising infrastructure as the underlying material basis upon which modern society
operates (Edwards 2003), recent scholarship in science and technology studies has come to
acknowledge that infrastructure cannot be approached strictly in technological terms but rather
as co-evolving sociotechnical systems (Jensen and Winthereik 2013; Larkin 2013), or even more
broadly as ‘technologically mediated, dynamic forms that continuously produce and transform
sociotechnical relations’ (Harvey, Jensen and Morita 2017: 5).
More generally, the turn to infrastructure points to broader transformations in social theory
that have important implications for the study of migration. In contrast to Marxian approaches
that situate migrant labour in a global political economy, or poststructuralist Foucauldian
perspectives, which have focused on power as a productive and diffusive force, science and
technology studies, primarily through the work of Latour (2005), have struggled to critique
taken-for-g ranted categories such as ‘power’ or the ‘social’, leading to a greater empirical focus
on materiality and mediation.4
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In particular, the infrastructural turn raises three related issues. First, there is an emphasis on
mediation. For instance, the desire to migrate should not be considered strictly in relation to
a decision-making binary between voluntary and forced, or in terms of ‘push’ or ‘pull’ factors,
but rather as mediated by cultural symbols, calculations and activities (Chu 2010). Paraphrasing
Latour, it is not migrants who migrate, but rather constellations of migrants and non-migrants,
of human and non-human actors (Latour 1999: 182; see also Chu 2010). A sharper focus on
mediation sheds light on changes in the internal composition of migration –how migration as
a process is constituted from within.
Second, and following from the previous point, an infrastructural approach allows for a
notion of distributed agency. In line with actor-network theory, agency is not located in the
intentionality of individual actors but rather in the constellations of migrants and non-migrants.
This does not disavow the possibility of change or migrant empowerment, but rather acknowl-
edges that these processes can be reduced neither to the agency of the migrants nor regulators.
Third, interconnectedness is contingent. Infrastructure is ecological and relational (Star
1999), and should be construed as a sociotechnical platform (Larkin 2013). This needs to be
done both synchronically and diachronically. We certainly agree that migration infrastructure
is instable, patchwork, has ‘splintering’ or recursive effects (Graham and Marvin 2001; Harvey,
Jensen and Morita 2017: 20) and that we need to pay attention to ‘gaps, interstices and zones
of opacity’ in infrastructure (Harvey, Jensen and Morita 2017: 23). A primary analytical value of
the infrastructural turn, however, is enabling us to discern contingent and often hidden inter-
connectedness. Highlighting gaps rather than the mechanisms that make mobility possible runs
the risk of drawing attention away from the broader analytical and political issues that are at the
centre of contemporary international migration.
Conclusion
Migration infrastructure has become a significant force in shaping migration outcomes and a
subject of intense government regulation in Asia. The infrastructural turn means that it has also
become a subject of academic inquiry in its own right since the 1990s. The turn is simultane-
ously empirical and epistemological. The double nature of the turn distinguishes it from recent
literature on infrastructure. In an early influential article, Star (1999) stressed that understand-
ing infrastructure is a matter of perspective. As infrastructure forms a background and is often
hidden, it is only through a form of inversion –the foregrounding of the background –that it
becomes visible and can be problematised. Larkin (2013: 338) further points out that any discus-
sion of infrastructure is a categorical act since the embedded nature of infrastructure means that
it is difficult to mark a beginning or an end to its existence. It follows that methodology is con-
tingent and that identifying a methodological approach to infrastructure becomes a theoretical
problem (see also Harvey, Jensen and Morita 2017); that is, there can be no standard method,
and how we approach infrastructure is always related to the specific theoretical question at hand.
Migration infrastructure, however, is not only a perspective that allows us to ‘rediscover’ what
has always been there but which we have failed to see, but also a new reality that demands new
research approaches. Migration infrastructure is not strictly that which becomes visible only
when it breaks down; migrants and regulators reflexively face and are constantly embedded in
infrastructure.
As such, the relation between the methodological and the theoretical may be less complex
than in other cases. Empirical reality provides a common ground for both. Future studies on
migration infrastructure should develop methods that will capture its actual mechanisms. For
instance, in line with innovations in multi-sited ethnography (Marcus 1995), we may follow
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documents by examining how they are designed, handed out, filled out by whom on whose
behalf, how they travel, and come to shape migration and its relation to other dimensions of life
(cf. Hull 2012). We may also compare how different migration policies have generated various
infrastructural configurations. But the empirical description of infrastructure remains limited in
itself. We are not interested in migration infrastructure per se, but take this as a point of entry for
examining urgent intellectual and political problems. For instance, it may not be particularly use-
ful to point out that the infrastructure of high-skilled migration differs from that of low-skilled
migration. But it can be revealing to analyse how the infrastructural variations result in the dif-
ferentiated social positioning of migrants, and therefore to identify specific points of actions for
policy-makers and NGOs that will empower migrants in actual life. More generally, these exam-
ples point to different kinds of approaches and questions, thus suggesting that the infrastructural
turn does not offer a new grand theory of migration but is rather concerned with developing
methodology and analysis in the face of a changing and multi-faceted empirical reality.
Notes
1 Lindquist’s primary data from fieldwork in Lombok intermittently from 2007 until 2014.
2 Xiang’s primary data from fieldwork in northeast China, 2004–2008, 2011.
3 More generally, these changes are in line with a model of ‘circular migration’ that has moved to the top
of the global policy agenda following influential reports by the Global Commission on International
Migration (2005) and the International Organization for Migration (2005) (see also Vertovec 2007). In
many ways the Asia-Middle East migration corridor has become a model of circular migration based
on an emerging system that preceded it. Importantly, there are clear continuities leading back to the
‘mobility revolution’ of the 19th century. Most notably, private recruitment brokers remain critical in a
wide range of contexts (Lindquist, Xiang, and Yeoh 2012).
4 This resonates, though often largely implicitly, with the growing interest in transnationalism and border
studies and a move toward a more dynamic, complex and open-ended form of analysis than conven-
tional notions of social structure and systems can capture. Furthermore, the rise of mobility studies, nota-
bly through the efforts of John Urry and the journal Mobilities, has also been influenced by the general
infrastructural turn. In contrast to mobility studies, however, which is concerned with mobility broadly
as its subject matter –ranging from mundane neighbourhood strolls to spectacular space exploration –
we more narrowly attempt to deepen our understanding of ‘migration’ as conventionally conceived by
bringing in an infrastructural perspective.
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12
THE CULTURAL AND
ECONOMIC LOGICS
OF MIGRATION
Jamie Coates
Introduction
The field of migration studies has generally targeted the question of why people move, what
happens when they move, and how should a ‘host’ state or society accommodate new arrivals.
These logics of migration address the motivations of migration and its potential consequences,
important issues in how we might understand patterns of human mobility both past and pre-
sent. Historically, the models used to explain the motivations for movement have largely been
explained in economic terms (see Cole and Rigg, this volume, Chapter 16). However, more
recent scholarship, particularly from ethnographers, has made compelling arguments for the
sociocultural dynamics that shape migrant flows. We might say that established understandings
of migration theory today recognise both sociocultural and economic factors that shape human
mobility, but these two factors are still often treated as separate spheres of logic or separate scales
of analysis. The puzzle of migration, however, also serves as a useful case study for problematis-
ing simplistic distinctions of economics and culture. In particular, the case of migration in Asia
challenges this kind of simplistic dichotomy. Focusing on the case of Chinese migration in Asia,
this chapter argues that mobility and the economy are deeply imprecated within cultural imagi-
naries of desirable lifestyles and personhood today.
Before examining recent developments in Asia that challenge a simple distinction between
economic and cultural logics of migration, it is important to understand how respective under-
standings of culture and economics have influenced the development of migration studies.
Contemporary understandings of the ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ are both theoretical inventions
developed to research social life. They have a history that traces back to the 19th century,
whereby the economic came to stand for objective conditions of human activity, and the cul-
tural as its subjective counterpart. The 19th-century anthropologist Sir E.B. Tylor is generally
credited with the definition of culture that is used today (Fischer 2012). In Tylor’s definition,
culture was synonymous with any shared system of meaning and usually signified a society or
civilisation. He defined it as:
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [sic] as a member of society
(Tylor 1920: 19)
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Prior to Tylor’s influential definition, culture was perceived as the highest achievements of a
particular aesthetic practice, such as opera or painting, rather than a shared system of meanings
that people used to negotiated their lives. In contrast, the word ‘economics’ in English comes
from the Greek term ‘oikonomia’ which referred to the management of household affairs (Hann
and Hart 2011). Somewhat ironically, its etymology is closely related to many of the everyday
aspects of life that we associate with the term ‘culture’ today. At the time, the oikonomia was
seen as domestic, and distinct from the market. However, the oikonomia’s pragmatic connota-
tions eventually led it to inspire utilitarian understandings of human behaviour. In particular,
under the influence of 19th-century political-economists such as Marshall and Marx (Marshall
1890; Marx 1976), the pragmatic concerns of household affairs were expanded as a metaphor
for understanding wider objective social processes. Neoclassical economics, for example, pos-
ited that individual actors work towards maximising their own personal utility as an objective
condition of human behaviour. In contrast, Marxist political economy focused on how relations
of production and labour were the objective conditions that constituted social inequality. In
this way, whether Marxist or neoclassical, understandings of economics were seen as somehow
separate from meaning-based relations and consequently more objective.
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Jamie Coates
they will move. More abstractly, it also forgets that economies are made up of people, who act
in culturally informed and occasionally irrational ways.
In scholarly circles, the broad understanding of the cultural and economic as potentially
separate phenomena, and consequently separate spheres of analysis, largely shaped the major
theories of migration in the 20th century (Brettell and Hollifield 2000; Bodvarsson and Berg
2009; Gupta and Omoniyi 2012). Neoclassical economic theories of labour migration have
been particularly influential, and in many senses framed the terms of the debate. From a neoclas-
sical perspective, people seek to maximise their gains by working in markets with the highest
wages or the best chance of employment. Hicks (1932) and Lewis (1954) originally connected
this perspective to the question of migration and labour distribution. From this basic premise,
migration theories focused on how migrants perceive the costs and benefits of migration. For
example, theorists extended the neoclassical model to consider how gains in human capital,
interpreted as economically valuable skills such as education, were also included in migrants’
economic logics (Sjaadstad 1962). Push–pull theories of migration followed a similar approach,
where migrants pursued utilitarian goals within a context of push–pull dynamics produced by
differences in economic, political and legal conditions (Lee 1966). In more critical leftist circles,
world systems theory explained how migration patterns were distributed along core, periphery
and semi-periphery destinations. Core destinations, largely made up of nations rich in capital
and controlling the means of production, were thought to attract migrants from poorer nations
on the periphery and semi-periphery (Wallerstein 1974). Viewing flows of capital as the pri-
mary way in which movement is channelled globally, world systems theory, much like neoclas-
sical approaches, saw economic conditions as largely determining movement (see for example
Cervantes-Rodriguez, Grosfoguel, and Mielants 2008).
The social and cultural dimensions of migration developed in parallel to economic theories,
and were heavily influenced by the experiences of the United States. After a massive influx of
migration to the United States, the Chicago school of sociology started addressing the sociocul-
tural aspects of migration in the early-20th century. Focusing on migrant communities within
North America, the Chicago school rarely questioned theories as to why migrants moved, but
rather focused on what happened to them once they were living in a new place. This emphasis
is exemplified in their efforts to develop a theory of ‘assimilation’ (Park and Burgess 1921; Park
1930; Park 1950). In the early-20th century in the US, public concerns about immigration
had reached a political breaking point, and an emergency bill was enacted that limited the
number of migrants on a nation-based quota system (Higham 2002). Migrants were seen as a
‘social problem’, and the Chicago school attended to this concern through questions of social
incorporation and cultural competency analysed on a local scale. As Robert E Park and Ervine
Burgess originally described it, this local problem was seen to come from questions of how one
might ‘establish and maintain a political order in a community that has no common culture’
(1921: 734).
The Chicago school’s emphasis on local communities enabled a compromise between
researchers of sociocultural phenomena and economics. Culture came to stand for the local
concerns of host societies, whereas the economic stood for the wider objective dynamics that
framed patterns of movement. However, this compromise also suggested blind-spots within
the social sciences. The ways in which culture was perceived as local, tended to emphasise the
solidarity of groups. Cultures were treated as bounded organic wholes, whose parts were already
functionally integrated. Such a conceptualisation overlooked the fact that the boundaries of a
‘culture’ or community are difficult to determine, and that in many ways pre-established mem-
bers of a group may not be, or feel, integrated. On an ethical note, it also put the responsibility of
assimilation on newcomers because the local was already assumed to be functionally assimilated.
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More generally, the framing of culture as local, and consequently particular, also reified the ‘uni-
versal’ and objective image of economics.
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Jamie Coates
Historically, the movements of Chinese people have also been circulatory, rather than
emigration-immigration two-directional flows. Some 20 million sojourners are estimated to
have travelled back and forth between China and Southeast Asia between the 1700s and 1900.
Distinctly transnational rather than emigrant settlers, many Chinese sojourners decided to stay
in the Southeast for more than economic reasons. Today some 55 per cent of the overseas
Chinese population is estimated to live in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. While
the origins of these networks may seem to have solely developed out of economic interests,
romantic and heroic portrayals of China’s closest frontier, ‘the south seas’ (Nanyang/nanhai),
have also been noted as influencing migrants’ decisions to ‘adventure’ south (Bernards 2015;
Wang 1997). Other phenomena also influenced people’s decision to stay. For example, political
conflict in China, inter-ethnic marriage, and positions of power within colonial regimes in the
South eventually encouraged many Chinese to stay. These historical accounts of international
movement suggest that Chinese migration has historically been as much a transnational culture
of migration as an emigration-immigration process shaped by economic forces.
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has not only influenced emigration, but also patterns of domestic migration. Within China the
number of seasonal migrations between rural and urban centres has almost rivalled the number
of international migrants as a whole. In 2004, for example, it was estimated that there were
126 million internal migrants in China, while there was a total of 200 million international
migrants globally (Murphy 2008). These human movements, both international and domestic,
signified widespread social changes in how Chinese people imagined their place in the world.
The intersection of these two drives has resulted in a process where, as Julie Chu suggests,
‘mobility is a privileged qualisign of modern selves’ among everyday Chinese people (Chu
2010: 63). Borrowing from Piercian semiotics, Chu uses the term qualisign to show how move-
ment, as a quality, has come to signify success, modernity and cosmopolitanism for those who
manage to leave the country. For example, she details how those left behind in a Fujian village
feel anxieties and pressures due to their lack of migration (Chu 2006), showing how mobility
as a qualisign is not only important to those who move, but also to those who are unable to do
so. Even for those who do not move, the accumulation of commodities that signify mobility is
important to their sense of self. As Chu shows, the accumulation of remittances and gifts also
embody Chinese dreams for mobility when stuck at home (2010). Case studies such as this sug-
gest that mobility has come to frame the cultural and economic logics of China in general, and
reshaped what defines positively valued personhood in Chinese cultural spheres.
Proportionally, only a small number of Chinese citizens have managed to emigrate to other
countries. In 2013, it was estimated that only 0.61 per cent of China’s population were living
outside the PRC (IOM 2015). However, as a normative perception emigration is valued posi-
tively (Coates 2013). Entrepreneurs and students who went abroad have become heroes in offi-
cial and popular discourse, and governments have attempted to kindle the positive associations
Chinese citizens have with emigration and study abroad through official policies (see Ho and
Lim, this volume, Chapter 6; Nyiri 2010). This is not merely a coincidental product of reform
era social dynamics, but has been an explicit objective within Chinese government rhetoric.
The ongoing efforts to frame overseas study as patriotic, and to foster patriotism among those
overseas, dates back to the 1990s and early 2000s (Xiang 2003; Fong 2004; Nyiri 2001). For
example, in 1992 government directives stated that overseas study policy should ‘support study
abroad, promote return, [uphold] freedom of movement’ and ‘promote overseas individuals to
serve the country’ (Nyiri 2001: 44). These directives continue today. Just recently, government
documents were circulated among China’s various cultural missions abroad, stating that overseas
institutions should work to, ‘assemble the broad numbers of students abroad as a positive patri-
otic energy’ (Buckley 2015).
The official rhetoric that encouraged educational and entrepreneurial migration is reflected
in the logics of those who have moved, albeit with more reflective nuance than governmental
discourse. For example,Vanessa Fong’s work on young aspiring migrants from Liaoning revealed
that a sense of China’s ‘backwardness’ (luohou), combined with a desire to be recognised as
modern cosmopolitan people, shaped the cultural and economic logics of those hoping to leave
the country (Fong 2004; Fong 2011).Viewing their decision to leave as both filial and reflexive,
Fong shows how economic and cultural logics of migration are imprecated with one another
under contemporary imaginaries surrounding personhood in China today.Their choice of des-
tination is also involved in this process. Aspiring to become modern global subjects, Fong’s
interlocutors spoke more of going to a ‘developed country’ in the abstract, than choosing a
particular destination (Fong 2011).
Mobility as a qualisign of the modern self not only influences people’s decision to go over-
seas but also many of the reasons for internal mobility in China today. Despite the dominance
of economic explanations of internal migration in China, research has shown that desires to
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overcome stereotypes of ‘backwardness’ and gender hierarchies in rural areas feed into the rea-
sons given by rural-to-urban migrants (Jacka and Gaetano 2004; Jacka 2014). For example, in a
1999 survey conducted by Knight, Song and Jia, over half of the rural-to-urban migrant women
interviewed stated that ‘more experience in life’ was their primary reason for moving to the city
(1999, cited in Jacka and Gaetano 2004: 6). More recently, ethnographic work has shown how
migrant women challenge images of backwardness and construct themselves as modern subjects
through internal migration (Gaetano 2015; Jacka 2014; Zheng 2011). For example, in Tiantian
Zheng’s research on migrant women in Dalian in Northern China, women’s performance of
gender co-opts symbols of mobility as a means to overcome stereotypes of their ‘earthy’ (tu)
rural backgrounds (2011). From their choice to move, to their choice to emulate fashions from
Korea and Japan, these women utilise signs of mobility to perform a modern, cosmopolitan
gendered self.
While the motivation to move as a means to becoming a modern subject may be shared
between those who leave the countryside, and those who leave China, these two forms of
mobility are not valued equally. The ‘floating population’ of internal migrants, although the
backbone of China’s recent economic success, have been treated with suspicion, attacked, and
spawned discourses that perceive these groups as subhuman in some cases (Jacka 2014). Debates
around human mobility have been coupled with discussions of what constitutes a good citi-
zen, exemplified by campaigns to raise the ‘human quality’ (suzhi) of the Chinese population
(Anagnost 2004; Jacka 2009; Kipnis 2006).
Through the rhetoric of suzhi, China’s floating population has been framed as lower in qual-
ity than urban populations. Mobility has featured as a keystone within these debates, whereby to
some rural-to-urban migration signifies a means to improve the ‘quality’ of China’s population,
and to others these mobilities pose a threat to the ‘quality’ of urban people. In contrast, moving
overseas for study or business is seen as a means to improve one’s suzhi. The combination of
mobility as a qualisign of the modern subject with discourses of ‘human quality’ in China sug-
gest the pivotal role migration plays in the contemporary ideas of valued personhood that feed
into the cultural and economic logics of those who move.
These wider cultural imaginaries inform why the desire to move is so great among many
Chinese people, with emigration framed as the most valued form of movement.Young Chinese
desires for the developed world have ensured that America is the largest recipient. For example,
in 2015 over 300,000 Chinese students arrived in the United States, showing a 10 per cent
increase from the previous year, and exponential growth over the past five years (Open Doors
2015). At the same time, Chinese migration within Asia has also taken on new patterns in the
reform era. Chinese migration to Japan is a particular case in point when thinking about how
the new dreams of mobility in reform era China have shaped migratory patterns. Starting from
small numbers of migrants who had moved to Japan during its imperialist expansion into China,
the Chinese population in Japan has increased ten-fold since 1985 (MOJ 2015). Being China’s
closest identifiable symbol of modernity in the 1980s and 1990s, Japan attracted migrants who
often had cultural, educational and money-making aspirations. Under a slogan of internation-
alisation (kokusaika) from the 1980s, Japan introduced a series of policies to attract and cultivate
foreign students, labour and talent. Coupled with a strategically designed Japanese visa system
that permitted long working hours while studying, educational migration became a proxy for
labour migration in Japan in the 1990s (Liu-Farrer 2011).
While the logics of this migratory flow may seem primarily economic, according to the
testimonies of Chinese migrants in Japan, there are fewer contradictions between everyday eco-
nomic and cultural logics than there may seem (Coates 2013).These purportedly separate logics
were combined into a variety of narratives that demonstrate the blurring of the economic and
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cultural in the everyday. Some migrants justify the move to Japan through ideas of the ‘good
life’ and how one has to be successful to be valued as a person (Coates, forthcoming). Others
moved as a response to family desires and pressures after failing to get into university in China
(Liu-Farrer 2014). And much like rural-to-urban migrants in China, some desired to develop
their cosmopolitan sensibilities (Lai 2015). Japan’s status as a popular culture hub in East Asia
is also shaping the desires of young Chinese who wish to work in cultural industries abroad.
It is increasingly common to meet Chinese photographers, visual artists, musicians and fashion
designers on the streets of Tokyo, pursuing cosmopolitan lifestyles found in Japan.
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‘rationales’. These rationales emerge from cultural contexts, and migrants behave strategically
in accordance with the practical logics and values developed over their own personal histories
(Bourdieu 1990).They seek employment and education in new locations because those endeav-
ours are valued in their places of origin. They choose particular destinations because of the val-
ues ascribed to those locations, whether a nearby city or another country. They find particular
opportunities and weigh up their worth based on what those opportunities might mean for
themselves, their families, or their communities.
These insights resonate with certain economic theories as much as sociological ones. As the
economists Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Greenwald highlight in their critique of free market
economic models, information is an unevenly distributed resource that deeply impacts on the
capacity for people to make economic decisions (Stiglitz and Greenwald 1986). There is no
invisible hand to the market, but rather market dynamics emerge from networks of economic
actors with differing levels of information. From this insight we can extrapolate that economic
rationales, based on imperfect knowledge, are historically, geographically, socially and culturally
contingent. More concretely, when considering migrants’ reliance on imperfect knowledge of
labour markets and economic opportunity, we must question whether their perceptions of ‘the
economy’ and the reasons for why they move are reflective of economic conditions. Rather, as
some research within the neoclassical school suggests, migrants act on expected economic returns
(Bauer and Zimmerman 1999; Massey et al. 1993).
From these standpoints, it is more useful to understand economic logics as a form of cultural
imagination. Imagination is the capacity to think beyond one’s own circumstances in creative
and associative ways (Anderson 1991; Castoriadis 1998). Economic logics are never simply
about economic conditions. Rather, they allow people to think through hopes and desires in
tangible ways.The desire to be accepted, attractive to others, or to be a cosmopolitan consumer,
are some of the ways the differences between economic, personal and cultural logics are difficult
to determine in everyday life. This is particularly the case in China. Consequently, rather than
treating economic and cultural logics as separate phenomena, it is more useful to approach the
economic logics and cultural aspirations of migrants as embedded within an ongoing culture of
migration where meanings and contingencies shape their decisions to move and where.
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13
INTERNAL AND
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
Separate or integrated systems?
Ronald Skeldon
Background
Internal and international migrations have become virtually two separate fields of inquiry.A bib-
liographic analysis has revealed that only 4 per cent of papers focusing on international migra-
tion make any reference to papers on internal migration (Nestorowicz and Anacka 2015). The
same source shows that those focusing on internal migration are a little more aware of papers
on international migration, with some 25 per cent of papers on internal migration making
reference to papers on international migration. Despite parallels in the theoretical approaches
to their analyses, discussions of movements within a state (internal migration) have largely been
treated as separate from movements from one state to another (international migration). The
discussions of the former have revolved around the redistribution of population within a coun-
try and, often, those movements associated with the process of urbanisation. The discussions of
the latter have come to preoccupy policy makers, politicians, the public and scholars in Asia
and around the world to the extent that the word ‘migration’ has come to mean ‘international
migration’. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of those who migrate in the world do
so within the boundaries of their own country. United Nations estimates placed the number
of international migrants in the world in 2015 at around 244 million (UN 2015) against a very
conservative and minimum estimate for the number of internal migrants at 740 million around
2010 (UNDP 2009). However, applying different definitions of ‘a migrant’ can greatly increase
both these estimates and, particularly, the number of internal migrants. For example, in 2001,
the Indian census recorded some 307 million Indians having moved from a previous place of
residence (Abbas and Varma 2014) and, in China, some 229.9 million rural migrant workers
alone were recorded in 2009 (ILO n.d.). Hence, and considering India’s demographic growth
from 2001 to 2011, taking only the two countries of India and China around 2010 one could
easily come up with estimates in excess of 550 million internal migrants. A global figure of 740
million internal migrants in 2010 seems very conservative indeed. If we are indeed in an ‘age of
migration’ (Castles, De Haas and Miller 2014), it is an age of internal migration.
The central question to be addressed in this chapter, however, is whether linkages exist
between the internal and international migrations across Asia. The fundamental difficulty in
establishing any such linkages lies in the lack of sufficient data to demonstrate the case one
way or the other. In fact, one of the reasons for a separation of studies on internal from those
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on international migration revolved round the different data sources used: analysts of internal
migration used mainly census or large-scale national surveys, while those studying international
migration used continuous immigration records. However, with census data being increasingly
used by those studying international migration, too, the two migrations are perhaps being
drawn closer together. Nevertheless, herein lie two major weaknesses. First, national population
censuses and most large-scale surveys record only country of birth or last residence and not the
specific place of origin, either by small geographic place or by urban or rural sector. Second,
rarely are more than the origin, however defined, and the current destination, or place of pre-
sent registration, recorded. To establish that a person has moved more than once, either initially
internally from one place to another place in country A before moving to country B, or initially
internationally from country A to country B before moving to another destination in country
B, information on at least two previous places of residence is required. The situation becomes
yet more complicated if return migration to country of origin occurs. Ideally, a complete longi-
tudinal, life-history approach is required to establish such linkages but such information is rarely
available for Asia or elsewhere. Even when available, generally the data are from small samples or
from case studies from which broad generalisations are problematic. Hence, this review can only
be indicative, advancing a number of hypotheses that might guide future research. It builds upon
previous work with which this author was involved (Skeldon 2006; King and Skeldon 2010),
draws on the essays in DeWind and Holdaway (2008) and pays tribute to one of the last papers
written by my colleague, Graeme Hugo (2016). Following on from the call in a collection of
essays on closing the gap between internal and international migration in Asia, this chapter
seeks to continue the conceptual exploration of the linkages in the search for a more integrated
approach to human migration (Hickey and Yeoh 2016).
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Also, the later international migration from these countries often built upon previous networks
of internal migration to the extent that the movements have become significant for both ori-
gins and destinations, with perhaps 500,000 migrant workers from Tajikistan alone in Russia,
although the exact number is impossible to calculate because of the number of those in an
irregular situation, as well as seasonal fluctuations.
Cases of ‘fuzziness’ also exist where an international border bisects an integrated eco-
nomic unit. For example, the city-state of Singapore is the centre of a much larger metro-
politan area that incorporates parts of Johor State in the neighbouring country of Malaysia
as well as adjacent islands that belong to Indonesia. It is not just the activities of an integrated
Singapore production base that is spread across countries but thousands of workers travel to and
from Singapore to workplaces across the border. Similarly, the economic base of the Special
Administrative Region of Hong Kong has expanded well into China. In 2011, it was estimated
that 21,500 workers lived in Hong Kong but worked in China and 27,000 lived in China and
worked in Hong Kong (BFRC 2014). In total, some 532,600 persons living in Hong Kong
made a frequent trip to China, as defined by at least one trip per week, with some 170,000 peo-
ple living in China visiting Hong Kong. Both these flows to Hong Kong and Singapore have
closer parallels with daily and weekly commuting to Tokyo, London or New York even if they
cross some type of internationally recognised boundary: international in the case of Singapore
and between a special administrative region and the rest of China in the case of Hong Kong.
This latter boundary exemplifies many of the difficulties in clearly demarcating an internal from
an international migration, which is also shown in the movements from the island of Taiwan
to China, where migrants are supposed to enter China with a ‘Home Visit Permit’ (hui xiang
zheng). Hence, boundaries can be fluid and, over the long sweep of human history, appear and
disappear as political units wax and wane as has been so well shown for Europe (Davies 2011)
and Southeast Asia (Hugo 2016).
It is not just where boundaries have recently or not so recently been introduced that dif-
ferences between internal and international migrations can become indistinct. In areas more
distant from lowland centres of power in Asia, such as the tangled mountainous eastern exten-
sion of the Himalaya into Southeast Asia, the boundaries between states are highly porous.
Before the modern era, states were separated by areas of relative influence rather than by clearly
demarcated lines on the ground, and groups migrated within culturally similar territories that
today would cross modern state boundaries in the search for land within systems of shifting
agriculture. Other groups passed through these territories, perhaps fleeing more powerful low-
land armies (Scott 2009) or, more likely, seeking ever changing alliances with cognate groups
(Mazard 2014). The extension of the modern Asian state has sought to stabilise these popula-
tions and incorporate them into state structures in an attempt to create citizens from previous
fluid allegiances. What used to be internal migrations within vaguely defined and contested
territory have become inconvenient international movements that need to be controlled and
stabilised in settled agriculture.
Such movements have echoes in the volumes of irregular migration in parts of Asia today as
groups with traditional ties cross borders to neighbouring countries. Many of the movements
from Sumatra in Indonesia to peninsular Malaysia, within the island of Borneo from Indonesia
to East Malaysia, from Lao PDR into northeastern Thailand and of minorities from Myanmar
into Thailand all fall into this category. Not all irregular migrants to these destinations involve
people capitalising upon traditional linkages but it is difficult to separate out subgroups in these
flows. However, the total number of migrants in an irregular situation in Southeast Asia is sig-
nificant. For example, in 2006, it was estimated that there were between 600,000 and 700,000
irregular migrant workers in Malaysia, the vast majority from Indonesia (Hugo 2007; Huguet
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2013) and in 2013, there were almost 1.6 million irregular workers from Myanmar, Lao PDR
and Cambodia in Thailand (Huguet 2014). The crossing of irregular migrants might appear to
have parallels with internal migrants in that the movers do not pass through formal border pro-
cedures but often simply walk across the border or take a ferry, but the consequences of being
in an illegal state place them in a more vulnerable situation. Hence, differences between internal
and international migrations can become blurred.
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will be a more likely outcome than a step through a city in the country of origin. Recruitment
of less-skilled labour is likely to be carried out directly in villages through agents and, although
the migrants may transit through large cities to go overseas, they are unlikely to spend any great
amount of time working there. However, in cases where a rural migrant finds his or her way to
a regional or national capital to work for a time before deciding to move internationally, that
move will establish a direct link between the village and the international destination.The criti-
cal networks that influence subsequent movements have been created and later migrants from
the village can then ‘short circuit’ the city in the origin country to move directly internationally.
Hence, step migration, where it exists, is likely to be a temporary phase in the development of
direct migration, a pattern which has been seen as occurring with step migration in domes-
tic migration: the migration from villages to local towns and then on to larger cities is soon
short-circuited as migrants from the villages move directly to the largest national cities once the
networks have become established (Skeldon 1990).
This perhaps downplays the significance of the linkage between internal and international
migration through the movement of individual migrants moving internally before moving
internationally, and the more important linkages may lie in the consequences of single move-
ments up the urban hierarchy by different groups of migrants.That is, and at the simplest level of
conceptualisation, those born in non-metropolitan areas of a country move to the metropolitan
areas and those born in the metropolitan areas move internationally in a process that could be
termed ‘stage migration’. The internal migrations to the metropolitan areas will, in reality, be
diverse and include much internal stage and step migration up the urban hierarchy, including
the movements of both the rural-born and the urban-born.
It is to the origins of the international migration that attention must now turn. Sufficient
evidence exists to suggest that, just as destinations of international flows are highly concentrated,
so, too, are origins. However, even if it is known, for example, that the historical international
migration from China came primarily from the coastal parts of the three southern provinces
of China of Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang, it is not clear whether the migrants came from
villages or from towns and cities in those provinces or, if they had come from the urban sec-
tor, whether they had previously moved from a village. One of the few studies from Asia that
provides some indicative data is from the Philippines where it was observed that more than
two-thirds of the migrant labour leaving the country between 1998 and 2002 came from
Metropolitan Manila and the surrounding regions of Central Luzon and Southern Tagalogue
(ADB 2004). That is, the majority of the Filipinos going overseas at that time came from the
major city of the country or from areas in the immediate vicinity. Data from Sri Lanka show
that up until the late 1970s, some three-quarters of international migrants came from the capi-
tal Colombo and the two contiguous urbanised districts (Gunatilleke 1995: 677). However,
by the early 1990s that proportion of international migrants originating in that capital region
had declined to about one-third, with increased numbers coming from towns in the interior
and eastern parts of the island. In China, too, the origins of migration have diversified, also to
include large metropolitan centres such as Beijing and Shanghai and particularly through their
role as important origins of the more than 900,000 Chinese students abroad in 2015 (ICEF
2016). Any role that prior internal migration may have played in this shifting pattern of move-
ment cannot be derived from the data. More generally, the growing skilled migration out of
Asian countries, mainly to the developed world, can also be assumed to have either originated in
or involved a sojourn in the major cities of countries of origin because it is in these centres that
the internationally recognised secondary and tertiary institutes of education are to be found.
It is perhaps in Latin America, where more work has been done on the urban origins of
international migration, that pointers may be found for migrations out of Asia. While it has
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been the migration from rural Mexico to the United States that has attracted most attention
from scholars, the metropolitan centres have provided an important source for such migrants for
some considerable time, accounting for between about 30 and 40 per cent of the total number
depending upon the time period under consideration (Hernández-León 2008). Despite this
important, if variable, role in the migration, relatively little detail is known about its character-
istics. Alternative indicators, such as the destination of remittances from international sources,
can also be used. For example, in Peru some 80 per cent of those remittances were sent to the
highly urbanised coastal regions of the country, with 57 per cent to Metropolitan Lima alone
(OIM 2008: 55). Of course, remittances are sent to where the major banks exist and they may
be forwarded to more remote areas.
What is clear is that the cities themselves are major origins of international migration as
well as points of transit for some rural-origin migration. Nevertheless, significant rural or small-
town origins of international migration quite independent of the cities also exist, movements
that pre-date those from the larger cities. In Asia, at least three areas can be identified, all in
South Asia: Sylhet in Bangladesh; Mirpur in Pakistan; and Kerala in India.The contexts of these
movements and their subsequent evolution have, however, been different.The migrations out of
Sylhet and Mirpur began in colonial times through local men being recruited into the British
merchant marine as low-skilled labour. Mirpuris had long been river traders before being
recruited onto ships at the coast, while British sea-going ships could penetrate as far as Sylhet to
load jute and take on any required labour. Some workers jumped ship at destinations in Britain,
others may have reached there after their ships were lost at sea during one of the world wars.
The result was the establishment of small communities of Mirpuris and Sylhetis in Britain, in
London but also in northern cities. Accounts of these migrations are well told in Ballard (1987)
and Gardner (1995) respectively, which later gave rise to direct migrations from home commu-
nities to the United Kingdom. Ballard estimated that some three-quarters of British Pakistanis
in the 1980s could trace their origin to the areas around Mirpur, with Gardner surmising that
95 per cent of Bangladeshis in Britain around the same time were from Sylhet. The migration
from Kerala was perhaps more complicated, with a well-developed internal migration to other
states before international migration emerged. However, the latter came from different areas
or different groups, mainly poorer and Muslim, with much directed towards the Gulf States
where permanent settlement was never allowed (Zachariah, Mathew and Rajan 2003). Hence,
unlike the migrations from Mirpur and Sylhet, long-term settlement and family reunification
never emerged. In all three cases, however, the international migrations seem to have developed
separately from any internal migrations and the two migration systems indeed appear to operate
almost independently, even if some step movements exist as described above.
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also seen in the agricultural sector and in Sylhet sharecropping emerged in wealthier villages
as landless workers from neighbouring areas moved in on both a shorter and longer-term basis
(Gardner 1995: 67–68). Emigration generated labour shortages that were reflected in rising
wages that, in turn, attracted workers from neighbouring areas. In the case of Mirpur, Ballard
(2005: 346) has shown that while the internal migrants initially came from neighbouring parts
of Pakistan, their numbers expanded to include some who had fled from Afghanistan. In this
case, international migration gave rise to local internal migration that later grew to include
previous international migrants in a complex sequence of human mobility.
In economies at more advanced levels of development than the areas examined in South
Asia, equally varied but different combinations of mobility can be seen. Just as the patterns of
fertility and mortality have been shown to change over time, as is summarised in the model of
the demographic transition, so, too, do the patterns of migration. Zelinsky (1971) was among
the first to suggest a linkage among all three demographic variables in the hypothesis of the
mobility transition (also Skeldon 1990).Where internal migration towards the major city or cit-
ies in a country has been intense and fertility has moved to low levels, a slowing in the growth
of rural populations occurs that ultimately leads to rural depopulation. Thus, internal migration
is no longer a sustainable source for labour for urban, as well as many rural, activities.The urban
populations, too, go through the transition to low fertility, usually before the rural populations,
ensuring a continued demand for workers.Thus, in economies where internal sources of labour
have either contracted or are difficult to access, international sources may come to replace
domestic sources. That is, international migration becomes a substitute for internal migration.
Complex realities show that migration systems rarely evolve in quite such simple mecha-
nistic ways. Nevertheless, sufficient evidence exists from Asian cases to suggest variants in the
process that can contribute to the wider debate on migration and development. Thailand has
emerged as one of the principal destinations for international migration in eastern Asia, with
between 3.5 and 4 million migrants in the country in 2013 (Huguet 2014: 1) and the foreign
workforce representing around 7 per cent of the total labour force (IOM 2013). With rising
education levels among the Thai population, Thais are no longer willing to engage in many
low-paying and low-prestige sectors of industry. The fishing industry, both onshore process-
ing and deep-sea fishing, is dominated by migrant workers, as is the construction sector in the
major cities, as well as the domestic worker sector that frees Thai women to go into the labour
force. The substitution of international migrants for Thai workers, observed quite early in the
21st century (Martin 2007), reflects not just the increased aspirations of the Thai population
as a whole but also the fact that the internal migrants are no longer willing to engage in low-
paying activities.While the evidence to demonstrate any clear decline in the number of internal
migrants is still elusive, the total fertility of the Thai population has been below replacement
level since the early 1990s, current population growth is around 0.25 per cent per annum and
will turn negative by 2025. In order to sustain its current labour-intensive activities, Thailand
needs international migrants, with some three-quarters coming from neighbouring Myanmar, a
country that is itself in the midst of profound economic and political change.
A country that is already in population decline, and where the annual numbers of inter-
nal migrants have already declined by almost 40 per cent between 1970 and 2010, is Japan
(Skeldon 2013). Much of the rural sector is classified as ‘severely depopulating’ and few
young people are to be found in the villages to migrate to urban labour markets. Yet the
annual flow of international migrants to Japan has changed little over recent decades. It has
fluctuated between 201,000 and 370,000 per annum with the figure for 2011 exactly the
same as it was for 1992 at 266,900 (OECD 2013; 2003). Clearly, policy is a major factor
in limiting the international flows to Japan but so, too, have been two other factors. First,
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the nature of Japan’s economy is totally different from that of Thailand. Labour-intensive
industrialisation has long disappeared from the country in the ‘global shift’ of such industries
to areas where labour forces were still expanding (Dicken 2011). The advanced Japanese
economy, unlike that of Thailand, favoured the importation of relatively small numbers of
highly skilled labour that was subject to high turnover through networks of transnational
corporations. Second, Japan is one of the countries most energetically pursuing policies of
automation, or the substitution of capital for labour, and has the largest stock of industrial
robots in the world.1 In the future, migration, both internal and international, may become
progressively de-linked from labour demand although, over the short term, a demand for
certain types of labour will exist, particularly with the 2020 Olympic Games on the horizon
in Tokyo.
Neighbouring South Korea has also seen very low population growth, even if population
decline is not expected until the 2030s. It has also experienced a smaller and more recent down-
turn in the annual number of internal migrants, by 13 per cent from 1990 to 2010. However,
unlike Japan, the annual flows of international migrants have increased quite markedly over
recent years, virtually doubling from 2001–2002 to 307,000 in 2011. Hence, several pathways
in the nature of the substitution of international for internal migration exist and depend upon
the state of development of national and regional economies, as well as on government policy.
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Return migration has always been an integral part of all migration systems, whether the
international migration across the Atlantic in the 19th century or internal migration in Asia
today. Hence, a proportion of those who have migrated in a step or directly to an international
destination can be expected to return either to their hometown or village, or to the step or
transit stop along the way. In the former case, the migration can be seen as a full return whereas
the latter can be considered a partial return or ‘J-turn’ migration. Some data for the 2.2 mil-
lion returned students to China exist. The Chinese Ministry of Education has estimated that
between 70 and 80 per cent of students have returned to China in recent years, with almost
half returning to one of the four leading cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen
(ICEF 2016). In the case of Beijing, only about 10 per cent of the returnees had been born in
that city, showing the importance of ‘J-turn’ international migration. More generally, precise
data are elusive, although it might seem unlikely that migrants who had spent considerable time
in a city overseas would return to a life in an isolated village. A return to the national capital
of the country of origin or to a regional urban centre close to the ancestral village might seem
a more realistic destination for both a return migrant to continue some kind of employment
or even to retire. These options reveal the complexity of onward or backward movement that
involve both internal and international migrations. Unless detailed migration histories are col-
lected, standard census and large-scale survey instruments will record ‘no migration’ or just a
local internal migration for these cases instead of a whole complex sequence of internal and
international movements.
Conclusion
Migrations within the boundaries of a state tend to be distinct from those leaving a state,
although parallels and linkages do exist.This chapter has attempted to show how the spatial pat-
terns of internal and international migration can be linked, with the linkages varying over time
as the underlying economy evolves. Migrants respond to the opportunities available to them,
which will incorporate both internal and international destinations, but much work remains to
be done to identify the particular migration channels used: that is, to identify specific origins
and specific destinations by subnational region and by sector, urban and rural. Both internal and
international migration are operating separately, as well as together, and interacting in complex
and variable ways. By placing both within a single framework we can begin to move towards an
integrated methodological and conceptual approach to human migration. The examples from
Asia, in very different economic, political and social contexts from other parts of the world,
provide a comparative perspective that can help us to move towards this objective.
Note
1 The Economist, 29 March 2014.
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14
HUMAN TRAFFICKING OR
VOLUNTARY MIGRATION?
Lessons learned from across Asia
Pardis Mahdavi
Since at least 2001 there has been a growing sense of moral panic (Cohen 1972) around the
phenomenon loosely termed ‘human trafficking’. The term ‘trafficked’ has been deployed to
account for all experiences of women who migrate into the sex industry. The problematic
effects of this are two-fold: first, the assumption is that all women in the sex industry are
trafficked, and second, it eclipses the instances of trafficking experienced by men or women
outside the sex industry. Trafficking has been colloquially defined by the United Nations and
anti-trafficking activists as entailing a migratory experience characterised by the elements of
force, fraud, and/or coercion. To be labelled a ‘trafficking victim’ theoretically entitles one to
a particular legal status and its attendant benefits. Borne out of a reasonable sense of indigna-
tion toward the types of abuse and exploitation that seem all too common in migrant women’s
worlds, the concept has been expanded beyond reasonable or feasible limits, becoming both
conceptually and juristically obtuse, while narrowly gendered, sexualised, and racialised at the
same time. Specifically, the misunderstanding that human trafficking refers only to women
who are kidnapped by men and forced into the sex industry has, problematically, become the
functional definition of the term (Vance 2011). This has altered the way in which trafficking is
represented, pursued, and prosecuted.
The paradigm of human trafficking, as it exists today, and the legal ambiguity and popular
specificity with which trafficking has been defined, offer insight into the complex ways that
gender and race permeate understandings of both victimhood, vulnerability, and power. Most
problematically, discourses and policies pertaining to migration in the Asian context have cre-
ated falsely dichotomised categories of those who enjoy voluntary migration versus those who
have been trafficked. This false binary does not recognise that many migrants increasingly move
and live in the in-between grey spaces of irregular migration and/or employment.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with migrants moving across Asia, I argue that mis-
guided, racialised panic about gendered and raced bodies moving across the continent has
produced two levels of disconnection between policy and lived experience, and that these
disconnections have the result of producing irregular migration. The first is a disconnec-
tion between where policies are crafted (Euro-America) and where they are operationalised
(migrant sending and receiving countries across Asia). This is most clearly manifest in the fact
that most human trafficking legislature –such as the global Trafficking in Persons Report and
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act –are written and contoured in the United States with
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some input from European nations. These policies have become de facto the pillars of global
responses to human trafficking writ large. However, policies crafted in places like Washington
DC are often out of touch with on-the-ground realities of migration in places such as Dubai,
Tokyo, Manila, or Mumbai.
The second level of disconnection occurs between those making global policies or the
local responses to global policies, and those whose experiences are affected by these policies.
Discourses and policies about human trafficking that seek to bifurcate the issues hinging on
the question of choice or blame do not adequately capture the complexity of lived reality for
most migrants. So disconnected are policies from the lives of migrants, that policies are actually
creating a situation wherein migrants options (already limited) become even fewer. For some,
irregular migration becomes the only way forward.
In this chapter I draw on original ethnographic fieldwork to highlight two case studies from
two very different migrant receiving nations, namely the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and
Japan. These two countries have played host to large numbers of migrants predominantly from
Southeast and South Asia. As such, examining the experiences of migrants in these two migrant
receiving countries allows for a comparative look at inter-Asian migrations in two very differ-
ent contexts. I foreground policies formulated in response to the legislative and discursive panic
around the phenomenon of ‘human trafficking’ in order to highlight both the disconnection
between policies on trafficking and labour migration with lived experiences, and also the ways
in which policies actually produce irregular migration. It is interesting to note that in these two
very different contexts, the same patterns can be observed when looking at the on-the-g round
realities of migrants’ lives. Similar trajectories from formal, regulated migration and employment
into informal and irregular migration can also be observed in both contexts. Also of note is the
fact that the United States’ series of trafficking policies plays similar roles in both countries, and
requires both governments to enact certain types of legislature over the past decade that have
effectively produced more irregular migrants.
The presence of these irregular migrants, though produced by policies seeking to respond
to US-based anti-trafficking legislature, are, paradoxically, now seen as a weak point of both
governments, and a reason to place both countries on the second (less desirable) tier of the US
Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Effectively, it seems as though both governments are in a
position where they cannot win in the eyes of the US State Department. In response to previ-
ous rankings and suggestions in the TIP report, both governments have enacted a series of laws
and responses. These responses have led to increasing precarity for migrants, who now favour
irregular migration. Governments, at the country level, also experience a type of precarity in
receiving continued criticism from the US and its allies about the presence of ‘trafficking’ and
‘illegal immigration’ on their borders.
Governments across the globe have expressed increasing frustration at the rising numbers of
what can be variously termed ‘illegal’, ‘informal’ or ‘irregular’ migrants and immigrants. States
routinely seek to enact legislature to ‘solve’ the problem of ‘illegal (im)migration’. Globally, there
are tensions between countries seen as sending countries and those understood to be primar-
ily receiving nations, as they struggle to negotiate ways to mitigate the undocumented flow of
persons across their borders. However, policy makers, and those who engage in larger discourses
about the woes of ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’ migration frequently overlook the role of national and
international laws or policies in producing situations wherein irregular migration or employ-
ment becomes the comparatively better –and sometimes only –option for social, economic,
emotional and physical mobility (DeGenova and Peutz 2010; Garces-Mascarenas 2010). The
lived experiences of migrants are also elided in larger moral panic (Cohen 1972) about irregular
migration. When migrants are viewed only as products of their migration or employment, the
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very real intricacies of the challenges and opportunities they seek, and their experiences, are
erased. Moreover, the ways in which subjectivity is produced in and through migration, and the
complex series of decisions that migrants make as they seek different types of mobility, are also
eclipsed. This erasure of migrant agency and subjectivity then contributes to the production of
more laws and policies that are disconnected from lived experience, resulting in more challenges
for migrants, and often for the host countries in which they live and work.
Throughout this chapter, I have tried to pay special attention to the use of words and the
artificial nature of categories produced by etymology. It is important to have a heightened
awareness of binaries that have been falsely dichotomised with respect to the economies or
migratory schemes within which migrants operate. These binaries have become objects of
concern and query, and have become reified as a result of the trafficking moral panic that
colours conversations about migration. Both binaries of legal/illegal and formal/informal
have been used frequently, neither of which capture the grey areas of lived experience.
Many of my interlocutors migrated ‘legally’ (i.e. through ‘legal’ visa entry processes), but
then worked in the informal (or unregulated, untaxed) economies of care work or sex work.
Others came illegally (were smuggled or engaged in the ever-popular ‘visa trading’) but
work for companies in the formal economy. Still others migrated legally but then overstayed
their visas or absconded from their employers, thus rendering them ‘illegal’ in their visa
status. What it means to migrate or work legally or illegally, and where the formal economy
ends and the informal economy begins, encompass many shades of grey. The terms ‘illegal’
and ‘informal’ carry with them some pejorative weight, and it is for this reason that many
scholars – myself included –have used the terms ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ migration, not to
dichotomise the two, but in an attempt to find more neutral terminology. When I write
about ‘irregular’ migration or employment, I am using the term not to enact judgement, but
to refer to movement or work that takes place outside the spheres governed by formal legal
and economic structures.
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That this policy has been constructed within a framework of criminalisation (rather than a
framework of rights) is just one aspect of the problem. Current political initiatives to fight
human trafficking are also markedly focused on sex, while the moral panic about human traf-
ficking remains suffused with racial undertones.
Beyond this reductive focus on sex, the discourse on human trafficking oversimplifies com-
plex decision-making processes. The typical ‘victim’ does not have any agency in her circum-
stances. Either she is forced, and therefore trafficked, or she (or he) chooses to migrate, and
therefore is not trafficked. But this simplification extends further. ‘Victims’ are typically women
who have been forced by a particular trafficker. In some forms of legislature, such as the T-visas
in the United States, the awarding of provision is contingent on the ‘victim’s’ willingness and
ability to testify against her trafficker.
A focus on individual villains is not only unsupported by data, but obscures the complex
strategies and decisions migrants work through in order to make a better life for themselves and
their loved ones. Many migrants made the difficult choice to migrate (or remain in traffick-
ing-like situations) because of poverty or other structural conditions in their home countries
that made supporting family members at home impossible. Some are fleeing war or conflict,
while others migrate because their home economies have become almost entirely dependent
on remittances.Without looking at the complexity of lived experience and the intimate lives of
labourers, the picture remains half-formed.2
A major challenge for migrants in Asia is that the trafficking discourse has been constructed
largely in Euro-America. The two major pieces of trafficking legislation to date, the United
Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children (Palermo Protocol) and the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA),
reflect specific concerns about migration, and about the migration of women in particular,
revealing their formative context of increasing global securitisation and militarisation. While
the UN protocol represents a far more collaborative effort between states across the globe, and a
more broadly structural perspective on the types of coercive forces that migrants encounter, the
TVPA has become the salient actor on the global stage, mainly because of the role of the US and
the TIP in prompting countries around the world to respond to US rankings.To understand the
forcefulness of this particular piece of domestic legislation internationally, it is first necessary to
briefly examine the internal politics that contributed to its particular ideological underpinnings.
The collaboration between abolitionist feminism and conservative Christian agendas has
attained relevance far beyond the borders of the US in large part because of the TVPA’s for-
eign policy component, the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Essentially functioning as a
global scorecard, the TIP is a report that is produced in the spring of every year by the Office
to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (a division of the US Department of State)
that places foreign nations into one of three tiers based on the severity of human trafficking
within state boundaries and the perceived adequacy of responding domestic policies (though
the US itself remained conspicuously absent from these gradings until 2011). Countries that
have achieved Tier 1 status, such as the United Kingdom, Italy, and Sweden, have been deemed
to possess satisfactory counter-trafficking measures, including effective anti-trafficking laws and
well-developed programmes within civil society. Countries that have historically received this
designation are primarily located in the developed world, with the majority located in the
‘West’ (exceptions being countries such as New Zealand and Australia).Tier 2 countries (such as
Thailand, Israel, and Mexico) are countries that do not fully comply with US international anti-
trafficking criteria, but are deemed as making significant efforts to do so. Between Tiers 2 and 3
lies a category entitled ‘Tier 2 Watch List’ which consists of countries (such as Argentina, Russia
and the Philippines) who are not making ‘significant enough’ efforts to combat trafficking, but
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do not yet merit the heavily stigmatised designation of Tier 3. Countries currently placed in the
bottom tier (Tier 3) of the TIP report, those that do not comply with US-designated standards
to ‘combat trafficking’ (such as Iran, Malaysia, Syria), can find themselves facing severe sanctions
as retribution for their failure to make the grade, and are subject to public shaming in the inter-
national community –a salient factor in the cases of both the UAE and Japan. A critical look at
the ranking system of the TIP reveals more about the current state of the US’s foreign relations
priorities than about current global human trafficking trends and flows.
Critics from both within the US and across the globe have protested these rankings and the
criteria used to determine them, citing, amongst other things, prejudice and differential treat-
ment based on racial and religious composition of a given country. Some point to the use of the
TIP as a tool of American hegemony and a way for the US to paint its adversaries in a further
negative light.
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and hope to improve upon the current situation. This erasure has resulted in a silencing of the
efforts of many individuals (both citizens and non-citizen residents), while also facilitating a
state-driven co-optation of the issue.
The UAE is a member of the International Labour Organisation and the Arab Labour
Organisation, and has ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, and the
United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially
Women and Children. While the Emirates is working towards improved labour standards,
human trafficking with a focus on sex work has taken centre-stage. In a statement responding
to the 2009 TIP, Minister of State Anwar Mohammed Gargash, who is the head of the UAE’s
National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking (NCCHT) formed in 2007, said, ‘It is
incongruous to equate alleged labour rights violations, which are critical but a separate issue, to
the coercive and unacceptable sexual exploitation of women for profit. This report lumps all of
these issues together in a manner that is generalised and unconstructive.’4
One official within this NCCHT task force emphasised that anti-prostitution activists from
the US had played a large role in refocusing the UAE’s efforts on sex trafficking. Responses to
the TIP have included the establishment of the NCCHT (which is made up primarily of pub-
lic prosecutors and law enforcement officials), as well as a human rights task force within the
police sector whose mandate is to arrest people deemed as ‘trafficked persons’. In addition, the
NCCHT has worked to create the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children that has admit-
ted 43 cases of trafficking (all women), and a shelter in Abu Dhabi that has admitted 15 women
since its inception in 2009. In 2009 there were 20 registered cases of trafficking (all related to
the sex industry), up from ten in 2008, and in 2008 six persons were convicted. While these are
important and impressive measures of progress, one activist who has been working to reform
the kafala system expressed frustration and felt that some officials were using the hyper-scrutiny
on women in the sex industry to get away from the larger issue of labour laws in need of reform.
Simply put, the focus on human trafficking has obscured the larger issues around labour
rights violations in the UAE. Ironically, the government of the UAE and several local activists
had been working to reform kafala or abolish the system altogether (like neighbouring Bahrain).
When the UAE was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List in the TIP in the early 2000s, however,
these energies were moved aside in order to focus only on sex work and sex trafficking. The
UAE was told to ‘tighten borders’, ‘increase police’, and ‘increase prosecutions’ (TIP report
2008), all focused on the sex industry. All three of these recommendations actually resulted in
more challenges for migrants, and created more situations of irregularity. ‘Tightening borders’,
while not addressing the realities of supply and demand, resulted in more women migrating
through irregular channels.
‘Increasing prosecutions’ led to brothel raids wherein women who were not necessarily traf-
ficked, but who were working in the sex industry (and here the conflation of sex work and sex
trafficking becomes starkly manifest), were arrested, often abused and deported. ‘Increasing the
police force’ instead of increasing labour inspectors not only allowed labour abuses to continue,
but had the unfortunate side effect of resulting in higher numbers of women reporting rape at
the hands of imported policemen, according to the director of an informal shelter operating
in Dubai. Many of the members of law enforcement are migrant workers themselves and they
receive very little, if any, training about working with survivors of abuse. A large number of my
interlocutors (33) reported rape, sexual harassment, or physical abuse at the hands of policemen
in the UAE. Thus, ‘increasing police’ without providing training increases possibilities of abuse
that migrant women face.
In addition to more challenges for migrant workers, the UAE was also critiqued in sub-
sequent TIP reports (2013, 2014) for focusing too much on sex trafficking and not enough on
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labour abuses.The 2014 TIP report specifically asks the UAE to focus on labour, chastising them
for not doing so.When asked to comment on this paradoxical situation, one Ministry of Foreign
Affairs official told me in 2014, ‘We just can’t win. We think we are doing what they [the US]
want. But human trafficking is just one of those issues that is a never-ending headache for us.
Not because of the trafficking itself, but because of this political mess.’
In Japan, the trajectory has been frustratingly similar. In an interview in early 2015 with
a former high-level official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) who was in charge
of responding to Japan’s ranking in the TIP, his comments echoed the Emirati official with
whom I had spoken a few months earlier. ‘Human trafficking, TIP,’ he sighed hanging his
head and covering his forehead with his palm, ‘These were my biggest headaches. Trying to
negotiate, to tell the Americans that we are in fact addressing the problem in our own way…
but then nothing. No response. No matter what we did, always Tier 2. So… I gave up.’ As
this gentleman alludes, Japan has spent most of its time occupying the Tier 2 ranking of
the TIP report. While this is not devastating for some countries not particularly invested in
being moved to Tier 1, virtually all of the government officials with whom I spoke in Japan
were emphatic that being placed on Tier 2 was a source of shame. ‘Most of the countries
we trade with, most of the developed world is on Tier 1. Why should Japan be on Tier 2?’
asked another MFA official. ‘I would understand if we deserved it, but do you really think, in
light of all that the Japanese government does to protect migrants in this country, to provide
services, and after all that we have done, do you think we deserve to be ranked alongside
Bangladesh, Ethiopia and, I don’t know, Mongolia?’ he added. In particular, government
officials expressed frustration at the fact that despite following many of the TIP recommen-
dations set out for Japan, they were not able to move from their ranking.
For example, in 2005, in response to TIP pressures that Japan focus on prosecuting and
preventing sex trafficking, and in particular paying attention to its ‘entertainment industry’, the
Japanese government enacted legislature to change the parameters for the legal application for
an ‘entertainer visa’.5 This resulted in a drop in the numbers of Filipina entertainers from nearly
100,000 to just under 8,000 in a two-year period (Suzuki 2015). Some were deported; others
had returned home to renew their contracts and were not permitted to return. Some, however,
married clients or friends in order to be eligible for spousal visas so that they might stay or
return to Japan. Not surprisingly, in 2006, there was a spike in the number of Japanese Filipino
marriages to quadruple what it had been previously (Suzuki 2015).What is surprising, however,
is that despite this rather extreme legislative change, Japan remained on Tier 2 of the 2006 TIP
report. Similar to the situation of the UAE, in subsequent years, despite being told to focus on
reducing sex trafficking, Japan has been critiqued for an over-focus on the sex industry (TIP
2013, 2014). Furthermore, despite enacting legislature to curb what is perceived as ‘sex traf-
ficking’, and despite significant outreach to irregular migrants such as the Filipina spouses and
mothers of Japanese citizens, who are supported by the government, and sponsoring shelters
and NGOs to provide services, the Japanese government is still seen as not doing ‘enough’ to
comply with opaque human trafficking standards set by the US.
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These alternative employment and migratory spheres offer comparatively safer and more lucra-
tive options for many of my interlocutors, such as Meskit and Marguerita introduced below.
‘I used to see my cousins and girlfriends come back to Ethiopia with lots of money, and
nice magazines and nicer clothes,’ Meskit said, reflecting on her decision to migrate to Dubai
to work as a domestic worker. When I met her, she was working illegally as a nanny for three
different families and occasionally engaged in sex work on the side. She had been in Dubai for
almost five years, and in that time had borne a son fathered by an Emirati man with whom she
had lived for two years. She was very eager to return to Ethiopia to reunite with her family, but
was afraid of the heavy fines she would incur upon her departure. Migrants who overstay their
visas or work illegally must pay heavy fines ($25) for each day they remain beyond their assigned
departure date.The trouble for Meskit was that she did not have her passport or visa. Her previ-
ous employers had retained her documents and refused to return them to her.
Meskit’s trajectory –from migrating to work in the formal sphere of domestic work to
working in the informal economy of the sex industry and living as an ‘illegal alien’ in Dubai –
was similar to that of at least seven other women with whom I spoke. In recent years, the
Ethiopian government –in response to moral panic about human trafficking –has passed a
series of measures designed to regulate the flow of Ethiopians migrating for work, particularly
to the Middle East (Fernandez 2014).The state has imposed rules on licensing for recruiters and
has been working towards a system of employee training (similar to that in the Philippines) and
contract monitoring.This increased bureaucracy has resulted in many women looking for other
ways to leave Ethiopia, ways that are seen as simpler and faster routes for securing transnational
employment.
Meskit’s friend put her in touch with an illegal recruiter who asked for a high fee, equivalent
to $2,000, for securing Meskit’s passage to Dubai (via boat through Yemen) and for drawing up
a contract for her to work as a domestic worker. Meskit never saw the contract, but was told she
would be met by another recruiter upon her arrival in Dubai.
When she arrived in Dubai after a long journey she was met by a recruiter and then taken
to the home of her new employers, a Lebanese family who had moved to Dubai a few years
earlier. The family took her passport and to this day she is working to retrieve her passport so
that she can find legal employment and return to Ethiopia. During the six months that Meskit
worked for this family, she had suffered beatings from her madam (female employer and head of
the household) and sexual advances from the male head of the household and his son. Made to
work up to 18-hour days, the family often locked Meskit in the house when they left, and did
not provide her with dinner on a majority of week nights.
After several months of abuse, Meskit ran away from her employers and met an Emirati young
man who wanted to help her. After a few weeks Meskit became romantically involved with this
man and eventually became pregnant. After their son was born, however, things changed. The
young man, who had not yet succeeded in retrieving her working papers or passport, suddenly
became agitated with Meskit and ordered her to leave the house with the baby. Though Meskit
did not know it at the time, her son was undocumented because the boy’s father had never
acknowledged paternity. If caught, Meskit would likely be deported, but her son might remain,
stateless, in the UAE, according to UAE law if he is suspected of having Emirati paternity.
Limited by not having legal working papers, Meskit began by working in a restaurant in
the Ethiopian neighbourhood in town. After a few months’ working at this job, however, she
was not getting paid. One evening she met a group of women at the restaurant who worked as
sex workers in a bar called Fantasi. They told her what her earning potential could be and she
decided to join them that evening.This marked the beginning of Meskit’s work in the informal
economy of sex work. After a few months’ working at the bar, Meskit was arrested one night on
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a raid. She was put in jail for three weeks and not permitted to see her son, who was still at the
home of the friends with whom she had been living.
Marguerite’s movements through the irregular and regulated economies reveal striking simi-
larities, but also important differences. Originally from Sasya in the Philippines, Marguerite
came from a family of four sisters. Marguerite and her youngest sister decided that they were
happy not to attend university in the Philippines, and sought out entertainer visas for Japan
in 1998. Both were successful in their attempts to receive visas, and they migrated to Tokyo
together at the end of 1998.
She described her first seven years as an entertainer as ‘very good’, and noted that she missed
Japan during her yearly trips back to the Philippines. In 2005, on one of her trips back to the
Philippines, where she would regularly return to renew her entertainer visa, Marguerite was
presented with shocking news. She was told that she would not be able to return to Japan on
an entertainer visa, and her sister was deported one month later. The two sisters were distraught
and emphatic that they did not wish to remain in Sasya but were determined to return to Japan.
A few of their friends had managed to avoid deportation by marrying clients that they had
met during their time working as hostesses. ‘That seemed, at that time, like the best way. And
I had many men who wanted to marry me, so I decide I will just choose the one I like best,’
Marguerite reflected.
In 2006 she married Takahide, a Japanese contractor who worked in construction in Saitama,
just outside Tokyo. She moved to Saitama with him, and became pregnant shortly thereafter.
Mid-way through her pregnancy, her problems with her new husband began when he started
physically abusing her. After the baby was born, Marguerite ran away from her husband and
moved into a local shelter. She began divorce proceedings immediately, and was granted a
divorce when her father-in-law wrote a letter to the court siding with Marguerite, who was
also given full custody of their newborn son.
Marguerite lived at the shelter with her little boy for the next year. After a year, she had
saved enough of the government subsidies that she received for being the mother of a Japanese
national to move out and into an apartment with two other women who were in similar situ-
ations. Though her visa and the support she received from the government mandated that she
not be officially employed, Marguerite sought out work in one of the hostess clubs in Kawasaki
(just south of central Tokyo) near her home. By this time her sister had also migrated to Japan
through a spousal visa, and was able to assist Marguerite in caring for her son. She continues to
work, irregularly, as an entertainer to this day, and as of 2015 had no plans for returning to the
Philippines.
As these stories show, migrants may end up moving, working or living outside the formal
contours of the ‘legal’ economy for a variety of reasons. For many of my interlocutors, it was a
combination of having to employ creativity in the face of ever-changing and harsh laws con-
cerning migration, employment (through kafala in the UAE and recent anti-trafficking laws in
Japan which made it difficult for Filipinas to work as entertainers) and citizenship, as well as a
desire to mobilise their intimate lives. Someone like Meskit chose (from amongst a series of lim-
ited options) to migrate irregularly because formal migratory routes were not available to her
due to anti-trafficking legislature seeking to restrict the out-migration of women in particular.
Beginning the journey in an irregular fashion, once she arrived at her destination, it became
increasingly preferable for her to choose not just irregular migration, but irregular or informal
employment as well. For people like both Marguerite and Meskit, they chose the space of the
informal economy because it afforded them more freedom, rights and empowerment, and also
allowed them to fulfil their intimate lives. Both women were able to make a living and sup-
port themselves through working irregularly. Formal, legal work options had been closed off to
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them due to changing laws about gendered migration, and therefore informal work became the
comparatively desirable option.
Many of my interlocutors do, however, experience some vulnerability in the spaces of irreg-
ular migration or the informal economy, and their intimate lives reflect this vulnerability most
presciently. This new inter-generational aspect of irregular migration and employment does
bear some reflection as it is an unfortunate by-product of new economic realities of gendered
migrations across Asia. Children of migrants, such as Marguerite and Meskit’s sons are, in a sense,
born into a situation of irregularity. Produced by laws about gendered employment as well as
citizenship laws, these children’s situations and lives seem somewhat bleak. Though many of
these children with whom I have spoken, who have grown up either legally stateless (in the
UAE), or effectively stateless (in Japan),6 have found ways to creatively move through their sta-
tus, most of them now work in the informal economy where they face many challenges.
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migrate or work irregularly allows for a more robust understanding of the realities of migration
today. Impacts of policies on governments outside the US also need to be assessed, in order to
contribute to a more robust conversation about the challenges and opportunities presented by
migration outside the formal, legal or ‘regular’ sphere across Asia in the wake of anti-trafficking
panic worldwide.
Notes
1 For a more in-depth discussion of the problematic aspects of the ‘rescue industry’, see Agustin 2008,
Soderlund 2004, Jordan 2011, Vance 2011. For more discussion of the ‘deportation regime’ see De
Genova and Peutz 2010.
2 For further discussion on the role of state structures in promulgating systems of abuse, see the work of
Rhacel Parreñas (2000) and Christine Chin (2013).
3 For more on the abuses and inherent structural violence within the kafala system, see Gardner (2010)
and Longva (1992).
4 www.wam.ae/servlet/Satellite?c=WamLocEnews&cid=1241072976464&pagename=WAM/WAM_
E_Layout.
5 See Amendment to the Criteria for the Landing Permission for the Status of Resident ‘Entertainer’, in
www.immi-moj.go.jp/keiziban/happyou/pdf/e_kougyou.pdf.
6 As scholar Nobue Suzuki has astutely pointed out, the children of Japanese men and Filipina entertain-
ers, while afforded legal citizenship, often face increasing challenges in Japan in accessing what Kerber
and Bhaba (2010) have referred to as ‘economic’ or ‘social citizenship’, rendering them, ‘effectively state-
less’ (Kerber 1998).
7 For an in-depth discussion of what I mean by ‘intimate mobility’, see Mahdavi (2016).
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and Kee.
De Genova, N. and Peutz, N., eds. (2010). The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of
Movement. Durham: Duke University Press.
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Parreñas, R.S. (2000.) Migrant Filipina domestic workers and the international division of reproductive
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Vance, C.S. (2011).Thinking trafficking, thinking sex. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 17 (2011),
pp. 135–143.
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15
CRITICAL EXPATRIATE
STUDIES
Changing expatriate communities in Asia
and the blurring boundaries of
expatriate identity
James Farrer
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Taking the ‘expatriate’ as a category of practice, I advocate a classic urban sociology perspec-
tive. Such an urban ethnographic approach defines its unit of analysis not as individual migrants
but rather the larger context of expatriate communities. It thus can be argued that one is not
‘an expatriate’ by virtue of being a certain type of person but rather learns to be an expatriate
through socialisation into an expatriate community with its collective practices and outlooks.
While my review of the new expatriate studies does not ignore the experience of expatriates
as individuals, it focuses on the institutional, social and normative determinants of a collective
western expatriate experience in Asian cities. This approach is inspired by Eric Cohen’s seminal
review of research on expatriate communities (Cohen 1977). Before I return to this approach,
however, I outline the emergence of what I label ‘critical expatriate studies’.
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We also should not forget that many expatriates in Asia are children, many of whom grow up as
‘third culture kids’ whose lives sometimes include experiences in local Asian schools (Farrer and
Greenspan 2015) or adventuring as teenagers in the larger urban environment (Sander 2014).
The broader research on Asian migration also points to the blurring racial boundaries of
expatriate communities. Research on ‘circular migration’ shows how Asians returning from
study abroad are new competitors to expatriates (Zweig and Wang 2013). But given that many
are now foreign nationals and culturally ‘westernised’, they also in many ways become part of
the new expatriate communities (for example, sending children to expatriate schools, joining
expatriate associations and living in expatriate communities).We also see increases in intra-Asian
corporate expatriates, including many women, some of whom work abroad for Asian-based
multinational enterprises (Shen and Jiang 2015). All this new research points to the expanding
but also blurring boundaries of expatriate communities and expatriate identities.
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of expatriate communities, while accounting more holistically for the blurring and fragmenta-
tion of the expatriate experience described above.
The scale and power of the formal institutions controlled by expatriates is the key factor
historically distinguishing them from all other migrant groups, with the exception of their
direct imperial predecessors. Formal institutions that support, or culturally ‘produce’, expatri-
ates include overseas government agencies (embassies, consulates, aid agencies), transnational
religious institutions (churches), educational institutions (primary, secondary and tertiary), mul-
tinational corporations, specialised consultancies and financial service companies, and expatriate
civil society organisations (associations, clubs, societies), and expatriate-oriented media organi-
sations (Cohen 1977; Beaverstock 2002, 2011). In East Asia, most of these have a history dating
back to colonial times, explaining why the expatriate experience shows clear continuities over
more than a century. These were largely white western-dominated institutions, and contempo-
rary research has focused on how they have remained racialised, albeit more covertly than in the
past (Leonard 2010; Fechter and Walsh 2010).
Beyond institutions, expatriate communities also occupy specific social geographies. The
urban expatriate geography includes housing estates, central business districts, and consumer
leisure spaces. Many were deliberately walled off from local communities (Cohen 1977). In
Asian cities, postcolonial expatriate geographies are often built upon imperial geographies, as
in Hong Kong (Knowles and Harper 2009), or Cold War US military geographies as in Seoul
(Kim 2014) or Tokyo (Yoshimi 2007). These postcolonial expatriate geographies have become
part of the cosmopolitan geographies of Asian global cities, situating the new expatriates in an
altered relationship to local elites who now dominate these spaces.
Finally, expatriate communities encompass the informal social norms and subcultural dis-
courses of migrants. These social norms have shown the greatest changes since Cohen’s 1977
essay, which highlighted the postcolonial and xenophobic nature of expatriate mentalities. I will
suggest that the biggest change in expatriate society may be the increase in mixed-ethnic family
forms, globalised educational ideals, and a publicly cosmopolitan ethos.
Cohen’s term characterising the expatriate experience as a whole is the ‘environmental
bubble’, an institutionally and culturally defined zone that insulated elite migrants from the
host society. Much research on contemporary expatriates points to the persistence of ‘expatri-
ate bubbles’ and thus to continuities with the lifestyles documented by Cohen in the previous
century (Fechter 2012). Currently, however, the term ‘expatriate bubble’ may be an ethnocen-
tric generalisation, given that Asian elites now dominate many of the associated spaces. I intro-
duce, instead, the term ‘cosmopolitan canopy’ coined by urban ethnographer Elijah Anderson
to describe urban spaces of interracial and intercultural tolerance; these tend to be located in
wealthier central areas less accessible to poor residents, and are thus also fundamentally elite
spaces (Anderson 2011). In Asia, we can see examples in which the formerly racially exclusive
spaces of expatriate life now form cosmopolitan enclaves for elite locals, perhaps ‘golden cano-
pies’, but ones no longer exclusive to white migrants.
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incorporating both local elites and talents from diverse places beyond the white Euro-American
sphere. At the same time, these institutions still remain gendered and racialised.
Multinational corporations
In the postcolonial era, multinational corporations, many with colonial roots, became the pre-
dominant expatriate institutions in Asian cities (Cohen 1977). Pressure from locals who had
experienced decades of discrimination forced a process of decolonisation. For example, in 1960
the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation discontinued the use of the colonial nomen-
clature of ‘compradors’ in favour of the term ‘Chinese manager’, which was itself abandoned in
1965. In the space of 20 years the company transitioned from a hiring system based on explicit
ethnic tiers to one based, at least formally, on individual merit (Smith 2016).
Under pressure from home-country or local laws, most western multinational corpora-
tions in Asia banned explicit ethnic discrimination. Recent research, however, questions the
full achievement of a post-racial labour market in multinational firms operating in Asia. Ethnic
profiling in human resource departments is still regarded as common in some multinational
offices in Singapore, with whites and Chinese often favoured over other ethnicities (Ye and
Kelly 2011). Ethnicity or race may be even one of the traits valued in hiring an expatri-
ate, representing authenticity of knowledge and experience (Beaverstock 2002; Farrer 2014b).
Ethnographers also find evidence of colonial mentalities among white expatriates, who perceive
locals as in need of tutelage and not quite modern (Leggett 2013: 31–38). Whiteness remains
a resource in some types of expatriate work, especially language teaching (Appleby 2014; Lan
2011; Stanley 2012) but also areas in which a ‘western’ cultural mindset (including presumed
ethical orientations) is implicitly valued (Farrer 2014b). In short, race, ethnicity and gender
are still conflated with the notion of ‘skill’ in various ways in globalising labour markets (Kunz
2016). At the same time, not just western culture, but national culture is an important ethnic
resource in western multinationals in Asia (Leonard 2010: 91). In local offices of multination-
als in the PRC, ethnic Chineseness is generally a more valued trait than whiteness. However,
whiteness may be valued for certain jobs that require interactions with foreign clients or show-
ing a ‘foreign face’ to Chinese clients (Farrer 2014b).
Whiteness seems to be, however, a declining currency in multinational corporate labour
markets in Asia. Under pressure from host societies, the localisation of expatriate roles started
as early as the 1960s (Cohen 1977: 75). As highly skilled Asian workers became more globally
mobile in the 1980s and 1990s, they came to resent expatriate managers being paid multiples
of local managers in the same office. Some localised offices of multinational companies became
resistant to expatriate transfers. Expatriate company managers are now expected to master
‘soft skills’ of networking, cultural sensitivity, government relations and teamwork that imply
deep local knowledge (Harvey and Moeller 2009: 276). With the growing focus on domes-
tic markets (as opposed to export-oriented industries) local managers and Asian expatriates
may be more highly valued and highly paid than western expatriates without linguistic and
cultural skills (Farrer 2014b). At the same time, localisation has also meant a reduction in the
special perks and privileges that distinguished and also isolated expatriates from locals (Leonard
2010: 77).
As critical expatriate studies emphasise, multinationals have remained gendered institutions.
High-level expatriate corporate managers remain overwhelmingly male. While men experi-
ence these moves as empowering, their female partners, who often must put aside their careers,
may experience a redomestication and loss of social identity. As in decades past, the unpaid
domestic, emotional and social labour of female trailing spouses remains essential for advancing
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their husbands’ careers (Beaverstock 2002; Fechter 2012; Kunz 2016; Lehmann 2014;Yeoh and
Willis 2005).
On the other hand, research also shows increasing numbers of expatriate women working
in Asia, particularly among self-initiated expatriates. Migration may serve as an avenue of self-
transformation for working female expatriates (Fechter 2008; Leonard 2010: 97). Still, working
migrant women are more likely than men to be treated as ‘local hires’ with less steady jobs
and fewer benefits. They also are more likely to be single, occupy lower positions, and are less
likely than male expatriates to be travelling with children (Selmer and Leung 2003). Women
also face discrimination in corporate expatriation. They are disproportionately less likely to be
sent on expatriate assignments in comparison to the proportion of women managers in their
home countries. They report more cross-cultural adjustment difficulties than men, including
host country discrimination against women managers and adjustment issues related to dual
careers and child care (Caligiuri and Lazarova 2002; Shen and Jiang 2015). Female expatriates
thus may be more critical of male-dominated colonial-style expatriate cultures (Leonard 2010:
103). Despite such problems, however, in societies in which female managers remain rare within
local firms, multinational firms still may be seen as spaces favourable for women’s career mobil-
ity. Multinational firms’ gender policies may impact local perceptions through hiring female
managers as well as attention to the needs of gay and lesbian employees (McPhail et al. 2016).
In short, multinational workplaces in Asia are fields of multi-ethnic competition in which
white expatriates no longer dominate the field nor set the rules for competition (Farrer 2014b).
Though still male-dominated, they also have to some extent become institutional ‘cosmopolitan
canopies’ that allow men and women from various backgrounds to work together (Anderson
2011: 161–4). However, we should note that multinational companies less and less define the
migration experience for young skilled migrants to Asian cities.Young self-initiated expatriates
usually work as ‘local hires’, including employment in schools, local firms, self-initiated small
businesses, or more recently in Asian multinational corporations such as Rakuten in Japan or
Huawei in China.
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children may dominate enrolment in international schools. Even in Mainland China where
PRC nationals are not allowed into expatriate international schools, the children of returnees
and other ethnic Chinese with foreign passports are the majority of pupils. Once bastions of
white expatriate distinction, traditional expatriate international schools now teach a multiracial
student body across Asia.
Asian elites eager to pass along cosmopolitan class capital to their offspring are some of the
most important stakeholders in sustaining these institutions, while also transforming the social
environment for the white expatriate children still attending them. At the same time, because of
high costs of traditional international schools, the increasing population of self-initiated expa-
triates in Asian cities are forced to look to local schools both as affordable options and also as a
way of giving their children a locally grounded cosmopolitan education (Farrer and Greenspan
2015). These two trends mean that the international school is no longer a white expatriate
bubble. Moreover, white expatriate children (including many biracial children) are no longer
exclusively attending international schools, when cheaper local options are available.
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distinguish these streets from the shopping-mall architecture of newly built middle-class dis-
tricts (Zukin et al. 2015). The balance of economic power, however, has now shifted decidedly
in favour of the elite locals living in and visiting these historically colonial neighbourhoods.
In a reverse of the situation decades ago in which young educated Asians competed to serve
moneyed expatriates, many young, self-initiated western expatriates now find work in ser-
vice industries in these areas, ranging from hospitality to arts and education, servicing affluent
cosmopolitan Asian urbanites (as well as rich expatriates). Research on bars and restaurants in
Shanghai’s postcolonial ‘Former French Concession’ provides wide-ranging examples –chefs,
mixologists, sommeliers, curators, designers, DJs, and dancers –new varieties of skilled expa-
triate labour serving local urbanites and creating cosmopolitan consumer spaces (Farrer 2015;
Farrer and Field 2015).
Expatriate zones in Asian cities have become contact zones, or culturally in-between spaces
fostering interactions among locals and migrants (Farrer 2011; Fechter 2012: 121; Yeoh and
Willis 2005). Urban contact zones are spaces of inequality as well as exchange. These include
nightlife zones, from Hong Kong to Jakarta, where high-earning male expatriates interact with
working-class migrants or local women, including sex workers (Leggett 2013: 42).They are also
more exclusive places, such as the clubs on Shanghai’s Bund, where more affluent women and
men date and flirt across racial and national boundaries (Farrer 2011), and hotel bars in Dubai
fostering interactions among the multicultural expatriates themselves (Walsh 2007). Expatriates
no longer occupy the most exclusive consumer spaces in many Asian cities (Hoang 2015).
However, accessible youth-oriented neighbourhoods such as Hongdae in Seoul, Yongkang
Road in Shanghai, or Shimokitazawa in Tokyo serve as attractive spaces for young, self-initiated
expatriates and cosmopolitan locals to interact.
Though often still zones of class-based exclusivity, the expatriate friendly contact zones of
Asian cities have come to represent ‘cosmopolitan canopies’, or zones of tolerance and civility,
within which people not only of different races and nationalities, but also those with alterna-
tive sexual, political and aesthetic lifestyles can publicly interact without stares and harassment
(Anderson 2011). In cities where the state and society have been hostile to public homosexual-
ity, expatriate zones fostered some of the early gay bars, such as the gay clubs in Seoul’s Itaewon,
itself a heterogeneous district gathering all manner of sexual, religious, and ethnic minorities
into one tolerant ‘community of strangers’ (Kim 2014).Young Chinese women pursuing inde-
pendent lives contrary to the expectations of early marriage also find in Shanghai’s expatriate
zones a community of cosmopolitan singles with whom they can socialise with fewer marriage
pressures (Farrer and Field 2015). Nightlife spaces, art galleries, cafés and the street itself can be
spaces of tolerance and difference, a cosmopolitan canopy that extends sometimes to political as
well as sexual dissent. In such districts expatriates are usually out-numbered and out-moneyed
by locals, with white expatriates now serving as embodied symbols of diversity, providers of ser-
vices, and sometimes bearers of new ideas (Farrer and Field 2015). In short, these areas are still
marked as expatriate geographies in that they remain strongly associated with racially distinct
expatriates. But, the primary economic force sustaining and shaping these expatriate geogra-
phies these days may be the needs and desires of local cosmopolitan Asian urbanites who seek
out these spaces as diversified urban contact zones.
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James Farrer
from 1957: ‘Within the placid lagoon of air-conditioning … and iced drinks, of cocktail par-
ties and cyclical dinners, the community floats undisturbed. No Asian enters here, save into
the periphery; and no Western man, especially no Western woman, cares to leave it’ (Palmier
1957: 410, from Cohen 1977: 46). Within this bubble, expatriates expressed disdain for locals
and could even be punished socially for adapting too well to local customs (Cohen 1977: 69).
Host nationals, in turn, responded to this haughtiness with hostility (Cohen 1977: 71). Even the
expatriates themselves, particularly women, found this society stultifying, experiencing culture
shock less in response to local society than to the restrictive life in the expatriate bubble (Cohen
1977: 49). Expatriates did socialise with westernised elites from the host society but rarely
learned local languages or participated in local cultural life (Cohen 1977: 63).
Recent research on white expatriates in Asia shows significant changes in attitudes expressed
towards locals, but with some residues of the colonial mindset. Leggett in particular, describes a
condescending ‘colonial mentality’ of Jakarta-based expatriates towards local Indonesian society
in the late 1990s (Leggett 2013, 31–38). Other researchers emphasise how expatriates fail to
recognise or acknowledge the privileges accorded to whiteness in Asia (Fechter 2012; Leonard
2010: 41). Expatriates still maintain their own privileged status through exploiting the services
of other working-class migrants (Kunz 2016: 92).
With the global influence of anti-racist movements since the 1960s, however, we see a
generational shift towards norms of social integration. Most expatriates espouse ideals of eth-
nic inclusiveness, while lamenting the difficulties of learning local languages and making local
friends. Many expatriates, particularly trailing spouses, feel socially isolated in the ‘golden cage’
of a gendered expatriate bubble (Fechter 2012: 41–43). Expatriates still tend to seek belonging
in communities organised along national lines; however, long-term expatriates also endeavour
to establish local friendships and establish a sense of belonging in the city (Farrer 2010b). Adams
and Van de Vijver find two orientations among expatriates: a more cosmopolitan perspective,
which expatriates develop after much experience in various cultures, and a more pragmatic
perspective in which expatriates maintain their original identity and make only superficial
adjustments to a new context (Adams and Van de Vijver 2015).
The most visible change in expatriate engagement with local society in Asia is the rise of
international marriage as a new norm. Rates of international marriage between expatriates and
locals in some Asian contexts have risen from nearly zero to visible minority status. In some
cases, especially when religious differences are involved, intimate erotic relationships between
expatriates and locals may still be seen as a source of social pollution (Fechter 2010: 156–160),
but they are more often regarded as a legitimate form of personal interaction. In particular,
western men find that dating and marrying Asian women may be a way of integrating into the
host society (see Farrer 2008; Sunanta and Angeles 2013). At the same time, many single female
white expatriates in Asia are more likely to find sexuality to be a cause of exclusion or margin-
alisation. Not only are they less likely to date and marry Asian men, but many find it difficult to
find partners among expatriate men (Caligiuri and Lazarova 2002: 764, Farrer and Dale 2014;
Fechter 2012: 46; Lehmann 2014: 120–22).These gendered and racialised norms of cross-border
sexual interaction differ according to national context, but sexuality should be considered both
an aspect of social integration and a source of racialised exclusion.
Attitudes also have changed regarding multicultural childrearing. One out of 29 children
born in Japan in 2014 had a foreign parent (Kyodo 2016), and multiracial children and young
adults have also become a visible minority in Tokyo and many other Asian cities. This once
highly stigmatised racial status is now exploited as a symbol of cosmopolitanism, as in the fre-
quent use of mixed race models in Asian advertising (Murphy-Shigematsu 2001). Similarly, the
‘third culture kid’ (often labelled a ‘returnee’ in Japan) is now regarded less negatively as a social
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misfit with no ‘true’ culture and more as a multicultural person with marketable linguistic and
cultural skills (Selmer and Lam 2004).
In my research in Shanghai and Tokyo, expatriate families display a cosmopolitan ethos most
consistently in their aspirations for their children’s education. Most hope their children can be
exposed to local society and learn local languages.This may take the form of spending time, espe-
cially preschool years, in local or bilingual schools. In international schools, this ideal of locally
grounded cosmopolitanism is manifest in local language programmes and out-reach activities.
Not all of these efforts are successful, and in Shanghai we found that efforts to ‘raise cosmopoli-
tans’ through exposure to local schooling were fraught with difficulties, ranging from study stress
to social isolation and aversion to political indoctrination. Conversely, children in international
schools had little contact with local society, unless one parent was Chinese (Farrer and Greenspan
2015). Cosmopolitan childrearing was thus more of a shared ideal than an easily achieved reality.
Host national norms also shape the migrant social experience. Racial visibility and the mean-
ings of whiteness shape the white expatriate in East Asia. A ‘longing’ for western culture is a
common narrative in discussing host relations to expatriates in Asia (Kelsky 2001). Positive prej-
udice for whiteness means that white people are preferred as English teachers in China, Japan
or Taiwan (Appleby 2014; Lan 2011; Stanley 2012), but concerns about their domestic habits
hurt white foreigners when seeking housing in Japan (Arudou 2015). Associations of whiteness
with masculinity seem to help men finding a romantic partner (Farrer 2010a; Kelksy 2001), but
disadvantage white women (Farrer and Dale 2014). Not all associations with whiteness are posi-
tive. Histories of colonialism and American military interaction create hostility in some regions.
And as self-initiated expatriates become the norm in East Asia, problems of privilege are giving
way to problems of discrimination in life activities in which expatriates must now make their
own arrangements, such as schooling, employment, housing and access to leisure facilities. This
situation of social exclusion may be most evident in Japan, where expatriate employment was
‘localised’ earlier than in other countries (Arudou 2015; Oishi 2012).
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James Farrer
have been largely ignored in expatriate research. For example, ethnic Chineseness may be an
advantage for migrants seeking employment or a romantic partner in Shanghai (Farrer 2010a,
2014b). However, not all forms of Chineseness are equally valued in other contexts. A Mainland
Chinese background might hamper social integration in either Hong Kong or Singapore. More
research must focus on the racialisation of Africans, Latinos and other Asians in Asian contexts.
Theories of race born in North America and Europe, such as whiteness studies, may be found
inadequate for investigating race in globalising Asia.
Overall, the research on expatriates in Asia has failed to address the rise of Asian economies and
the changing position of foreigners within these societies. Postcolonial perspectives have been helpful
in understanding the continuities in expatriate experiences through the latter half of the 20th cen-
tury, but they do not explain many new experiences in rising cities such as Shanghai, Singapore or
Ho Chi Minh City. As Hoang (2015) has pointed out, such approaches may assume too much about
the advantages enjoyed by whites, while explaining too little about racial dynamics among Asians.
The ‘rise of Asia’, however, does not entail that expatriate communities are now irrelevant
in understanding Asian cities. Indeed, as I have tried to emphasise here, the cosmopolitan com-
munities created in great part by expatriates are important not only for migrants themselves,
but also for middle-class consumers, bohemians, intellectuals, and sexual outsiders in Asian cit-
ies, who flock to such cosmopolitan areas such as Tianzifang in Shanghai, Tiong Bahru in
Singapore, Itaewon in Seoul, or Roppongi in Tokyo. These urban cosmopolitan canopies are a
space for migrants and locals to pursue hybrid relationships and lifestyles. However, in general,
these are also ‘golden canopies’, largely representing the elite ‘cosmopolitanism of frequent trav-
ellers’ (Calhoun 2002). They are based on elite institutions and consumer spaces that exclude
the working-class migrants from poorer countries and interior regions, and thus serve to repro-
duce class privilege as well as postcolonial nostalgia.
Note
1 The term ‘etic’ refers to analyses that take the standpoint of an external scientific observer. ‘Emic’ analy-
ses undertake to explain phenomena from the perspective of participants (Pike 1967: 8–12).
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PART IV
16
MIGRATION, POVERTY AND
SOURCE COMMUNITIES
Robert Cole and Jonathan Rigg
Introduction
One of the earliest studies of rural–urban migration in Southeast Asia is Robert B.Textor’s From
Peasant to Pedicab Driver (Textor 1961). This took a ‘problem approach’ (Textor 1961: 1), view-
ing such migration as rooted in the ‘problem conditions’ of rural Thailand (and especially the
environmentally marginal Northeast region), and the ‘life problems’ of the migrants themselves
in their destination, Bangkok. Overwhelmingly, the reasons for leaving home were understood
as economic, as seen in Textor’s argument that ‘most migrants are pushed by the press of poverty
rather than pulled by lure of adventure’ (Textor 1961: 15–16).
While a great deal has changed in the 60 years since Textor’s fieldwork in the mid-1950s, in
terms of the development contexts within which migration in Southeast Asia occurs, there are
continuities in how the motivations for migration and policy concerns that typically under-
pin the process are perceived. Migration is as much driven by spatial inequalities as economic
opportunities, and for many policy makers, continues to be seen as a ‘problem’ for two main
reasons. First, migration is indicative of a consistent (policy) failure to narrow disparities across
space, and therein a failure to address those resulting from economic growth, despite the central
role migrant labour may play in generating such growth. Second, migration is assumed to be
unsettling and disruptive, challenging long-held normative views about desirable (namely sed-
entary) lifestyles and patterns of living; ideal-types whose existence some argue rarely stands up
to generalisation (de Haan 1999).
The limits to generalisation are writ large in the study of migration and poverty, and particu-
larly in such a diverse region as Southeast Asia. In this chapter, we explore a range of approaches
to understanding the intersections between migration and poverty, while acknowledging the
difficulty of generalising from such a varied field. To move some way towards corralling this
diversity, we argue that there are two central facets to the ‘migration, poverty and source com-
munities’ debate, which in turn map onto what we term four ‘indeterminacies’. Our two facets
comprise causalities (the poverty/livelihood context, initial conditions and existence of oppor-
tunities that motivate migration decisions); and consequences (the implications of migration
for the source household, community or development context).The question of what develop-
mental impact migration has on source communities and natal households in turn raises four
indeterminacies, or areas of contention. It is these indeterminacies that largely explain why
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the development question, which is a long-standing one, remains unresolved, as they shape the
approaches and assumptions of any given study. These areas of contention encompass what is
being addressed, who the question of impact is being applied to, where it is being evaluated, and
when (over what period or interval) it is being assessed. Our four indeterminacies thus relate
to the analytic applied, the object of attention, the challenge of comparison, and the issue of
temporality:
• Analytic: are economic or sociocultural impacts the focus of study, and is poverty being
assessed in money-metric terms or according to some wider consideration of well-being?
• Object of attention: is attention applied to migrant households alone and their non-
migrating members or also to non-migrant households, and does this then encompass the
wider community or settlement context?
• Challenge of comparison: how do we work with the evident and often profound differences
in impact between sites, regions and countries?
• Temporality: how does the developmental impact of migration alter over time given changes
in country conditions, local level development trajectories, household transitions and indi-
vidual circumstances?
These key concerns have permeated efforts to develop new approaches to and delineations of
migration patterns in the decades since Textor’s study, as well as theoretical advances. Exploring
the latter, de Haas (2010) characterises the evolution of two broad approaches to migration the-
ory which are readily visible in many contemporary academic and applied studies in Southeast
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Asia. In de Haas’s analysis, migration ‘optimists’ are those grounded in neoclassical principles, not
least multilateral agencies, for whom migration is considered a vast process of labour optimisa-
tion, peopled by utility-maximising migrants.This view is exemplified in the World Bank’s 2009
World Development Report:
Countries do not prosper without mobile people. Indeed, the ability of people to
move seems to be a good gauge of their economic potential, and the willingness to
migrate appears to be a measure of their desire for advancement
(World Bank 2009: 18).
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Asking questions such as ‘does poverty drive migration?’ or ‘does migration develop source
communities?’ is, therefore, something of an interrogative cul de sac. Why this is the case pivots
on initial assumptions and approaches to the question based on our earlier stated indetermina-
cies, which we explore in the following section, returning to what questions we might more
productively ask in the conclusion.
Four indeterminacies
Analytic: assessing poverty and the developmental impacts of migration
Given that migration is, in most cases in Southeast Asia, a response to livelihood pressures or
lack of opportunities in source communities, and the presence of opportunities elsewhere (e.g.
Bylander 2014; Phouxay 2010; Rigg 2007), it is not surprising that migration is usually viewed –
in aggregate terms –to be income generating, livelihood strengthening and, therefore, poverty
reducing. At the same time, it is clear that not all migrants are poor. This has led some scholars
to make a distinction between distress migration driven by poverty (e.g. Bylander 2015) and
migration for accumulation (or consolidation) (see Waddington and Sabates-Wheeler 2003;
Deshingkar and Start 2003), undertaken by the non-poor. As Castles et al. (2014) emphasise,
there is, however, a need to move beyond purely economic considerations of migration-devel-
opment interactions. Migration decisions are not just ‘passive or predictable responses to pov-
erty and spatial equilibria’ (Castles et al. 2014: 51), but are also demonstrative of the exercise of
freedoms to choose ways of living, and therefore intrinsic to a broader notion of development
(Sen 1999). In some settings such freedoms may be greatly expanded among poor natal house-
holds (both for leavers and stayers) when household members migrate, with potential ‘spill-
over’ effects such as the ability to invest in human capital (particularly education, e.g. Adger
et al. 2002), as well as strengthening agency by engagement in new migratory opportunities
(Carswell and de Neve 2013).
When a money-metric poverty approach is adopted, the benefits of migration are most
often reduced to the role of financial remittances, and their allocation or investment in
source communities. But remittances also take other forms. It is perhaps more from the
combination of assets, knowledge and skills gained via migration that ‘productive’ invest-
ments can result (Deshingkar 2012), rather than on the basis of cash remittances alone.
More broadly, livelihoods may also be reworked by social remittances drawn from periods
of life in different locations that gradually alter social norms and behaviours at home (King
and Skeldon 2010), while also bringing new knowledge and ideas, entrepreneurialism and,
sometimes (perhaps most prominently among migrant rural youth), a reduced interest in
farming (see White 2015). Social remittance effects are hard to encapsulate in a measurable
form, although their implications in terms of social reproduction and the continuation,
adoption or abandonment of agricultural practices may be significant (Barney 2012). From
this position, the question of whether migration leads to increased productive investments or
elevated consumption among rural households needs to entertain the possibility that declin-
ing farm production may be counterbalanced by increasing non-farm enterprises. These
may include changes in livelihood activities catalysed by periods spent in other locations,
transfers of knowledge and enhancement of capabilities, as well as by necessity due to shifts
in the labour supply at the source community.
A common interaction underlying the question of how migration alters livelihoods relates to
how reduced labour is compensated once a household member migrates. This may be achieved
by substituting remittances for agricultural production (i.e. covering consumption needs with
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Underpinning this position, north–south transfer of capital is coupled with wage increases as
local labour supply declines, ultimately resulting in factor price equalisation (de Haas 2010).
Pointing to the limits of abstraction in this way, Skeldon argues that ‘while no single pathway
through any migration or developmental transition exists, it nevertheless needs to be accepted
that a retreat to total relativism is counterproductive’ (Skeldon 2012: 154), and that regional
and local transitions can be usefully identified within spatial processes. These transitions would
incorporate changes in agriculture, industry and state structures to develop a ‘framework for the
structure of human movement in time and space’ (ibid: 164). Such an approach may allow for
the linkage of household-level effects to national and global processes in more meaningful ways
that better account for variation between and within scales.
A significant trait of migration in Asia compared with some other regions, and one
that is visible in diverse contexts, is the degree to which migrants from rural areas –as
most migrants are –maintain links with their natal households and communities. It is a
trait that transcends not only scale, but economic and cultural rationales, and (perhaps for
this reason) usually goes unremarked. Migration sojourns in these circumstances are just
that; temporary absences where return is expected. Temporary and circular migrations are
dominant among the rural poor and near-poor in Asia, who tend to ‘keep one foot in the
village either by necessity or choice’ (Deshingkar 2006: 2). Migrants’ on-going commitment
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to home has sometimes been explained in culturalist terms (the ‘dutiful daughter’ argu-
ment, see Angeles and Sunanta 2009) but it is also fundamentally shaped by underlying
policy contexts. Vietnam’s household registration system (ho khau) makes urban living for
rural migrants difficult (Anh et al. 2012), while in other countries of the region, non-farm
opportunities are precarious and migrants are wary of trading the security offered by even a
small piece of land for a possibly uncertain future in an urban/non-f arm milieu (Rigg et al.
2014). International labour migrants from rural regions in Southeast Asia, meanwhile, are
frequently undocumented and irregular (Derks 2010), or otherwise employed on fixed term
contracts where return is inevitable (Kitiarsa 2014).The wider political economy is therefore
a critical contextual component in understanding the causes, nature and consequences of
migration at household level.
The policy dynamic is exemplified in Elmhirst’s (2012) study in Lampung, south Sumatra,
where remittances to rural source households were not found to be channelled into agriculture,
but mainly spent on housing and education. A policy context that prioritised land enclosure for
commercial agriculture or conservation, and limited viable urban alternatives were identified, in
her study, as drivers of rural vulnerabilities in Indonesia (2012: 131). In a similar vein, Barney’s
(2012) study of migration and land enclosure in Khammouane province, Laos, contextualises
migration against a backdrop of state-and investor-driven extractive resource capture, identify-
ing a sharp rise in migration as local livelihoods and ecologies were progressively undermined
by plantations and hydropower projects (both state economic priorities). Here, policy-driven
activities that weakened local agricultural potential met with ongoing drives for regional eco-
nomic and infrastructure integration, bridging gaps with burgeoning labour demands in neigh-
bouring Thailand.
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Watkins 1998), some inherited but many others in flux due to social, economic and environ-
mental change. Not only must attention be paid to the particular migration/development signa-
tures of regions, communities and households, but also to how these are changing, and the role
of migration within such change. For instance, migration may play a leading role in reworking
the envelope of accepted social practice (Elmhirst 2012); stimulate, through remittances and
labour, local development and employment opportunities for non-migrants in both source and
recipient locations (Rungmanee 2014); and lead (or not) to investment in yield-and produc-
tion-enhancing technologies (Davis et al. 2010; Grimm and Klasen 2015).
At a general level it is the case that, across Southeast Asia, the ability of agriculture alone to
sustain rural livelihoods is diminishing (Deshingkar 2006; Rigg et al. 2012) and migration is
one important strategy that households employ to construct livelihoods that deal with the ‘scis-
sor effect of stagnating returns to work in farming locally and expanding opportunities in the
non-farm sector extra-locally’(Rigg et al. 2014: 192). As such, migration enables households to
cross-subsidise smallholder production and thereby sustain rural communities, with productive
work away being supported by reproductive work at home.The question of whether migration
drives development or leads to rural stagnation among source communities tends to overlook
the question of whether, in the absence of migration, rural households would be able to stay on
the land and in the village at all. In the 1970s, radical scholars expected that rural poverty would
become endemic under the forces of modernisation (Mortimer 1973), with massive, often
violent, permanent out-migration. That this outcome has not been realised is partly because of
the role that temporary migration has played across the region in sustaining rural communi-
ties, through managing pressures and shocks to rural livelihoods. This has subsequently driven
economic development processes at national scales, by permitting workers to be paid at less
than the cost of household reproduction –because the natal household is sustained from semi-
subsistence, albeit sub-livelihood, production on the farm.
An example of migration as community-supporting and community-preserving is Bylander’s
(2014) study of rural Chanleas Dai, Cambodia. Here, the risks of village-based livelihood strate-
gies were perceived as significantly higher than the uncertainties of migration, Chanleas Dai
having endured successive poor harvests due to environmental shocks throughout the 2000s.
Over the same period, labour migration to neighbouring Thailand became a primary liveli-
hood activity as networks strengthened, income became more reliable and the process grew
easier and safer, even entailing a certain level of protection under Thailand’s worker registration
scheme. By comparison, the use of remittances to spread risk in unfavourable climatic condi-
tions is explored in Yang and Choi’s (2007) study of remittance responses to rainfall-derived
income shocks in the Philippines. The authors show correlation between falling household
incomes during years with rainfall shocks and increased remittance transfers among households
with overseas migrants, consistent with remittance flows performing an insurance role among
migrant-sending households.
The effects of migration on land-use practices –and therefore on the texture of rural devel-
opment and agrarian change –also differ markedly based on spatial variances, and can both
intensify (e.g. via investment of remittances in inputs to offset labour loss) and dis-intensify
(e.g. by turning towards labour-saving practices) agriculture (Deshingkar 2012). Manivong et al.
(2014) reveal such dynamics by examining remittance and labour effects of migration in south-
ern Laos, amid rapid transformation of rural livelihoods linked to economic integration in
the Greater Mekong Subregion. The authors found that many households in the study area of
Champassak province increasingly relied on wage work, particularly youth migration to neigh-
bouring Thailand, driving up local labour hire costs, while returns to rice production remained
low. Staying on the land instead of seeking more remunerative off-farm work hence came with
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mounting opportunity costs. Higher returns to labour were sought in source communities
by switching to commercial crops, freeing household labour to continue pursuing migration
opportunities, and remitting a portion of income to support both household consumption
needs and farm production. De Brauw (2010) identified similar trends in household panel
data from Vietnam in the 1990s, which demonstrate shifts from rice to non-r ice production in
response to migration, together with declining input usage among households with migrant
members compared to those without. The author suggests further causal links in changing
livelihoods via possible substitution of capital for labour-saving technologies, and changing
preferences from relatively labour-intensive to relatively land-intensive crops. These examples
illustrate several ways that migration incomes sustain rural households in Southeast Asia, as well
as ways that shifting labour dynamics play into livelihood and land-use practices, based on local
conditions. The comparison of such effects between locations offers an approach to tackling
questions of migration and poverty in novel and targeted ways, albeit with recognition of the
limits to generalisation discussed above.
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landscape change. Poorer, landless non-migrant households cleared vacated or marginal upland
swiddens, while migrant-sending households with new access to investment capital switched
from subsistence to commercialised livelihoods to cope with reduced labour –often a one-way
conversion due to deleterious effects on the land (McKay 2005).
Demonstrating a broader, national development project, the drive to commercialise agricul-
ture in Vietnam’s Central Highlands has had a transformative impact on livelihoods and land-
scapes, motivated at the outset by state policies to settle a sparsely inhabited, forest-r ich region,
and later to reclaim it (Tran 2006). In the context of Vietnam’s doi moi (‘renovation’) reforms,
institutional changes around de-collectivisation, tenure reforms that enabled a land market to
emerge, and the relaxation of the household registration system operated in concert to dramati-
cally alter patterns of domestic mobility, as well as remittance flows (Adger et al. 2002). State-
sponsored migration to reduce land and resource pressures gained traction in the 1980s, but
spontaneous movements exceeded government plans and controls, accelerating forest loss as the
highland population expanded (Tran 2006). Booming commercial crops in the 1990s hastened
conversion of and competition over land, as more affluent urban dwellers invested in plantations
(as per Sulawesi’s cocoa boom, Li 2002), and indigenous farmers incrementally sold customar-
ily held lands for agriculture and residential purposes, retreating further into the highlands. In
this example, we see how household level migration effects are bound to long-term develop-
ment trajectories among both source and in this case destination communities, linked to wider
political-economic forces during a period of national reform.
This chapter has provided an overview of relevant literature regarding the relationships between
migration, poverty and source communities in Southeast Asia. We offer the four ‘indetermina-
cies’ of analytic, object, comparison and temporality as a means of imposing an explanatory
framework on a diverse field. This allows us partially to account for the diverse outcomes that
studies of migration and poverty seem to reach.
What questions can we usefully –and reasonably –ask about the migration-poverty-source
community nexus? A starting point may be found by returning to Skeldon’s caution against
‘a retreat to total relativism’ (2012). While seeking to avoid the much-critiqued linearity of
grand transition theories (e.g. modernisation, demographic, urbanisation and agrarian), Skeldon
acknowledges that broad changes are nevertheless in process. Bringing ideas of social, economic
and environmental change together with locally embedded studies that seek to identify link-
ages between migration, livelihoods and development conditions may be one way that such an
approach could be applied. Following this line of thinking, more productive than posing the
question in binary terms (‘is migration developmental and poverty reducing for source com-
munities?’) is to ask a more open question that seeks to elucidate the transitions under way in
a given context, together with how and why migration emerges under different development
conditions, and how it then shapes those conditions.
Taking this approach permits sensitivity to geographical context; equally, however, we need
to be sensitive to the human context. Adopting a capabilities (Sen 1999) lens offers an induc-
tive theoretical basis for considering the dynamics and decisions relating to migration, moving
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beyond the limited understanding offered by ‘push–pull’ and purely economic considerations.
Migrants accumulate new freedoms over life circumstances that might not previously have been
attainable, in one sense through diversification of livelihoods (thereby spreading risk), and in
another through the opening of broader opportunities. Keeping in sight the underlying spatial
disparities and frequently precarious conditions in which much migration occurs, productive
capabilities may nevertheless be enhanced and accumulated against a backdrop of wider devel-
opment, in which migration is both a cause and consequence (Cole et al. 2015). From this
perspective, it is not necessarily that the poor migrate towards opportunity from the ‘problem
conditions’ of source communities within a development ‘landscape’; migrants and mobility
shape that landscape such that it becomes, often at one and the same time, part of the problem
and part of the solution.
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17
REMITTANCES, MIGRATION,
AND TRADE
Philip Martin
International migration
Asia has 60 per cent of the world’s people, 30 per cent of the world’s migrants, and 55 per cent
of the remittances flowing to developing countries (Ratha,Yi and Yousefi 2015). The UN esti-
mated the stock of international migrants at 244 million in 2015, up from 222 million in 2010,
an increase of 4.4 million a year (UN DESA 2015). Some 3.3 per cent of the world’s 7.3 billion
people are international migrants.
The World Bank (2015b), which uses a slightly different methodology to estimate migrant
stocks, reported 249 million (versus UN DESA’s 244 million) international migrants in 2015.
Most migrants, at 56 per cent, reside in industrial or northern countries,1 but the largest group,
at 38 per cent, moved from one developing or southern country to another. Almost a quarter
of international migrants moved from one industrial country to another, and 6 per cent moved
from an industrial to a developing country (Table 17.1).
A sixth of the world’s people live in what the World Bank defines as industrial or high-
income countries –those with a per capita income of $12,736 or more (World Bank 2015a).
Five-sixths of the world’s people are in developing countries with lower per capita incomes.
The incentive to migrate stems from demographic inequality –all population growth is in
developing countries –and economic inequality –almost 70 per cent of the world’s national
income is in the high-income countries. The average resident of high-income countries had
a per capita income of $40,000 in 2013, almost ten times the $4,200 of lower-income coun-
tries, which provides a powerful incentive for young people to migrate (World Bank 2015a,
p. 28).2
Demographic and economic inequalities are like positive and negative battery poles in that
nothing happens until a connection is made. Three revolutions over the past half-century have
increased cross-border connections and facilitated migration. First is the communications revo-
lution, which makes it easier than ever before to learn about opportunities abroad. With most
high-income countries including diasporas from countries around the world, cell phones and
the internet can quickly inform friends and relatives in developing countries about opportuni-
ties abroad, assist in financing their travel, and help them after arrival.
The second revolution involves transportation. Many Europeans migrating to North
American colonies in the 18th century could not pay the cost of one-way transportation, so
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Philip Martin
Source: Based on data from: World Bank Migration and Remittances Fact Book, 2015, p. 28.
they indentured themselves for four to six years to whomever met the ship and paid the trans-
portation costs. Transportation today is much more accessible and cheaper, usually at less than
$2,500.
The third revolution involves the rights of individuals vis-à-vis governments. Dictatorships
and wars early in the 20th century led to the creation of the UN and an emphasis on protecting
the human rights of individuals. Many human rights protect all persons, including foreigners,
making it difficult for governments to remove those who want to stay.
Policy makers faced with an influx of asylum seekers are unable to do much in the short
term about the demographic and economic inequalities that motivate migration, and they do
not want to try to roll back the communications and transportation revolutions that do far more
than facilitate migration. Their default policy option becomes adjusting the rights of migrants
by making it more difficult to enter countries with liberal asylum policies and restricting the
access of newcomers to social welfare (Hollifield, Martin and Orrenius 2014).
• Recruitment deals with who migrates. Are migrants persons who would have been
unemployed or underemployed at home, or key employees of business and govern-
ment whose departure leads to layoffs, reduced services, and slower growth in countries
they leave?
• Remittances to developing countries are projected to continue to increase, raising two ques-
tions. First, how can the cost of transferring small sums between countries be reduced?
Second, once remittances arrive, are they spent on improving the education and health of
children in migrant families or do they fuel competition for fixed assets, as when land or
dowry prices rise as more money arrives in the area?
• Returns deals with migrants who come back to their countries of origin or settle abroad.
Do migrants return with new skills and energies that fuel development, or do they rest and
retire, perhaps waiting to go abroad again? Do migrants who settle abroad retain ties to their
countries of origin, prompting diaspora-led development, or do they cut ties?
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These three ‘R’s linking migration and development can create virtuous or vicious circles.
Migration can set in motion virtuous development circles, as when young workers who would
have been unemployed at home find jobs abroad, send home remittances that reduce pov-
erty and are invested to accelerate economic and job growth, and return with new skills and
technologies that lead to new industries and jobs. The result can be a convergence in eco-
nomic conditions between migrant-sending and receiving areas, as predicted by the factor-price
equalisation theorem that outlines how trade or migration can yield converging factor prices in
trading countries under a set of standard assumptions.
The alternative vicious circle finds that some migration slows development and prompts even
more migration. A vicious circle can unfold if employed nurses, teachers or engineers leave for
overseas jobs, a form of brain drain that can reduce the quality and accessibility of health and
educational services in migrant-sending areas and force factories to lay off workers for lack of
managers. In the vicious circle scenario, migrants abroad do not send home significant remit-
tances, or they send home remittances that fuel inflation and raise the exchange rate, prompting
layoffs in factories whose goods become uncompetitive as their price to foreign buyers increases.
If migrants abroad do not return, or return only to rest and retire, there may be a limited transfer
of new ideas, energies, and entrepreneurial abilities from migrant destinations to origins.
No law ensures that more labour migration promotes virtuous development circles, just as
there is no law that says more foreign investment assures faster economic growth.4 Efforts to
explain the sources of economic growth in cross-country comparisons have asked whether the
key is investment, technology, or institutions, and these studies usually end with the answer ‘it
depends’ on the country and context (Kenny 2011: 38). The same answer applies to the ques-
tion of whether more migration is associated with faster development across countries. Policy
makes a difference, justifying a more detailed work at how each migration channel affects
development.
Most recruitment, remittance, and return issues are similar whether workers move from a
developing to an industrial country or move from one developing country to another. However,
south–south migration can raise novel issues. Some developing countries send workers abroad
and allow their employers to recruit workers to fill vacant jobs in the same sectors that employ
their citizens abroad, as when Thai workers fill farm jobs in Israel and Thai farmers hire Burmese
workers to fill farm jobs in Thailand. The Thais in Israel earn far more than the Burmese in
Thailand, and their effects on labour markets abroad and development at home can also be
different.
Recruitment
Employers set most international labour migration in motion by asking their governments for
permission to recruit and employ foreign workers; that is, most labour migration is employer-
led. Most governments have local-workers-first policies, and policies in most countries allow
employers to hire migrant workers only after they try and fail to recruit local workers, that is,
after employers test the labour market and fail to find local workers.
There are several reasons why labour market tests rarely find local workers, including the
fact that employers request permission to employ foreign workers only after they have identi-
fied the migrants they want to hire. Many employers assume that local workers will soon quit
for better jobs, as many do, explaining why they want to hire foreign workers who are tied
to them.
Once employers receive governmental permission to hire migrants, they must decide
which migrants to select.Young people are most likely to be requested by employers and to
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Philip Martin
agree to move over borders, in part because they have the least invested in jobs and careers at
home and the longest period to recoup a temporary or permanent investment in migration.
However, even among young people, exactly who is selected and who migrates is deter-
mined by the recruitment needs and strategies of employers in destination areas, recruiting
agents and governments in sending areas, and networks that link them.
For example, if employers recruit youth to work in construction or seasonal resort industries,
networks will evolve to move these types of workers over borders to construction sites and
resort hotels. If employers recruit IT professionals and nurses, institutions will evolve to train
them and help graduates to move abroad. Alternatively, if foreign employers recruit domestic
helpers and farm workers, networks will evolve to move low-skilled migrants over borders to
fill jobs in private homes and on farms.
Job matching involves costs that often increase with geographic and cultural distance.
Recruitment or job-matching costs can be expressed as a share of earnings, such as the rule-
of-thumb that the recruitment costs of a company executive are equivalent to six to 12 months
of his or her first-year’s salary and are paid by the firm seeking an executive. Low-skill work-
ers generally pay a higher share of their foreign earnings in recruitment costs than high-skill
migrant workers, largely because the supply of low-skilled workers is larger relative to the
(foreign) demand for them.
High migration costs are often aggravated by the high-cost loans that many migrants take
out to pay them. As a result, indebted migrants may be especially vulnerable abroad and have less
ability to learn skills and send home remittances. There is no easy way to measure recruitment
costs, in part because international norms and national laws establish standards, stipulating that
workers should not pay any recruitment fees or not more than one month’s foreign earnings.
Since these norms are routinely violated, it is hard to know exactly how much migrant workers
paid in migration costs (Martin 2012).
Most of the world’s migrant workers are low-skilled, employed as domestic workers,
labourers, and in similar occupations abroad. Most lower-skilled workers find foreign jobs
with the help of for-profit recruiters who often charge workers for job-matching services.
Migrants, employers, and governments want low recruitment costs and good worker-job
matches so that migrant workers are in the ‘right’ jobs abroad, satisfying employers and
enabling migrants to achieve savings targets without overstaying or taking second jobs.
However, recruiters may not have the same incentives to lower recruitment costs and ensure
good worker-job matches.
International Labor Organization conventions call for employers to pay all of the
recruitment costs of the migrant workers they hire and for governments to operate no-
fee labour exchanges. However, Convention 181 (1997), the Private Employment Agencies
Convention,5 allows governments to create exceptions to Article 7 which states that: ‘Private
employment agencies shall not charge directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, any fees or
costs to workers.’ Some governments set maximum recruitment charges that are a fraction
of foreign earnings, such as setting maximum recruitment charges at a month’s foreign earn-
ings, which is 4.2 per cent of earnings under a two-year contract and 2.8 per cent under a
three-year contract.
Nonetheless, many migrants report paying far more in recruitment costs, a quarter of
what they will earn abroad, or $2,000 for a three-year contract paying $200 a month or
$7,200 while abroad. The migrant may remit $5,000 of these earnings, and pay 10 per cent
of what is remitted in money transfer costs, so that cutting remittance costs in half saves the
migrant $250. Cutting recruitment costs in half, on the other hand, would save the migrant
four times more, $1,000.
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Remittances
Remittances to developing countries rose from $430 billion in 2014 to $432 billion in 2016
(World Bank 2016). Remittances surpassed official development aid in the mid-1990s and have
continued to rise much faster than the number of migrants, doubling between 1990 and 2000
and tripling between 2000 and 2010, although some analysts believe that some of this growth
in reported remittances reflects improved measurement of remittance flows rather than more
money flowing to developing countries. Some of the upsurge in remittances may reflect prop-
erty market booms in some developing countries, as migrants hope to profit from rising hous-
ing prices (Clemens and McKenzie 2014: 21).
Unlike foreign direct investment and private capital flows, remittances were stable during
the 2008–09 recession, while foreign direct investment (FDI) and private capital flows to devel-
oping countries fell sharply (Sirkeci, Cohen and Ratha 2012). Remittances are often seen as
a shortcut to development, enabling developing countries to acquire scarce capital by sending
abroad workers who would have been unemployed or underemployed at home.
Remittances have two major components: workers’ remittances6 –the wages and salaries
that are sent home by migrants abroad for 12 months or more –and compensation of employ-
ees (called labour income until 1995) –the wages and benefits of migrants abroad for fewer
than 12 months.7 Many countries do not know how long the migrants who remit funds have
been abroad, so most analyses combine workers’ remittances and compensation of employees.
For example, Mexico reports most money inflows from individuals under workers’ remittances,
while the Philippines reports most under compensation of employees.
The volume of remittances depends on the number of migrants, their earnings abroad, and
their willingness to send money home. Foreign direct investment (FDI) includes investment in
China, which accounted for half of FDI in developing countries in 2014, official development
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Philip Martin
assistance (ODA) are monies given on concessional terms to promote economic development,
and private equity includes net portfolio inflows for equity and bonds as well as net commercial
bank-lending to developing countries.
Six developing countries received over half of remittances to developing countries in 2014.
India received $70 billion in 2014, followed by China, $64 billion, and then the Philippines
($28 billion), Mexico ($25 billion) and Nigeria and Egypt, $20 billion each.
Remittances are the largest share of GDP in a diverse group of countries, including ex-
USSR countries whose Soviet industries collapsed, such as Tajikistan (remittances equivalent to
49 per cent of GDP in 2013), and island countries such as Tonga (24 per cent).
Most governments want to maximise remittances. Studies agree that the best way to maxim-
ise the volume of remittances migrants send home is to have an appropriate exchange rate and
economic policies that promise growth (Ratha 2005). Sound economic policies are a far better
magnet to attract remittances than special programmes that target migrants and encourage them
to send money home.
The G8 and G20 countries, as well as the Global Forum for Migration and Development,
have embraced two goals related to remittances: (1) reduce the cost of small international
money transfers and (2) send more remittances via regulated financial institutions. The average
cost of transferring $200 over national borders fell from 15 per cent or $30 in the late 1990s to
8 per cent or $16 today (World Bank 2015); the World Bank’s goal is to reduce average remit-
tance costs to 3 per cent of the amount transferred by 2030. Average remittance costs are lower
in high-volume corridors such as US-Mexico (6 per cent) and higher in low-volume corridors
into sub-Saharan Africa (12 per cent).
The second goal is to encourage migrants to remit via regulated financial institutions such
as banks, in order to reduce the use of informal channels that can also be used by terrorists
to finance their activities. Migrants transfer money via formal channels if it is convenient and
cheap to do so, but this usually requires banking outlets in migrant communities both abroad
and at home, and competition and technology, including mobile phones, to lower transfer costs.
Since remittances are private transfers, most countries do not try to specify how much their
citizens abroad should remit or tax remittances. However, workers who remain employees of
companies based in their country of origin while abroad may have remittance amounts set
for them.
For example, many Korean migrants in the Middle East in the late 1970s were considered
to be ‘posted’ temporarily abroad, so they received a small stipend in local currency and had
most of their earnings paid in Korean currency to their families at home, a practice that remains
common for Chinese and Vietnamese workers who are posted by their Chinese and Vietnamese
employers abroad. However, withholding wages can prompt workers to ‘run away’ from the
employer to whom they are assigned in order to earn more in local currency.
Workers going abroad are often breadwinners for their families, so most remittances replace
earnings at home and are used for consumption. The fact that migrant workers are supporting
families from abroad helps to explain why remittances can remain stable even as exchange rates
and investment outlooks change.8 By earning more abroad than would have been earned at
home, families receiving remittances have more income and can also save and invest.
Many studies have documented the positive effects of remittances on families receiving them
(Ratha 2005; Pritchett 2006). The remittance-fuelled increase in income reduces poverty and
often increases spending on education and health care for children, especially when mothers are
remitting from abroad or spending remittances at home (World Bank 2006). If the children of
migrants obtain more education than their parents, they may not have to migrate abroad to find
decent work. On the other hand, some studies find that the absence of parents negatively affects
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children who are cared for by grandparents and other relatives (Wickramage, Siriwardhana and
Peiris 2015)
The record on migrant investments at home to create jobs so that children do not have to
migrate is more mixed, in part because many migrants come from areas that offer few oppor-
tunities for investments that can improve livelihoods over time. Most migrants build new or
improve existing housing, but many find it difficult to invest in projects that create jobs for
non-migrants.
Remittances can have the micro-effect of improving the lives of families receiving them,
but may have the macro-effect of slowing overall economic growth if they raise the value of
the currencies of migrant-sending countries so that exports fall, displacing workers in export-
oriented sectors, an example of Dutch disease.9 Many migrants are from countries with small
export sectors, and the remittances that benefit families receiving them may simultaneously hurt
other families.
Governments often use the volume of remittances as a short-hand indicator of migration’s
contribution to development, which is short-sighted (Skeldon 2008). Remittances can improve
the lives of migrants and their families, and their spending can speed economic growth and job
creation, even for non-migrants via the multiplier effects of spending, but remittances can also
reduce pressure on governments to make the fundamental economic changes necessary for
sustainable growth.
Some governments highlight the importance of remittances by symbolically welcoming
home selected migrants and reminding non-migrants of the hard work that migrants do abroad.
The Mexican government operates welcome centres for migrants who return for holidays and
encourages them to donate to projects in their communities of origin by matching migrant
donations in a 3x1 programme. For each dollar contributed by migrants for infrastructure
improvement in their areas of origin, three dollars are taken from funds set aside for develop-
ment and used in a local project (Orozco and Rouse 2007).
The results are mixed. On the one hand, remittance donations can trigger government fund-
ing of needed infrastructure, but there can also be conflicts between migrants abroad who want
the mix of remittances and government funds to improve churches or plazas for weddings and
celebrations when they return, and stay-behind residents who favour running water and paved
streets (Orozco and Rouse 2007). Asian migrant-sending countries do not have remittance-
matching programmes.
Migrants can have other effects on their economies, steering FDI to their countries of ori-
gin and persuading their employers to buy products from their countries of origin, increasing
trade (Papademetriou and Martin 1991). Having migrants abroad increases travel and tourism
between countries, as well as trade in ethnic foods and other home-country items. Migrants
abroad may organise themselves to provide funds for political parties and candidates in their
countries of origin, and can have significant outcomes on elections at home. In the extreme,
migrant remittances can fuel conflict at home (Orjuela 2008).
Returns
The third R in the migration and development equation is returns or settlement abroad, and
once again there can be virtuous or vicious circles. In the virtuous circle, returning migrants,
especially professionals who worked abroad, can provide the energy, ideas, and entrepreneurial
vigour to start or expand businesses at home or find jobs that use the skills and discipline they
acquired abroad, raising productivity and speeding development. Migrants are generally drawn
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from the ranks of the risk takers, and capital acquired abroad combined with risk-taking entre-
preneurial behaviour upon return can stimulate economic development.
The vicious circle can unfold if migrants settle abroad and cut ties to their countries of
origin, so that remittances decline and migrants are ‘lost’ to the country of origin. Alternatively,
migrants may return, but only to rest and retire, limiting their development impacts. Finally,
migrants could circulate between sending and receiving areas, a policy that may maximise
migrant remittances. However, the forced circulation suggested by those who want to maximise
remittances can violate the human rights of migrants (Wickramasekara 2011).
The question of whether returning migrants contribute to development at home is best
answered with ‘it depends’. In most cases where migration is credited with contributing to
development, migrants left in one period and returned when their country of origin was
growing fast.
For example, the Taiwanese government invested mostly in primary and secondary educa-
tion, so that Taiwanese seeking higher education often went abroad for advanced study, and
over 90 per cent of those who earned PhDs abroad remained overseas despite rapid economic
growth at home in the 1970s.10 As Taiwan developed, some Taiwanese abroad returned to take
advantage of new opportunities, and the government encouraged returns with the creation of
the Hsinchu Industrial Park in 1980 and financial incentives, including subsidised western-style
housing. Hsinchu became a major success, employing over 100,000 workers in 300 companies
that generated revenues of $28 billion by 2000, when 40 per cent of Hsinchu’s companies were
headed by returned migrants (Luo and Wang 2002).
Taiwan’s experience suggests that investing in the type of education appropriate to the stage
of economic development, and tapping what the then-Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang called
‘stored brainpower overseas’ when the economy can absorb more professionals, can be a suc-
cessful development strategy. Many Chinese cities offer financial subsidies to encourage Chinese
professionals abroad to return, making ‘Returning Student Entrepreneur Buildings’ a common
sight (Kaufman 2003; Tempest 2002).11
Taiwan and China are economic success stories, raising the question of what returned
migrants can contribute to countries that are not developing fast.The International Organization
for Migration and the United Nations Development Program operate return-of-talent pro-
grammes that subsidise the transportation and living costs of professionals from a country who
are abroad and agree to return and work in government or academic institutions. Many partici-
pating professionals have an immigrant or long-term secure status abroad, and remain in their
country of origin only a year or two, prompting one analyst to call them ‘expensive failures’
because they do not result in the ‘investment that [return] should bring’.
Some governments couple return incentive payments with help to start a business, and draw
funds and experts from development budgets to help ensure that businesses started by returned
migrants are sustainable. The French call such programmes co-development, and often provide
return payments in stages so that the migrant is still in their country of origin at least a year
after returning.
Migration and trade
Are trade and migration substitutes? Economic theory suggests they are, but the evidence sug-
gests that freer trade and migration can be complements, at least in the short run, helping to
explain the surge in Mexico-US migration after NAFTA went into effect in 1994, the upsurge
in Polish migration after Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004, and more African
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migration toward Europe after a decade of faster-than-average growth. Closer economic inte-
gration can generate a migration hump, or temporarily more migration.The ASEAN Economic
Community may provide a test of the migration hump in Asia.
Economic theory deals with comparative statics, comparing two situations after adjustments
are completed, or after free trade leads to converging wages and reduces incentives to migrate.
The factor-price equalisation theorem begins with two countries, C1 and C2, producing two
goods, G1 or a in Figure 17.2 and G2 or b, using two inputs, capital and labour. If G1 is a
capital-intensive good and G2 is a labour-intensive good, and the price of capital relative to
labour, R/W, is lower in C1 than in C2, then C1 is the capital-abundant country and C2 is the
labour-abundant country.
With trade and time, the factor-price line for C1, which is AB, rotates counter-clockwise as
economies in the two trading countries adjust. This reduces the price of capital so that the fac-
tor-price line for C2, which is CD, rotates clockwise. After sufficient time to reach equilibrium,
and under a standard set of assumptions, there is a new common factor-price line PL tangent to
the C1 isoquant at T and tangent to the C2 isoquant at S. In this example, different endowments
of capital and labour mean that C1 (richer country) should continue to produce and export
capital-intensive goods to C2 (poorer country).
This trade pattern, in which higher-wage and capital-abundant countries export capital-
intensive goods and import labour-intensive goods from the lower wage labour-abundant
countries, should narrow differences in the cost of capital and labour (wages) in the trading
countries, thereby reducing economic incentives to migrate from the lower to the higher-
wage country. In this way, freer trade acts as a substitute for international labour migration, as
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who produce labour-intensive goods to locate plants in better infrastructure countries and
import migrant workers. This happened with North American shoe production, which rose
in the US despite freer trade and a devaluation of the peso because of the better infrastruc-
ture in the US and proximity to consumers. The expansion of shoe production in the US
attracted Mexican workers.
Standard trade models assume complete markets with perfect information and no transac-
tion costs. Rural areas in Mexico and other low-wage countries often lack well-functioning
banking and insurance markets, making it hard for farmers and other rural residents who want
to take advantage of new opportunities that are opened by freer trade to obtain capital to
expand or experiment with new crops that become more profitable. In such cases, migration
to a higher-wage country may provide the fastest way to obtain additional capital, cope with
natural disasters, or earn money to repay unexpected health and related expenses, explaining
the seeming paradox that more opportunities are associated with more migration, at least in the
short term.15
Trade and migration can also be complements for other reasons, including transaction costs.
Information costs and transportation costs normally fall with closer economic integration, mak-
ing it easier for workers in poorer countries to learn about opportunities in richer countries
and travel to take advantage of them. Other reasons for more development and more migration
include relative deprivation, as occurs when a successful migrant returns from work abroad and
uses accumulated savings to buy a television or household appliances, encouraging other fami-
lies to send members abroad so that they too can afford these items (Taylor and Martin 2001).
These reasons for a migration hump are summarised in Table 17.2.
NAFTA was the first case of a free-trade agreement between neighbouring rich and poor
countries with a pre-existing migration relationship. The ASEAN Economic Community
(AEC) aims for closer economic integration among member countries after 2015, including
free mobility of professionals and highly skilled workers. The freer flows of goods and capi-
tal between AEC member states may also increase labour migration if path dependence that
encourages firms which already hire migrant workers expand faster than wages converge and
decrease incentives for international labour migration. Most current AEC migrants are low-
skilled, and most new migrants are likely to be low-skilled. This may push AEC governments
to acknowledge inevitable migration and develop policies to liberalise and regularise the cross-
border movements of labour.
The AEC can foster more migration of professionals with Mutual Recognition Agreements
while regulating the recruitment and employment of low-skilled migrant workers to ensure
that both they and local workers are treated equally. Demographic and economic realities sug-
gest there will be more international labour migration within the AEC, making the imple-
mentation of the 2007 ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of
Migrant Workers imperative to ensure that labour migration promotes cooperation rather than
conflicts between AEC member states (Martin and Abella 2014).
Conclusions
Economically motivated migration is usually a journey of hope for success. Most migrants
leave home and cross national borders in search of higher wages and more opportunities. Most
find what they seek, explaining why there are often more people waiting to go abroad than
there are jobs. The remittances migrants send home usually improve their family’s housing and
increase investment in the education and health of their children, laying the foundation for
faster development.
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Table 17.2 Migration humps: trade and low-skill migration as complements
Theoretical rationale Complementarity between trade and migration Substitutability between trade and migration Reason for larger migration hump
in the short run in the long run
Technologies differ Labour-intensive production in south cannot Production of goods in which south has a Poor infrastructure and public services
compete with capital-intensive production comparative advantage generates jobs may retard new job creation
in north
Factor productivity Wage differences are insufficient to create Public investment in education and Failure of public policies to close
differences comparative advantage in labour-intensive infrastructure closes the productivity productivity gap over time
production in south gap
Economies of scale Industries using migrant labour in the north Public investment in education and Failure of public policies to counteract
expand, lowering costs of production and infrastructure in south closes the scale economies in northern migrant-
south cannot compete productivity gap intensive industries
Adjustment lags and Lags between economic integration and job Economic integration create jobs in Poor public services, discourage
costs creation south, especially for better educated investment, extend the investment-
factor specificity: displaced corn farmers not younger workers most prone to employment lag and fail to overcome
hired as factory workers, so loss of subsidies migrate factor specificity problems
prompts emigration
Market failures New jobs in south provide the funds to New jobs and factor market development Limited employment expansion to provide
undertake risky migration offer alternatives for migration attractive alternatives to migration, due
to above
Migration networks Networks that minimise migration costs and Diminishing returns to migration Absence of diminishing returns to
risks increase the likelihood that recessions networks, combined with increasing networks and/or slow employment and
in the south turn into migration to the opportunities from trade reform in the income growth in sending country
north migrant-sending country
Given a short-run increase in migration,
networks accelerate migration effects
Relative deprivation Short-run increases in income disparities Broadened access to market opportunities Persistence of unequal access to income
caused by trade reforms stimulate and/or migration reduces relative opportunities in migrant-sending
migration to reduce relative deprivation deprivation and associated migration country
pressures
In a globalising world where regions with demographic and economic inequalities are drawn
closer by revolutions in communications and transportation, international labour migration and
remittances are likely to increase. Rising remittances can support families left behind to speed
development, but there is no guarantee that more migration and more remittances ensure faster
development. If employers recruit workers who would otherwise be unemployed, if remittances
are invested, and if returning migrants use skills learned abroad to raise productivity at home,
migration can accelerate development. Policy can make a difference to ensure that the window
of opportunity opened by international labour migration results in protected workers contrib-
uting to development in both migrant-sending and receiving countries.
Migration is a process to be managed, not a problem to be solved. Experience demonstrates
that there is no universal best way to link migration and development, but there are universal
principles that can protect the human rights of migrants and local workers. Policies that adhere
to fundamental principles, such as protecting local workers from ‘unfair’ competition by treat-
ing migrants equally, offer a solid framework for ensuring that international labour migration
contributes to a better world.
Notes
1 The World Bank considers 32 of the OECD countries to be high-income (not Mexico and Turkey)
and 47 non-OECD countries and places to be high-income, from places such as Hong Kong and
Macao to the Gulf oil exporters, to Argentina, Russia, Singapore, and Venezuela.
2 World economic output in 2013 was $76 trillion for 7.1 billion people, or an average $10,700 each. At
purchasing power parity, after incomes are adjusted for the cost of living, world economic output was
$102 trillion or $14,300 each. At PPP, per capita incomes in high-income countries average $40,800,
almost five times more than the $8,400 average of lower-income countries (World Bank 2015: 28).
3 Lucas (2005) uses a similar three-way framework, discussing the effects of departures on those left
behind in sending countries, diasporas and their links to the countries they left, and returns and the
activities of returnees.
4 So-called Harrod-Domar growth models assume that the there is a capital-output ratio that, e.g.
requires 4 per cent of GDP to be devoted to investment to achieve 1 per cent economic growth. Solow
countered that technological change, not investment, was the major driver of economic growth. These
exogenous growth theories suggested that giving foreign aid or technology to developing countries
could speed development.Today’s endogenous growth emphasises the importance of good institutions
such as the rule of law and enforceable contracts and process technologies including just-in-time
production methods and computerised inventory management to explain why some countries grow
faster than others. The evidence for institutions and sticky or hard-to-transfer processes is that mobile
phones and TVs have spread quickly to developing countries, but not the contracts and ways of think-
ing associated with faster growth (Kenny 2011: Chapter 3).
5 See: ww.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_
ID:312326.
6 The IMF Balance of Payments Manual 6 replaced workers’ remittances with personal transfers, defined
as ‘current transfers in cash or kind made or received by resident households to or from nonresident
households’. (IMF 2013).
7 A third item not generally included in discussions of remittances are migrants’ transfers, the net worth
of migrants who move from one country to another. For example, if a person with stock migrates from
one country to another, the value of the stock owned moves from one country to another in interna-
tional accounts.
8 Automatic stabilisers in developed countries, such as unemployment insurance, help to stabilise the
flow of remittances to developing countries that have the same economic cycles as the countries in
which their migrants work.
9 Dutch disease refers to one part of the economy booming and hurting other sectors. When the Dutch
discovered natural gas in 1959, the value of the guilder rose and Dutch manufacturing exports fell.
10 These students were highly motivated to pursue advanced studies. Before they could go abroad, they
had to complete two years of military service and obtain private or overseas financing.
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11 Shanghai reportedly has 30,000 returned professionals, 90 per cent with MS or PhD degrees earned
abroad, who are employed or starting businesses.
12 The Economist, 17 November 2012, www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21566629-
liberalising-migration-could-deliver-huge-boost-global-output-border-follies.
13 Canada and the US entered into a free-trade agreement in 1989, so the addition of Mexico with
NAFTA in 1994 primarily reduced trade and investment barriers between Mexico and the US, where
wage differences were about one to eight in the early 1990s.
14 A million Mexicans lost jobs in 1995, and two-thirds of the Mexican farmers questioned in one survey
reported that their incomes had been reduced by a NAFTA-induced influx of corn, processed meat
and milk products that lowered the prices they received for farm products in Mexico. An estimated
800,000 Mexicans entered the US, mostly illegally, in 1995.
15 Surveys of Mexican migrants in the US find that a significant share of young men migrated north in
order to earn the money needed to repay loans that were incurred by their families to deal with health
and similar emergencies.
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18
TRANSNATIONAL
MIGRATIONS AND PLURAL
DIVERSITIES
Encounters in global cities
Brenda S.A. Yeoh
the city generates differences and assembles identities.The city is a difference machine
insofar as it is understood as that space which is constituted by the dialogical encoun-
ter of groups formed and generated immanently in the process of taking up positions,
orienting themselves for and against each other, inventing and assembling strategies
and technologies, mobilizing various forms of capital, and making claims to that space
that is objectified as ‘the city’.
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The city’s pivotal role in generating, assembling and mobilising differences has been examined
from a variety of perspectives. This includes the earlier spatial science tradition of mapping the
geographical distribution of difference as a reflection of wider social structures and processes, as
well as constructivist frameworks where social groups that inhabit the city are differentiated pri-
marily using single attributes such as race, class, sexuality, or criminality (see Jacobs and Fincher
1998 for further discussion). More recently, cities of migration have been studied using a broad
spectrum of post-structuralist approaches that gives weight to notions of difference associated
with power geometries, cultural politics, performativity, subject formation and context speci-
ficity. In line with Vertovec’s (2014) idea of ‘superdiversity’, Glick-Schiller (2009) argues for an
approach to diversity not as ‘fixed difference’ but as ‘overlapping multiplicities’. Steyn (2014)
describes ‘difference’ as ‘always (inter)relational, inessential, incomplete, fluid and destabilised’,
while Beck (2009) encourages the ‘move from “either/or” classification to a new logic of “not
only/but also” ’.Vertovec (2014) in turn argues that ‘diversity studies’ could be broadened out to
focus on ‘modes of social differentiation’ (how categories of difference are constructed, mani-
fested, utilised, internalised, socially reproduced) and ‘complex social environments’ (how social
relations evolve in a context of multiple classifications across a single mode of difference, or
how a multiplicity of modes of difference interact to condition social relations in a single site).
These newer formulations of diversity encourage closer attention to migrant-led diversification
in interaction with older forms of difference in cities.
Beyond theorisations, in the last two decades a range of policy interventions and integra-
tion projects have been developed to better manage cultural change in a world where the warp
of stability established around families, communities and networks has been irreversibly shot
through by the weft of mobilities and migrations. At the same time, conflicts, tensions and dis-
comforts –and the accompanying expressions of emotion as well as the circulation of embod-
ied affect –have continued to trouble questions of urban living in a culturally diverse world
constantly animated by migrant influx. This chapter provides a selective review of Asia-focused
scholarship on the nature of urban diversities and encounters in the context of the increasing
volume and velocity of transnational migration in the region.The review is organised into three
themes of salience in understanding local-migrant encounters in the Asian globalising city: the
politics and paradox of postcolonial encounters; coexistence and control in transient spaces of
enclavement; and intimate encounters in the home-spaces of the city. To better contextualise
the discussion, I draw where relevant on the case of Singapore as illustration, a nation-city-state
with globalising ambitions and criss-crossed by a high density of transnational migration flows.
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Brenda S.A. Yeoh
2013: 15). As a result, the historical reality by the second half of the 20th century in much
of the once-colonised world is best described as ‘a modernity that is scored by the claws of
colonialism, left full of contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridity, and
liminalities’ (Lee and Lam 1998: 968). In societies with a long history and experience of dealing
with multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-lingual coexistence, ‘There is undoubtedly a capacity
and a tolerance for difference that is completely different from a European sensibility’ (Blom
Hansen 2009, quoted in Vertovec 2014: 4). Affective practices inhabiting the public spaces of
encounter in postcolonial formations are hence less likely to be performances enacted between
‘distant’ strangers (as seen in some of the analyses of western cities), and more likely to be akin to
interactions between people with recognisable yet disparate sociabilities. Where diversity exists
as ‘overlapping multiplicities’ accumulated over a fractured history, Blom Hansen’s observation
that ‘We need to get beyond the notion that minorities “have” diversity whilst the natives do
not’ becomes patently clear.
The limited but growing scholarship on migration and diversity in Asian cities which draws
on a postcolonial approach has taken pains to show how the historical geographies of the
colonial past have shaped complex geopolitical conditions of the present (Yeoh 2003). While
‘[ethno-racial] ideologies of hierarchical difference … can be traced back to colonialism’ (Koh
2015: 436), they operate in complexly different and often paradoxical ways to shape local-
migrant encounters of recent times. Focusing on Mainland Chinese skilled migrants who have
moved to Hong Kong after the 1997 handover, for example, Wang (2013: 393) shows how old-
timer/newcomer interactions are shaped by a postcolonial discourse of ‘national humiliation’,
where the migrants are motivated by a reverse colonising mission to restore ‘China’s economic
dominance, political authority and cultural authenticity’ at a time which coincides with the rise
of China as a global power and the decline of British influence in Hong Kong. In a very dif-
ferent scenario, Mainland mothers-to-be trying to evade China’s one-child policy by crossing
the border to give birth in Hong Kong under the ‘One Country Two Systems’ framework, find
themselves in a hostile receiving society where they are castigated as ‘locusts’ or ‘aliens’ which
rampantly devour resources in host territory, while their babies are labelled as ‘locust eggs’
(Chee 2017). In the case of Japan, Kang (2001: 137) notes that ‘it is an irony of history that Japan,
the former colonial power and aggressor in Asia, has been reborn as an “ethnically homog-
enous” nation-state, while the victims of colonialism and fascism have been sundered apart and
separated’. Despite the fact that the Japanese Empire was ‘once burdened with the complexities
and inequalities of an ethnically and culturally mixed population’ and complicit in the creation
of ‘diasporic existence’ among people of Korean descent, for instance, postwar national history
has attempted to reduce these complexities to ‘the history of a single ethnic identity’ played out
within the geography of the four ‘home islands’, thereby forgetting the other peoples of empire
(Kang 2001: 141). In tandem, Shin (2010) shows that historical asymmetries between Japanese
citizens and immigrants tended to be reproduced in contemporary Japanese immigration poli-
cies and public attitudes towards the nikkeijin (descendants of ethnic Japanese emigrants from
Latin America).
Sandwiched between the large polities of China and India, Southeast Asia has a long history
of migrations, mobilities and circulations connecting diverse societies, ranging from merchants,
monks, sailors, rebels, to the coolie trade (Nyiri and Tan 2017). In postcolonial times, one of
the primary tasks of nation-building among the new Southeast Asian states is to transform a
motley crew of diasporic orphans, whose emotional homelands diverge from their physical
locations as well as from each other, into a ‘settled’ people who inscribe their belonging onto
a single home-nation, while marking out other migrants who arrive later as part of renewed
diasporas as transgressors of the nation-state through a politics of (selective) forgetting and
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(non-)recognition (Yeoh 2003). In this context, urban encounters do not just engage difference,
but are underscored by a wide spectrum of familiar-but-strange plurality that shifts with each
turn of the postcolonial kaleidoscope. Affective practices that develop between the older ‘set-
tled’ (once-migrant) population and the newer streams of ‘current’ migrants are hence ridden
by the contradictions of sameness and difference occurring simultaneously amidst new varieties
of pluralism.
In the case of Singapore, the welding of heterogeneous groups into ‘one people’ on achiev-
ing independence in 1965 was premised on the ideology of ‘separate but equal’ multiracialism.
Fifty years down the road, national identity continues to be built through the careful manage-
ment of race, where four ‘official races’ were designated under the so-called CMIO (Chinese,
Malays, Indians and ‘Others’) framework. The notion of being ‘separate but equal’ serves to
encourage the acceptance of coexistence of different religious practices, customs and traditions
of various communities ‘without discrimination for any particular community’ (Chan and Evers
1978: 123). In short, Singapore-style multiracialism is thus based on the arithmetic formula of
four ‘separate’ but ‘equal’ races in a nation of ‘one people’. The philosophy propounds the need
to submerge ethnic identity to the larger purposes of nation-building and national identity
construction, while at the same time providing space for each of the four ‘founding races’ to
promote, valorise, and reclaim ethnic links and identity. This form of racialised multicultural-
ism continues the colonial classificatory schemas drawn under British rule and underlies ethnic
policies governing inter-and intra-ethnic relations in different spheres of life. At the same
time, such formulations privilege fixed categories (tied to ancestral cultures) and are silent
about the migrant ‘others’ who live and work in the city-state yet do not officially belong
to the ‘CMIO races’ constituting the Singapore citizenry. Ranging from ‘foreign workers’ in
construction, domestic service, and other ‘dirty, dangerous and difficult’ (the 3Ds) sectors, to
‘foreign talents’ belonging to the professional and managerial classes, these ‘non-residents’ are
outside state constructions of the national population and do not appear in national census-
taking. When Singapore celebrated its Golden Jubilee as a sovereign nation-state in 2015, out
of a total population of 5,535 million, less than two-thirds (61 per cent) were citizens, 9.5 per
cent were permanent residents and 29.5 per cent were non-residents (Singapore Department
of Statistics 2015). In terms of the country’s labour force, foreigners constituted around 32.1
per cent (excluding foreign domestic workers) or slightly more than one million of the nation’s
3.5 million-strong workforce in 2014, possibly making Singapore the country with the highest
proportion of foreign workers in East Asia.1 While such openness to foreign others is seen to be
an essential strategy if Singapore is to compete successfully in the current round of globalisation,
it has also created on-the-ground paradoxical encounters.
For example, despite possessing a ‘Chinese’ majority in its demography, Singapore sits uncom-
fortably between being predominantly ‘Chinese’ and ‘anti-Chinese’ (Yeoh and Lin 2013), as
evident in mounting social tensions arising from contemporary migrant flows from ‘mainland’
China. When a horrendous road accident in 2012 resulted in the deaths of a Singaporean taxi-
driver, a Japanese passenger and a wealthy Chinese national behind the wheels of a speeding
Ferrari, public outcry centred on the Chinese migrant who became the focus of blame, not only
for causing the accident, but also as visible proof of an immigration policy gone wrong. And
when an immigrant Chinese family complained about the smell from curry cooked by their
Singaporean ethnic-Indian neighbours, citizens retaliated by calling on fellow Singaporeans of
all races to deliberately cook Indian, Malay, Eurasian and Chinese varieties of curry en masse
on a designated weekend. As one of the organisers of a multicultural curry party in a housing
estate said, ‘We want people to remember that curry can also be a positive thing. Here, instead
of dividing people, curry is going to unite people’ (Yong 2013). The complicated politics and
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Brenda S.A. Yeoh
paradox of ‘distance’ and ‘proximity’ in dividing/uniting some but not others are particular sali-
ent –certainly more apparent than in western contexts characterised by a white majority where
the cultural self/other divide is more consistently aligned with majority/minority identifica-
tions –under postcolonial conditions where ‘history mocks the nation-state’s claims to cultural
and linguistic exclusiveness’ (Harper 1997: 261), making it difficult for the ‘majority’ to lay
claims to an earlier place and time devoid of plurality. In other words, colonial and postcolonial
migrancies are indissolubly if complexly intermeshed, sometimes with unanticipated outcomes
for cities in a time of renewed transnational migrations.
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China tends to be either viewed through imperial lenses (among long-term residents) or
portrayed as a new set of fascinating cultural challenges of getting to know the unfamil-
iar. In contrast, among Singaporeans, the construction of difference between ‘self ’ and the
‘other’ is played out using a much finer mesh, hence requiring more subtle navigation across
the space of difference. On the one hand, the display or lack of modern civilities becomes
elevated to the position of cultural and moral markers which bring the difference between
the Mainland Chinese and the Singaporean Chinese into sharp focus. On the other hand,
the terrain of identity politics becomes multiply contested when Singaporeans who are
expected to speak Mandarin speak it poorly, reducing the facility with Mandarin into a sign
of racial and national shame for Singaporean Chinese (Yeoh and Willis 2005). In moving
away from the fiction of frictionless mobility among transnational elites, the emerging schol-
arship on highly skilled migrants in Asian cities show that encounters in the contact zone are
grounded in everyday realities of urban life inflected by negotiations and contestations over
race, nationality, gender and other identity markers.
Turning attention to the other end of the skills spectrum, the affective urban experiences and
livelihood aspirations of lowly paid migrant workers who are admitted into the city as transient
and disposable labour are strongly conditioned by the inevitability of navigating transnational
routes to and from ‘home’ and ‘host’. A large workforce comprising foreign domestic workers
who plug the care deficit in the households of globalising cities such as Hong Kong, Kuala
Lumpur, Singapore and Taipei, for example, has little chance of sustainable employment in their
home countries where they hold citizenship papers, and even less likelihood of becoming an
immigrant-turned-citizen in the host countries where they have secured (low-wage) employ-
ment. As a consequence, the migrant worker becomes a figure locked into unending circuits of
transnational care, affection, money, and material goods in order to sustain both the host-family
as well as his or her home-family in transnational form. In short, they are ‘necessary transnation-
als’ whose everyday practices sustain an ‘emotional economy’ across the transnational stage. For
them, the liminal freedoms of adopting a ‘doubleness’ of simultaneous identity as citizen and
ethnic minority (Simonsen and Koefoed 2015) remain perpetually elusive, and instead strange-
ness, transience and precarity coincide at the fullest degrees.
For example, the unskilled or low-skilled migrant workers admitted into Singapore on
short-term work permits –as disposable labour without any residency rights (Yeoh 2006) –are
most prominent in the everyday landscape in the form of ‘weekend enclaves’, transient social
and commercial landscapes containing migrant concentrations. Confined largely to their work-
places during the working week (such as construction sites or Singaporean homes in the case
of foreign domestic workers), large numbers of migrant contract workers congregate tempo-
rarily in strongly ethnicised enclaves over the weekend. Some examples include Little India/
Serangoon Road, which attracts Indian and Bangladeshi workers; Little Manila in Lucky Plaza,
right in the heart of the Orchard Road shopping belt, for Filipina domestic workers; and Little
Thailand for Thai workers at the Golden Mile Complex on Beach Road. Certain landscapes are
also changeable within the span of a day; for example, a residential and commercial district in
the day, Joo Chiat turns into a vibrant Little Vietnam by night. Foreign worker gatherings have
also sprung up in open spaces near shopping centres and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations
in the Housing and Development Board (HDB) estates, the residential heartlands where the
majority of Singaporeans live.
These weekend enclaves and foreign worker gatherings are often viewed negatively
or with unease by Singaporeans who consider them a form of ‘intrusion’ into ‘their own
backyards’. Some have openly expressed their displeasure and asked the authorities to step
up security measures in these places; others wondered whether these workers could be
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relocated to out-of-sight locations such as offshore islands. Residents of HDB flats located
in Little India have put up steel barricades around their blocks to keep foreign workers
out, and when the state announced plans to put a foreign workers’ dormitory in Serangoon
Gardens, a middle-class residential estate, 1,600 residents signed a petition in protest.
Reasons for their objection included ‘fears that the workers would commit crimes in the
area, seduce their maids and dampen property prices’. The state relented by relocating the
entrance of the dormitory to another street that would be built to order and which faced
away from the residential estate, and by housing mainly Malaysian and Chinese workers
(male and female) from the manufacturing and service industries in the dormitory instead
of foreign workers from the construction sector (who are mainly of South Asian origin).
This prompted the observation that while the ‘Serangoon Gardens saga’ is as much a class
issue as it is a racial one, a ‘veiled racism’ is clearly at work in shaping the spatial politics of
exclusion. These voices reflect a ‘use-and-discard’ sentiment among the general population
who want foreign workers to do the work that citizens shun, but at the same time wish that
these workers could be erased from the landscape.
In other words, processes of enclosure and enclavement in a context of plural diversities are
symptomatic of the contradictions between the need for a large low-waged low-skilled migrant
population that is supposed to be transient on the one hand, and the fear of the malaise associ-
ated with ‘migrant concentrations’ that appear overwhelmingly visible, palpable and permanent
on the other hand.Yet, the space of encounters between locals and these ‘needed but unwanted’
migrant workers in the global city is only occasionally punctuated by raised social anxieties,
moral panics and calls to tighten control and surveillance to keep these populations if not out of
sight, then out of the way of locals. In the everyday rhythms of the plural ‘divercity’,2 a large part
of the everyday encounters falls within the range of studied obliviousness to the other forms of
civil non-interaction and coexistence.
Beyond civil inattention, it is also notable that the plurality of interests in the global
city has also spawned significant attention to the rights and welfare of migrant workers
in Singapore. Of catalytic effect at the early years of the new millennium was the grow-
ing sense of dismay and outrage –starting with those within the women’s movement who
were already concerned about violence against women –at what appeared to be inadequate
state action and public apathy in the face of an increasing incidence of ‘maid abuse’ (Yeoh
and Annadhurai 2008). A broad range of NGOs focusing on migrant labour has emerged,
including mainly service-oriented groups (of which a number grew out of faith-based
organisations) along with skills training centres and women’s shelters; and a smaller number
of advocacy-oriented groups. While service-oriented groups primarily focus on providing
‘ambulance services’ to address the plight of the disadvantaged and seldom put forward an
alternative policy agenda from that of the state, their actions are often based on values advo-
cating an acceptance of and care and empathy for foreign others. These strategies of empa-
thetic care and cosmopolitan hope provide another face to the divercity, which exists side
by side with and partially counters the state’s tendency to harden control and containment
in reaction to perceived social threats associated with large numbers of labour migrants.
The latter is particularly obvious in the aftermath of the Little India ‘riot’ of December
20133 when the ethnic enclave became a space of exception zoned to facilitate a ban on
alcohol sales and increased police surveillance. In tandem, spaces of enclosure such as mega-
dormitories with ‘integrated facilities’ including a 16,800-bed complex with a minimart,
beer garden and foodcourt, recreational options such as a 250-seat cinema and a cricket field,
were built at peripheral sites as a containment measure to keep the migrant worker popula-
tion away from Little India as far as possible.
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elder-care deficits within families which have to be plugged by global householding strategies
(Yeoh and Huang 2014).These strategies include, for middle-class households, the market-based
option of bringing in women from less-developed countries in the region to serve as low-paid,
surrogate care for children, the elderly and the infirm as well as perform domestic work (Truong
1996). While elder-care work may also be ‘outsourced’ to (mainly female) migrant healthcare
workers labouring in the institutionalised space of the nursing home, the prevalence of gen-
dered ideologies based on ‘Asian familialism’ means that families continue to prefer to relegate
the duty of elder-care to the privatised family sector in order to conserve some semblance of
filial piety. In this context, the ‘live-in foreign maid’ emerges as an increasingly common sub-
stitute to provide the care labour needed to sustain the household. By outsourcing domestic
and care work to other Southeast Asian women from less-developed economies in the region
at a low cost, socially and economically privileged women trade in their class privilege for
(partial) freedom from the burden of household reproductive labour. This has the simultaneous
effects of subordinating other women to work conditions governed by retrogressive employer–
employee relations and minimal mobility; devaluing, racialising and commodifying household
labour as unskilled and lowly paid work; and further entrenching and normalising domestic
and care work as resolutely ‘women’s work’. Compounded by state policies which treat migrant
domestic workers as transient labour with diminished employment rights, the gender politics
of the home is negotiated between local and foreign women vis-à-vis a racialised grid of highly
asymmetrical power relations, while men continue to abdicate their household responsibilities.
The politics of household reproduction that develops in many middle-class homes in Singapore
hence features mainly women –migrant women working to present themselves as docile bodies
amenable to the disciplinary gaze of local women on the one hand, while disengaging from the
role of the deferential inferior on the other (Yeoh and Huang 2010).
Somewhat analogous to the practice of middle-class families recruiting migrant domestic
workers for householding purposes, working-class families without the financial means draw
on unpaid care labour by recruiting ‘foreign brides’.4 With globalisation and expanding edu-
cational and career opportunities for women, for example, Singaporean men from the lower
socio-economic strata who feel positionally ‘left behind’ by local women’s participation in the
workforce are seeking to fill the care deficit in their households through international mar-
riage with women from the less-developed countries in the region who are considered more
‘traditional’ and willing to take on procreation and caring roles in sustaining the household
(Yeoh, Chee and Vu 2014). In this context, the larger structural inequalities of gender, race, class,
culture and citizenship operating across a transnational stage are integral to an understanding of
the politics of familial encounters in homespace. In the last two decades, the rapid increase of
international marriage and cross-cultural, bi-national families has introduced ‘diversity’ into the
primary relations that constitute the family, giving rise to a potential proliferation of hybrid-
ity and hyphenations in the domestic sphere. Given the structural inequalities that pervade the
privatised sphere as much as they shape the public arena, it remains to be seen whether these
intimate encounters contain the seeds of future cosmopolitan hope. In short, more work needs
to be done to investigate whether such encounters in homespace within the global city are
productive of more sustained cosmopolitan sensibilities compared to the fleeting encounters of
the public streets.
Conclusion
Contemporary postcolonial migration is a compelling force increasing diversity in globalis-
ing cities. Amidst multiplicative diversities, processes of enclavement and encounter along a
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spectrum of self/other divides, occur alongside those of selective acculturation and negotiated
coexistence as people with different histories and geographies meet and take stock of one
another in the constant (re)making of divercities. In approaching an understanding of these
global cities of encounter, public encounters and the civility of the streets in the form of ‘ritual-
ised codes of etiquette’ (Valentine 2008: 329) may not always be an adequate social barometer to
grasp the nature of migrant diversity politics in the city. Indeed, the urgent need is to rethink the
politics of diversity and migrant encounter across a range of public and private spaces, as mani-
fested in relationships with ‘others’ in the city, where ‘the other’ may be ‘strange’ and ‘unfamiliar’,
but may well be ‘intimate’ and even ‘familial’. For the global city of encounters to develop a
truly cosmopolitan urban ethic, not just the conviviality of its streets but the intimacies of its
homes need to be ‘places of self-knowledge, not fear’ (Sennett 2001).
Notes
1 See: www.mom.gov.sg/documents-and-publications/foreign-workforce-numbers.
2 An increasingly popular neologism in both academic and public discourses, this shorthand signals
increasing diversity in the city.
3 On 8 December 2013, what was considered Singapore’s first riot in more than four decades broke out
in Little India. A bus and emergency vehicles were attacked after a male Indian national (construction
worker) died after being hit by the bus ferrying migrant workers back to their dormitories.
4 This parallels the use of international marriage as a strategy to sustain rural farm households in countries
such as Japan and Korea.
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19
GROWING UP IN
TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES
Children’s experiences and perspectives
Introduction
In recent decades, the unprecedented rise in both the volume and velocity of transnational
migration –principally characterised by temporary, multiple and circular labour flows –within
and out of Asia has led to significant social and economic changes, not just at the scales of
nation-states and communities but within the most immediate core of human experience, the
family. Migration is increasingly recognised as one of the main drivers of contemporary social
and developmental change in the region, and the search for new handles to promote devel-
opment has led migration scholars to focus significant attention on the mutually constitutive
effects of intra-household dynamics, labour migration and remittance generation.
Part of the impetus for the burgeoning research in this field has also been driven by the
conceptual innovation, particularly Bryceson and Vuorela’s (2002) pioneering work on what
they call the ‘transnational family’. First used in the European context, Bryceson and Vuorela
(2002) used the term to advance the notion that the family continues to share strong bonds of
collective welfare and unity even though core members are distributed in two or more nation-
states.They describe two strategies of negotiating familyhood across borders: ‘frontiering’ which
‘denotes the ways and means transnational family members use to create familial space and
network ties in terrain where affinal connections are relatively sparse’; and ‘relativising’ which
refers to the ways individuals establish, maintain or curtail relational ties with specific family
members (Bryceson and Vuorela 2002: 11). In other words, particularly for family formations
which transcend national borders, membership cannot be taken for granted; instead members
who no longer live under one roof may more easily choose to maintain emotional and material
attachments of varying degrees of intensity with certain kinspeople while opting out of other
transnational relationships.
As reviewed elsewhere (see Yeoh et al. 2017, forthcoming), three interrelated strands can be
discerned in the scholarship on transnational families. First, transnational families draw on ideo-
logically laden imaginaries to give coherence to notions of belonging despite the physical dis-
persal of their members. For example, despite the feminisation of labour migration in Southeast
Asia where women in less developed economies are fashioning themselves as international
breadwinning migrants responding to the growing gender-segmented demand for domestic
and care workers in the more developed economies, normative gender ideologies are often at
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work to simultaneously exalt them as heroes of foreign exchange while also casting them as
in need of protection to preserve their sexual and moral purity for the sake of their families
(Silvey 2006). And while the notion of ‘good mothering’ from a distance has been reconstituted
to incorporate breadwinning, it also continues to retain expectations that migrant mothers
demonstrate a strong sense of maternal responsibility (Graham et al. 2012). Among left-behind
families in source communities, the continued pressure to conform to gender norms with
respect to caring and nurturing practices may explain some men’s resistance to, and sometimes
complete abdication of, parenting responsibilities involving physical care in their wives’ absence
(Save the Children 2006). In other cases, left-behind men struggle to live up to highly moralistic
masculine ideals of being both ‘good fathers’ and ‘independent breadwinners’ when their wives
are working abroad, by taking on some care functions for their children while holding on to
low-paid work for a semblance of economic autonomy (Hoang and Yeoh 2011).
Second, transnational families are realised through lived experiences, where varying degrees
of intimacy are negotiated across transnational spaces in the context of new communication
technologies, and the time-structuring conditions of Asia’s prevailing migration regimes. A
range of work focusing on the lived experiences of ‘being’ a transnational family has examined
different ways family members maintain communication with one another to substitute for
physical absence or negotiate the rearrangement of care work across day-to-day realities. Rapid
advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) in recent times have created
‘new opportunities for transnational [migrants] to reframe, negotiate, and contest gendered par-
enting ideology’ (Peng and Wong 2013: 509). Transnational communication may, however, be
uneven, for example when letters, messages and remittances fail to arrive, or when communica-
tion is deliberately ruptured as in the case of attempts on the part of a family member to exert
power from a distance or control relationships through silence or withdrawal. The changing
technologies, economic costs, and emotional pains and gains of ‘staying connected’ in order to
‘do family’ and perform care work across national borders are central concerns to understanding
the inner workings of the transnational family (Asis et al. 2004). At the same time, scholars such
as Madianou caution us not to ‘romanticise the role of communication technologies for “doing
family” because, as with non-mediated practices, acts of mediated communication can have
complex consequences, both positive and negative, depending on a number of factors, including
the relationships themselves’ (Madianou 2016: 185).
Third, families often assume transnational morphologies with the strategic intent of remit-
tance generation as a means of economic survival, or to accumulate social and economic capital
so as to maximise social mobility for the family. In the context of low-income transnational
families, for example, Schmalzbauer (2004: 1329) observes that transnational families ‘represent a
new family form born out of the inequality in the global economy and reproduced by means of
dependence on a transnational division of labour’. For these families, economic remittances are
critical to the well-being of the family and ‘are often at the centre of socio-economic mobility
strategies’ (Carling et al. 2012: 202). Writings on the migration-development nexus have often
claimed that remittances sent by labour migrants are ‘a more reliable source of income than
other capital flows to developing countries’ in view of its ‘less volatile, less pro-cyclical’ nature
(de Haas 2005: 1277). Turning attention to middle-class Asian families, scholars have discussed
the strategic importance of transnationalising the family in order to invest heavily in children’s
education as the main route towards international social mobility and prestige (Baldassar and
Wilding 2014; Huang and Yeoh 2005; Waters 2005).
The burgeoning literature on transnational families has thus contributed in important ways
to opening up the ‘black box’ of the Asian ‘family’, paving the way for more critical understand-
ing of gender and generational relations, identities and politics within families. While much
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Theodora Lam et al.
attention has been paid to the formation, maintenance and practices of transnational families, the
research focus has been distributed unevenly in favour of adults’ –both migrant and left-behind
members –perspectives thus far, with less consideration of children’s experiences. More recent
literature has begun to address this gap by encouraging a more ‘children-inclusive approach’ to
studying transnational families, hence revealing ‘children’s varying roles in migratory processes’
(Tyrrell and Kallis 2015: 329). Research in this vein is needed in order to ‘disrupt hegemonic
discourses and dominant representations of children in migration as simply “migrants’ children”
(and hence an appendage in migration) and elevate them to the status of “migrant children”,
social actors who are willing and able to navigate their own migrant lives … albeit with varying
degrees of guidance and success (as in the case of adults)’ (Huang and Yeoh 2011: 394). In the
rest of the chapter, we discuss three emerging themes in the transnational family scholarship
where children’s situated agency is now being given consideration in the context of family and
migration dynamics: children as educational migrants and family aspirational projects; children’s
mobilities in countering marginal circumstances; and left-behind children’s role in negotiating
parental migration and child care arrangements.
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the children are abroad for studies, sometimes alone and housed in boarding school or with a
guardian, but often with one accompanying parent, and the absent parent(s) travelling one or
more times a year to be with the rest of the family. In one of the earliest works on ‘astronaut
families’, Zhou (1998: 682) described these ‘parachute/satellite kids’ as ‘a highly select group
of foreign students … seek[ing] a better education in American elementary or high schools’,
typically arriving between the ages of eight and 17, often as unaccompanied minors. More
recent work also identifies immigration and settlement as a specific goal, wherein the whole
family emigrates together before the father returns to East Asia to work to support the family.
This form is mainly associated with students from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China.
The literature has also identified the ‘study mother’ phenomenon tied specifically to Singapore’s
earlier Global Schoolhouse ambitions, wherein migrant (grand)mothers –mostly from China
but also South Korea –and usually from less affluent families, accompany their (grand)children
studying in Singapore’s primary and secondary schools on student visas (Chew 2010; Huang
and Yeoh, 2005).
A variation of the astronaut family is the South Korean kirŏgi gajok (literally, wild goose
families). Rather than the colder metaphors of astronauts and satellites emphasising space and
distance, the Korean term evokes warm familial emotions, as ‘wild geese symbolise family loy-
alty and marital harmony’ (Lee and Johnstone 2017: 308). Most recently, the oyako-ryūgaku
(parent-child study abroad trip) has been described for affluent Japanese families interested in
providing children with an international experience and an education in English while they are
very young (between three and 12 years of age); in this arrangement, both the parent and child
are theoretically enrolled in school but, in practice, most mothers keep their schedules free, pri-
marily to enjoy a variety of activities (Igarashi 2015). The most common form of oyako-ryūgaku
is a short-term stay (of a week to three months) typically taking place during the child’s vaca-
tion and ‘designed to augment rather than replace domestic education’ (Igarashi and Yasumoto
2014: 460).
The various strategies undertaken to facilitate the East Asian child’s mobility to acquire
cultural capital and a westernised (or at least, an English-based) education are not just a family
project, but one very much based on traditional gendered divisions of labour within the family.
Across Chinese (from Hong Kong, Taiwan or China), Korean or Japanese transnational families,
‘men [see] it as their duty to provide material resources for the family, whilst their wives [are]
seen primarily as “nurturers” ’ (Waters 2015: 289). Unsurprisingly, the ‘dominant narrative of
“education migration” for East Asian transnational families is that of sacrifice’ (Igarashi and
Yasumoto 2014:454). While the transnational family arrangement is clearly logistically difficult
and emotionally challenging for everyone in the family, including the children (Huang and Yeoh
2011; Waters 2015; Zhou 1998) and fathers (Lee and Koo 2006; Waters 2010), most of the lit-
erature has highlighted how it is the mothers who self-identify as the ones who have sacrificed
their own family lives and/or professional careers the most, placing motherhood above selfhood
and wifehood for the sake of the children and family. Exceptions do exist, however; for exam-
ple, Japanese women on the oyako-ryūgaku (Igarashi and Yasumoto, 2014) and Korean astronaut
mums in the US (Jeong et al. 2014) see the time abroad as an opportunity to get away from the
societal and cultural burdens at home.
Beyond the strong impetus of Asian parents’ aspirations and their willingness to sacrifice
for the family, structural imperatives also work to shape the international education flows
of Asia’s children. The education systems of East Asian countries are not only ‘notoriously
competitive’, resulting in high levels of stress (and sometimes suicide for children who fail to
make the cut), providing little guarantee of acceptance into local universities except for the
very best students (Waters 2015: 284); they are also perceived as not necessarily producing
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graduates with the social and cultural capital (including life skills) needed for the 21st cen-
tury (Lee and Koo 2006). Hence, Lee and Johnstone (2017: 308) call for research that pays
more attention to ‘how social policies and legislation [particularly in relation to education
and immigration] in both sending and receiving countries actively and strategically produce
and maintain this phenomenon’ of driving families towards an overseas education for their
children.
A significant aspect that has been neglected in the literature is a discussion of the role
children play in the process of their family’s decision to ‘go transnational’ to support their
international education. Although some attention has been given to the development needs
of and emotional costs borne by lone ‘parachute kids’ who are physically separated from
their families (see, for example, Orellana et al. 2001; Pe-pua et al. 1996; Waters 2003), we
still know very little about how transnationalising the family affects the parent-child bond
(whether of the absent father or accompanying mother), and even less on how family migra-
tion strategies are shaped by children’s needs. Despite increasing acknowledgement that
children’s education plays a pivotal role in shaping migration patterns and migrants’ subjec-
tivities (as discussed above) and the need to recognise children’s agency in education migra-
tion, ‘there has been little interrogation of the priorities of these children and young people
themselves’ (Dobson 2009: 358). Very few papers on international education include minor
children as respondents; even when they do, the focus is often on problems faced in the
adaptation process (Finch and Kim 2012; Kuo and Roysircar 2006) rather than on examin-
ing how they assert agency.
The papers that do give direct voice to children, while limited, plainly demonstrate, as
Orellana et al. (2001) first made clear, that children are not to be framed merely as luggage
weighing down adult migrants. Rather than being burdens, children are capable of independ-
ent action and may even carry the burden of the family’s migration on their fragile shoulders.
For example, ‘parachute kids’ who migrate alone take the role of lead migrant when other
family members follow in a process of chain migration, while those accompanied by a par-
ent often act as linguistic translators for the parent who may not speak the language of the
destination country (Jeong et al. 2014; Orellana et al. 2001). Zhou’s (1998: 699) study also
revealed the independent agency of children, both positively –where ‘children who took the
initiative in the decision making were likely to fare better than those who took orders from
their parents’ –and negatively –when children refuse to engage with the adult agendas of
their parents and, instead, choose to rebel against parental authority by not studying, lying
about their grades and relationships, and in one case, even setting off her home-made bomb.
In their research, Huang and Yeoh (2011: 402) found that as ‘human becomings’, ‘children are
capable of knowledgeable agency in (re)mapping their own paths as they confront various
constraints and contradictions, as well as opportunities’ as they move along their journeys as
education migrants. Tran (2016) also uses the notion of mobility as ‘becoming’ to conceptu-
alise international students as ‘self-forming agents who have the potential capability to pursue
the course of life that they regard as being worth living and meaningful to them’. Building
on Katz’s (2008) notion of children as ‘sites of accumulation’, Waters (2015: 285) argues that
conceptualising children as such ‘acknowledges that they are central to the “accumulation
strategies” of East Asian migrants’.
In other words, there is empirical evidence of the important roles children play in education-
related family migration, and also conceptual tools to challenge what Waters (2015: 281) terms
as ‘ “adultism” in migration studies’. Researchers should thus continue including children’s
voices in their research to enable a better understanding of children’s active and independent
agency in the migratory process.
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between Japanese men and Filipino women either in the Philippines or Japan, for example,
form a group of independent child migrants caught in marginal familial circumstances (Celero
2015; Seiger 2017; Suzuki 2010). Given their complicated cross-national natal ties, many JFC
face a citizenship crisis both in their country as well as their own family (Suzuki 2017). In par-
ticular, children who were born out of wedlock or to single mothers were previously denied
Japanese citizenship until a new ruling in 2008 granted ‘fatherless’ children with paternal rec-
ognition legal Japanese status (Suzuki 2010). Prior to gaining birth and citizenship legitimacy,
these JFC lived a rather marginal life in Japan entwined with discrimination, limited rights/
entitlements, exclusionary measures and constant threats of deportation. Even ‘legitimate’ JFC
are not spared from bullying and discrimination at school. Coupled with other reasons such as
a lack of child-care resources, some JFC returned to the Philippines with their mothers, though
many others were sent there independently to live with their extended maternal family while
their Filipino mothers and/or Japanese fathers remained in Japan. Some JFC were also ‘returned’
to the Philippines in order to obtain an English-medium education. Some of these JFC would
remain in the Philippines until the opportune time to return to Japan for further education,
work or reunite with their families.
On the other hand, there were also JFC living in the Philippines, many of whom had never
even been to Japan. Nonetheless, they participated in activities organised by non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) to acquire Japanese experience by learning the language through chil-
dren’s songs, for example, in the hope that they would be able to claim their birthright one day
(Seiger 2017). The JFC described in Seiger’s (2017) study further demonstrated their agency
by strategically labelling themselves to cope with the complexities of ethnic and national iden-
tity. Overall, the Philippines-based JFC have learnt over time, through their participation in
NGO activities, to assert their blood ties in order to gain political and economic benefits for
themselves.
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second millennium following the publication of Parreñas’s (2005) book focusing on migrants’
children in the Philippines, as well as two special issues on the topic by Nguyen et al. (2006)
and Toyota et al. (2007). Since then, research on left-behind children can be largely divided into
two broad strands, one focusing on the various impacts of migration on the children to, more
recently, children’s personal perspectives and experiences of the effects of migration.
For the first strand, numerous scholars have embarked on the task of understanding how
parental (international or internal) migration, be it of the father, mother or both, has affected
various aspects of Asian children’s economic, educational, emotional, psychological, physical
and social well-being. More recent examples include Adhikari et al. (2014), Cortes (2015),
Graham and Jordan (2011), Graham and Jordan (2013), Hugo and Ukwatta (2010), Jampaklay
and Vapattanawong (2013), Jordan and Graham (2012), Jordan et al. (2013), Lu et al. (2016),
Nguyen (2016), Sarma and Parinduri (2016), Zhang et al. (2015), and Zhou et al. (2015).
Findings from these studies have been heterogeneous and disparate thus far, with the well-
being outcomes largely dependent on rather specific yet complex sociocultural contexts and
a host of factors encompassing the age of left-behind children, gender of migrants/carers/
children, length of parental migration, migrant destination, as well as the situations in the home
communities. However, many of the scholars would agree that left-behind children usually
benefit economically when their parent(s) migrate. Whilst these studies provide better insights
into the mixed impacts of parental migration on the development of left-behind children, oth-
ers would argue that it is still difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of the childhoods
of left-behind children vis-à-vis those from non-migrant households. Furthermore, children’s
voices and agency are still often missing from these studies which portray children as relatively
passive vessels subjected to the effects of the adults’ actions.
To counter this, Parreñas (2005) was among the first scholars to proffer a closer, retrospective
insight into the gendered experiences of a group of Filipino left-behind young adults who have
grown up in the absence of migrant parents. Her study highlighted the children’s expressions
of emotions (mostly sadness, confusion and a sense of abandonment) as well as estrangement
from both left-behind and migrant-fathers. On the other hand, another study by Scalabrini
Migration Center (SMC) et al. (2004) found that left-behind school-going Filipino children
surveyed were fairly similar to those from non-migrant households, being socially well-adjusted,
receiving strong support and getting along with other family members. Parental migration did
not affect the socialisation and development of critical values and spirituality for the left-behind
children in this study. Instead, they were still schooled in responsibilities by being assigned
chores (though they, on average, had more chores than children from non-migrant households)
from surrogate carers in place of their absent parent. Drawing from the same study, Asis (2006)
concluded that children demonstrated agency in determining migration outcomes, playing an
active role in minding their own well-being, coping with parental absence and also keeping
the family together. Left-behind children can grow independently in the absence of restrictive
parental control and may acquire many important life skills in the process. Generally, this schol-
arship reveals that the childhoods of left-behind children need not necessarily be very different
from those from non-migrant households, although this may also be largely dependent on the
quality of care provided by surrogate carers (Asis 2006; Asis and Baggio 2003; Battistella and
Conaco 1998).
From another large-scale study on the impacts of transnational migration on children in
four Southeast Asian countries –namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam –
the CHAMPSEA4 project not only investigated the effects of parental migration but also drew
attention to the gendered migration experiences of left-behind children aged nine to 11.
Through structured interviews conducted with left-behind children from different types of
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migrant families and care-giving arrangements, scholars from the team shed further light on
Indonesian, Filipino and Vietnamese children’s views, sentiments and agency in negotiating the
migration decision-making process, arrangements of care, managing relationships with migrants
and left-behind carers and their personal well-being (see Graham et al. 2012; Hoang et al. 2015;
Hoang and Yeoh 2012, 2015). These studies affirm that children are not simply passive subjects
of migration, establishing how they are both simultaneously powerful and powerless within the
family’s livelihood strategy that is intertwined with mobility. The various studies also trace and
reveal children’s growth over their life-course, agency and strategies in coping with parental
migration and familial adjustments through the changing times of parental migration, explor-
ing how children express their resilience and demonstrate their creativity in the face of parental
absence.
Besides acknowledging left- behind children’s agency, the various studies from the
CHAMPSEA project also recognised their inability and incapacity due to the larger structures
of power and inequality. Oftentimes, left-behind children are rendered relatively ‘passive’ within
the larger migration and communication decisions that are usually controlled by the adults or
the structural setting at large. Nonetheless, left-behind children do not remain in stasis but learn
and acquire the necessary skills and knowledge over time to navigate the perils of transnational
living. Changes in children’s everyday lives, educational choices, parental migration or return
as well as care-giving decisions may be effected through seemingly small actions made by left-
behind children. Generally, the interactions between left-behind children and the adults can
make ‘a difference –to a relationship, a decision, to the workings of a set of social assumptions
or constraints’ (Mayall 2002: 21).
Overall, both existing strands of studies on left-behind children further confirm (as with
earlier themes) that children can no longer be ignored within the field of migration stud-
ies, highlighting the importance of the role they play within the family migration project.
(Dobson 2009; Hoang and Yeoh 2015; Ní Laoire et al. 2010; Orellana et al. 2001). Given
that children’s agency develops largely through their interactions with their families (van
Nijnatten 2013), it is especially important to study children of migrant families within the
family site where interactions with various family members may be remote, sporadic, inter-
rupted and/or obstructed.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have attempted to bring to the fore evidence of children’s situated agency
in three different types of transnational family circumstances –children as key participants in
transnational education and capital accumulation projects; children moving independently out
of marginal familial circumstances; and non-mobile children who are left in home countries
while one or both parents seek a better economic livelihood for the family elsewhere. In each
of these cases, children demonstrate varying capabilities and levels of agency subjected to the
constraints posed by the specific contexts in which they are situated. Despite these limitations,
the studies highlight that children are not passive members of transnational mobilities whilst also
recognising their incapacity at the same time.
Moving forward, beyond the basic need for more studies examining the agency of chil-
dren in different forms of transnational family projects, there is also a need for more com-
parative work among children of different Asian countries. For example, studies on children
migrating for education from countries in East Asia where Confucian thought prevails
may be compared with educational migration projects involving children from South and
Southeast Asian countries and cultures (such as Indonesia5 and Malaysia6). Finally, more
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research needs to take into account the way children’s agency may change or develop over
time. Thus, longitudinal research on the long-term implications of transnational households
on families in Asia is needed to trace the changing agency of children over their life-course,
and in turn, how these changes may affect the families’ transnational strategies as different
family members adapt relationally to one another and to changing circumstances as children
grow up.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [GR079946/B/06/Z; GR079946/Z/06/Z];
Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 [MOE2015-T2-1–008]; and
the Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious
and Ethnic Diversity.
Notes
1 Although some use JFC to refer to Japanese-Filipino children of failed unions, it is being used in a neu-
tral way in this chapter to refer to all children of Japanese and Filipino parentage.
2 This estimate would probably have risen given that the number of migrants from Indonesia is posited to
be 6.5 million in 2014 (Saifuddin 2014).
3 However, Lakshman et al. (2014) caution that the overall number of Sri Lankan migrant-parents may be
lower than those widely speculated.
4 CHAMPSEA or Child Health and Migrant Parents in Southeast Asia employs both quantitative and
qualitative methodologies to investigate the impacts of parental migration on the well-being and health
of children aged three to five and nine to 11 from migrant and non-migrant households. For a detailed
explanation of the study, refer to Graham and Yeoh (2013).
5 https://nziec.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Factsheet-Indonesia.pdf; https://thepienews.com/
analysis/will-indonesia-become-a-major-student-market/2/.
6 www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/08/23/r ich-kids-leave-to-study-overseas-after-
form-3-says-moe/; www.themalaysiantimes.com.my/malaysian-students-opting-to-study-abroad/.
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20
NON-C ITIZEN POLITICAL
ENGAGEMENT
Erin Aeran Chung and Rameez Abbas
Introduction
The struggle to expand voting rights to previously disenfranchised groups such as peasants,
racial minorities, women, and immigrants is a defining feature of industrial democracies. A leg-
acy of the history of the incremental expansion of citizenship in industrial democracies is that
the act of voting has become synonymous with meaningful political participation and has come
to represent the fulfilment of a citizen’s civic rights and duties. It is not surprising, then, that in
an era of widespread electoral rights, studies of political participation tend to focus on electoral
participation and citizen voting behaviour. Likewise, much of the scholarship on immigrant
political participation concentrates on why naturalised immigrants vote less than native citizens
and why some groups of immigrants exhibit higher voting rates than others. However, immi-
grants and native-born citizens alike participate in a range of political activities that extend well
beyond voting, and non-citizens are active in politics even when they do not have voting rights.
Overall, the emphasis on electoral participation has meant that non-citizen political behaviour is
under-theorised.
Two relatively recent trends have transformed the ways scholars view non-citizen political
participation. First, over the last few decades, naturalisation rates among non-citizens in indus-
trial democracies have been declining amidst growing immigrant populations. While foreign
nationals make up a substantial proportion of the labour force in a number of industrialised
societies, their annual rates of naturalisation have been relatively low even among long-term
and native-born residents –under 5 per cent in more than half of all OECD countries that
have native-born generations of foreign residents in 2013 (SOPEMI 2017). Even in the United
States, where naturalisation rates are higher than in other OECD countries, the proportion of
naturalised citizens in the foreign-born population has declined from 64 per cent in 1970 to
50 per cent in 1980 to 41 per cent in 1990 and, finally, to 37 per cent in 2000. This proportion
increased to 44 per cent in 2010. Low naturalisation rates among eligible foreign residents have
contributed to the overall growth of the total non-citizen populations and, specifically, have
generated significant numbers of permanent foreign residents with rights on par with legal
citizens, or what Tomas Hammar (1990) refers to as ‘denizens’.
Second, non- citizens have become increasingly visible in the public sphere as politi-
cal actors in their own right. Contrary to assumptions that they are politically passive or
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politically disengaged until they naturalise, non-citizens throughout the industrialised world
have engaged in a range of political activities, from homeland political participation to full-
fledged non-citizen civil rights movements. Recent political events in which non-citizens
have been key participants –such as the September 2015 rallies by foreign domestic workers
in Hong Kong and the December 2015 immigrant rights rallies in Taiwan –have highlighted
that non-citizens are not merely the objects of reform movements but also active and central
participants.
Developing democracies –including many in Asia –have experienced a different histori-
cal trajectory. Rather than a relatively incremental extension of the franchise, some developing
countries achieved independence from colonial powers through mass participatory movements,
and others overthrew authoritarian regimes through mass mobilisation (Tandon 2008: 286).
De jure, at least, their citizens acquired universal citizenship more abruptly. Another layer of
complexity is that the low capacity of many developing democracies when it comes to citizen
identification and documentation means that non-citizens in these countries may have more
avenues of electoral participation than their counterparts in traditional countries of immigra-
tion (Sadiq 2009). Advanced industrial democracies and developing democracies are also differ-
ent in their experiences as migrant-receiving countries. Developing states have fewer flows of
permanent international migrants, and engage in fewer integration and naturalisation activities
than do advanced industrial states. These core differences in citizenship and immigration mean
that the political engagement of their migrant populations –citizens and non-citizens –have
varying drivers, modes, and outcomes.
Asia, with its mix of advanced industrial and developing democracies, is an interesting
context within which to study these issues. According to the United Nations Migration
Report, over 40 per cent of the 244 million international migrants in 2015 were born in Asia
and three of the five largest overseas populations originated from Asia.1 Although Asia hosts
almost as many international migrants as does Europe, most countries in Asia –as well as in
Africa and the Middle East –prohibit or discourage unskilled foreign workers’ permanent
settlement.
This chapter explores the scope, direction, and modes of non-citizen political engagement
in selected Asian countries, focusing on some of Asia’s largest flows of migrants and refugees,
through a review of the most significant research advances in these areas. Studies of immigrant
political incorporation –defined as the process by which immigrants and their descendants
move from being the objects of political mobilisation and policymaking to political participants
(Messina 2007: 233) –have begun to shift their attention from the process by which immigrants
acquire citizenship and become participants in formal politics to how they exercise their politi-
cal voice while they are not citizens. We argue that more research is needed on the political
actions of non-citizens that take place in between the two moments of arrival and naturalisation,
if the latter occurs at all.
The following section discusses specific modes of non-citizen political engagement that
range from electoral and extra-electoral forms, on the one hand, and national and transnational
forms on the other. We then examine two principal areas of inquiry –electoral and extra-
electoral participation –and discuss the major challenges, opportunities, and insights of scholar-
ship that examine non-citizen political participation in Asia.
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Country Year of data Total foreign born Sending countries of largest groups
(non-citizens)1
Sources:
United Nations Statistics Division Demographic Statistics;
‘Foreign population (non-citizens) by country of citizenship, age and sex’, data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=forei
gn+population&d=POP&f=tableCode%3a127;
Korea Immigration Service. 2016. Korea Immigration Service (KIS) Statistics 2016;
Ministry of Justice, Japan. 2016. Heisei 27 Nenmatsu Genzaini Okeru Gaikokujintorokusha Toukeini Tsuite
[Report on Current Foreign Resident Statistics at the End of 2015].
The data from India do not distinguish between non-citizens and citizens, and are found here: ‘Foreign-
1
Martiniello 2009), the literature that appeared on non-citizen political engagement tended
to reduce the role of the non-citizen to spectator, victim, or beneficiary of immigration and
citizenship policies and reforms. This oversight was in part due to the immigrant political
quiescence thesis that dominated the literature for most of the 1960s and 1970s. Because
the vast majority of non-citizens in Europe were migrant labourers or ‘guestworkers’ who
lacked political rights, scholars assumed that they were either unable or unwilling to partici-
pate in the politics of their country of residence. However, as large populations of migrant
workers and their families transformed themselves into long-term foreign residents and
found a voice within their countries of residence, the lens of analysis turned from factors
that constrain their participation to the modes, levels, and goals of non-citizen political
engagement.
Miller identified five key extra-electoral forms of political participation among non-citizens
who are disenfranchised: 1) homeland participation, 2) consultative voice, 3) unions and factory
councils, 4) political, religious, and civic organisations, and 5) extra-parliamentary opposition.
Building on Miller’s work, we can identify distinct modes of non-citizen political engagement
that include both electoral and extra-electoral political action on the one hand and national to
transnational politics on the other (see Table 20.2). ‘National politics’ in this framework refers to
the domestic politics of the country of residence.While some modes are specific to non-citizens
and immigrants, most are shared by citizens and non-citizens alike.
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National
Extra-electoral politics
– Contacting a public official – Labour union participation
Electoral politics
Transnational
It is important to note that non-citizens of different legal statuses may engage in a num-
ber of the activities listed in Table 20.2, even those within the realm of electoral politics.
Naturalisation is the first step for non-citizens to gain full citizenship rights, at least in theory,
which includes voting rights and the right to run for public office. At the same time, many
forms of electoral participation –such as campaign volunteer work, political donations and
participation in public meetings –do not require citizenship status. Additionally, foreign resi-
dents in countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and South Korea are eligible
to vote in local elections and, in New Zealand, national elections (Hayduk 2006). Electoral
participation may also be transnational in scope. In Asia as elsewhere, some foreign citizens may
participate in homeland electoral politics depending on election laws in the country of origin,
though they may be disenfranchised even when participatory laws are in place. For example,
Afghanistan allowed its citizens in Pakistan to vote in the 2004 election that brought Hamid
Karzai to power, but in the 2009 and 2014 elections, the government restricted the vote due to
alleged security risks and logistical troubles. In this case, the question of the migrant vote was
politicised, as some observers complained that keeping the ethnically Pashtun Afghan refugees
out of the national elections was an attempt by the government to influence the result (Shams
and Khan 2014).
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268
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269
Although most countries with descent-based citizenship policies do not prohibit foreign
residents from acquiring nationality through naturalisation, they will likely exhibit low rates of
naturalisation among their foreign residents across generations, especially if dominant under-
standings of national citizenship and naturalisation procedures reflect ethno-national concep-
tions of nationhood. Descent-based citizenship policies combined with low naturalisation rates
will then result in a relatively large proportion of foreign citizens within the community of
immigrants and their native-born descendants. Consequently, the challenge of politically incor-
porating foreign residents extends beyond the first immigrant generation to their descendants,
who may remain foreigners for multiple generations.
For example, naturalisation rates in Japan, where citizenship policies are based purely on jus
sanguinis, have not exceeded 1 per cent of the total foreign population despite the four-fold
increase in annual naturalisations from the early 1990s. Such low naturalisation rates, moreover,
are exhibited across five generations of foreign residents. Although Japan’s official naturalisation
criteria are no more stringent than those of the United States, the substantial discretionary pow-
ers exercised by the Ministry of Justice officials during the process make naturalisation proce-
dures opaque and arbitrary. In addition to meeting official naturalisation criteria and submitting
tax records or bank statements and extensive documentation related to their family histories
(including a copy of their household registration from their country of origin), they must, in
most cases, demonstrate evidence of cultural assimilation (Chung 2010a). Despite the presence
of permanently settled and, in many cases, native-born foreign resident populations within its
borders, Japan has not revised its nationality laws to introduce elements of jus soli, resulting in
multiple generations of foreign residents.
In both developing and industrial democracies, electoral participation depends on docu-
mentation –in particular, the process of gaining permanent residency and citizenship status
and acquiring the accompanying documents that allow the bearer to vote. Non-citizens in
industrial democracies often vote in municipal elections, while the national-level right to vote
is typically restricted to citizens. But for both citizen and non-citizen immigrants, documenta-
tion is the entry to electoral participation. In developing Asian democracies, documentation
plays a surprising role in the electoral participation of non-citizens. Globally, birth certificates
are by far the most common proof of citizenship; yet, over 50 million births worldwide are not
registered. Approximately two-thirds of all unregistered births are in Asia (UNICEF 2002: 2,
reported in Sadiq 2009: 78). In societies where the bureaucratic capacity of the state is limited
and large numbers of people –citizens and others –lack identity documentation, political
engagement often looks different from that in more developed countries. In these contexts,
uneven documentation means that citizens may not be able to participate in politics through
legal channels while non-citizens may have opportunities to be electorally active. As Sadiq
(2009) points out, native-born citizens may lack the paperwork to prove their citizenship status
while non-native non-citizens may have multiple documents –both legal and illegal –that
attest to their status as local inhabitants. In this way, documentation can blur the lines between
who is a citizen and who is not and, therefore, between those who are legally entitled to vote
and those who are not.
In Pakistan, for example, a significant number of Afghans have Pakistani identity documents
and claim to be migrants of long-standing or Pakistani natives (AREU 2005) –a claim made
plausible by the fact that the Pashtun homeland straddles the Afghan-Pakistan border. In India
too –indeed, throughout the developing world –state boundaries that do not coincide with
ethnic boundaries make it easier for non-citizen migrants to claim political rights. Political par-
ties and candidates in countries such as India, Pakistan and Malaysia have thus courted the votes
of Bangladeshis, Afghans, Filipinos and others, ensuring the dominance of the ruling parties in
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270
certain regions; likewise, non-citizen migrants in India, Pakistan, and Malaysia have run for and
been elected for public office through what Sadiq (2009: 157–67) calls ‘documentary citizen-
ship practices’.
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the state (Chung 2014; Gurowitz 1999; Hsia 2009; Kim 2003) and partnerships between local
state and civil society actors (Cheng 2002; Chung 2010b; Kim 2008; Milly 2014; Tsuda 2006).
Contrary to conventional wisdom, these works demonstrate that restrictive immigration and
citizenship policies do not necessarily limit opportunities for non-citizen political participa-
tion; rather, they present different opportunities. Japan’s descent-based citizenship policies, for
example, have brought into being native-born generations of foreign residents who have at
their disposal distinct forms of social and political capital that foreign-born immigrants lack.
Although their foreign citizenship may not allow them to vote, native-born generations of
Korean residents in Japan have mobilised the community around their foreign citizenship status
not as a means of participating in homeland politics but as part of a strategy to gain political
visibility in Japan (Chung 2010a).
Likewise, the absence of national immigrant-incorporation programmes in the face of rap-
idly growing immigrant populations in Japan has led to a blossoming of local programmes and
services for foreign residents as well as a surge in volunteers assisting foreign residents (Roberts
2000; Shipper 2008). Research on pro-immigrant NGOs in South Korea demonstrates how
the struggle for migrant labour rights have been couched in broader efforts to advance the
democratic process in Korea (Lim 2003). South Korea’s strong tradition of labour activism lent
the struggle for migrant labour rights significant potency and magnitude in Korean society and
explains in part why reforms to policies regarding migrant labour have been enacted at a much
swifter pace in Korea than in Japan (Chung 2010b).
Scholarship on extra-electoral political participation among non-citizens points to the myr-
iad ways in which non-citizens can engage in the politics of their country of residence without
formal membership in the political community. These works also challenge the conventional
understanding that restrictive, ethno-cultural citizenship regimes inhibit non-citizen political
engagement. While such regimes may make citizenship acquisition difficult, they nevertheless
provide opportunities for non-citizens to express their interests and engage in politics at the
local and national levels.
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also does not permit dual nationality, but does confer the ‘Overseas Citizen of India’ (OCI)
status to people of Indian origin who acquire a different citizenship. OCI cardholders may
not carry an Indian passport and do not have the political rights of Indian citizens, but are
permitted unlimited entries into India and economic rights such as landownership and invest-
ment rights. In more recent years, however, a handful of Asian countries have passed dual
nationality laws that allow their emigrants and descendants to reacquire their citizenship. The
Philippines Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003, for example, allows native-
born Filipinos who have naturalised elsewhere to retain or reacquire their Filipino citizen-
ship; additionally, children of Filipino citizens born in countries with birthright citizenship
automatically acquire dual citizenship. Children of current or former South Korean citizens
born in countries with birthright citizenship and former South Korean citizens over the age
of 65 have likewise been eligible for dual nationality since South Korea’s National Assembly
passed a multiple nationality bill in 2010 (Chung and Kim 2012).2 And Bangladesh allows
people of Bangladeshi origin who are citizens of select countries –including Australia, Canada,
the United States, and the United Kingdom –to obtain a Dual Nationality Certificate. Dual
nationality, however, is not the only path through which Asian migrants engage in transna-
tional politics. Non-resident citizens of most Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Singapore, and India, are eligible to vote in their home country elections by mail or
through their embassies.
Migrant transnational networks are also sources of debate about immigrant political loyalty
and identification with their country of residence. In the post 9/11 era, the debate on migrant
transnational networks has focused especially on the question of security (Adamson 2006;
Rudolph 2006). While transnationalism may continue to connote notions of an economically
interconnected world and the universalisation of democratic values, transnational networks have
increasingly become associated with anti-democratic, particularistic terrorist cells. In the same
way that some theorists postulated that the forces of globalisation have led to the emergence of
a type of postnational citizenship (Soysal 1994), in which formal membership is not a prereq-
uisite for the privileges of citizenship, we might say that the security concerns of the post 9/11
era have led to a re-evaluation of national citizenship, making citizenship rights and citizenship
status contingent upon national exigencies.
Among large labour migrant populations, transnational political engagement often happens
through efforts within their sending countries to secure better working conditions or treat-
ment in the receiving society. For example, the Indonesian nonprofit organisation Migrant
Care advocates for Indonesian workers abroad, and migrants who become involved with the
organisation participate in the process of advocating for labour rights in their receiving state
(Tampubolon 2015). Governments also involve their citizens in advocacy for labour rights
abroad. A prominent example is the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration –an agency
of the Philippines –which had over 1 million members as of May 2007. This represented 28
per cent of the 3.8 million legal temporary Filipino workers abroad during the previous year
(Agunias and Ruiz 2007: 12). In fact, many developing states have ministerial-level agencies
for managing their migrant workers, but the question is to what extent these agencies involve
migrants themselves in modes of transnational political engagement.
Diasporic populations in particular occupy the grey areas of citizenship. While they may
legally be nationals of their countries of residence, some diasporic populations may identify
themselves primarily as citizens of their homeland that may or may not correspond with exist-
ing legal territorial boundaries. Diasporic networks and movements may be based on shared
national origins and/or a collective vision of the homeland that transcend discrete catego-
ries of legal citizenship and non-citizenship. Whether they are overseas Indians engaged in
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Conclusion
Comparative scholarship on immigration and citizenship emerging in the last few decades
has yielded three significant insights upon which further research on non-citizen political
engagement can build. First, the current conception of incorporation implies a mutually
constitutive relationship between the immigrant and the receiving society, in contrast to
straight-line assimilation theory found in early-20th century US social scientific scholar-
ship. While immigrants adapt to the receiving societies, they also have a significant impact
in a type of give-and-take process that ultimately results in the remaking of both the immi-
grants and the receiving societies (DeWind and Kasinitz 1997: 1098). Second, non-citizen
political engagement is not limited to naturalisation; moreover, naturalisation is not the first
politically meaningful act in which the non-citizen participates. While non-citizens may
not be formal members of their country of residence, they may nevertheless engage in vari-
ous forms of politics to influence public opinion, public policies and institutions, political
parties or individual politicians, foreign relations, and racial politics. Finally, scholars have
increasingly begun to recognise that the institutional context in which non-citizens engage
in politics extends far beyond their formal legal status and encompasses diverse factors such
as ideas of nationhood, the quality of civil society organisations, and governance structures
in the country of residence.
These three broad insights represent significant advances in our understanding of immigrant
incorporation regimes and non-citizen political engagement. The next step, we believe, is to
shift the lens of analysis from immigrant incorporation to non-citizen political empowerment.
Rather than assume immigrant interests, we suggest that the study of non-citizen political
engagement should concentrate on immigrant agency to better understand how individuals or
groups attempt to improve their social, economic, and/or political standing.
This requires a critical revaluation of the ways that we use and analyse concepts such as
immigrant incorporation, political engagement, and citizenship. In particular, examining non-
citizen political engagement in Asian countries brings into relief the grey area between internal
and international migrants and citizens and non-citizens. Each group may become ‘undocu-
mented’ due to their inability to produce material verification of their residency, descent, mari-
tal status, or other official documentation of their presence in a particular territory. Non-citizens
in some countries may indeed have more citizenship rights than varieties of ‘second-class’ citi-
zens. Further comparative research that analyses both internal and international migrants in a
single country or across multiple countries has the potential to contribute fresh insights into
how states attempt to control migration and migrants themselves, how second-class citizenship
develops over time, and how non-citizen political involvement may transform the nature and
meaning of citizenship in both sending and receiving societies (Chung 2017).
We argue for a more nuanced understanding of non-citizen political engagement that
delineates distinct modes of political participation as well as the gaps between different modes.
Mark Miller’s work was pivotal in pointing out that non-citizens –despite or because of their
citizenship status –can be active political participants. The substantial body of scholarship
that has emerged in the decades since Miller’s study demonstrates that patterns of non-citizen
political engagement vary considerably across communities and countries. Although the extant
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274
literature sets out to explain immigrant political behaviour, most do not treat immigrants –or
non-citizens –as full political actors in their own right, with divergent political interests. Instead,
immigrants are often viewed as potential political actors.Why do non-citizens make the political
choices that they do? Are naturalisation rates lower in countries that do not allow for birthright
citizenship because of relatively restrictive naturalisation criteria or because of the formal and
informal ways that state and non-state actors encourage or discourage naturalisation? Do high
levels of transnational political participation among specific immigrant groups reflect strong
homeland ties, lack of incorporation in the receiving society, or a general shift toward transna-
tional politics in the host civil society?
We propose a paradigm shift in understanding non-citizen political engagement from politi-
cal incorporation to political empowerment. When the study of non-citizen political engage-
ment is limited to naturalisation or voting, then non-citizen political interests are assumed.
That is, we assume that foreign residents want to be incorporated into the existing political
system and that structural or individual-level barriers prevent them from doing so.The literature
on non-citizen political engagement in Asia, however, demonstrates that the goal of political
engagement is not always incorporation. On the contrary, when the group in question does
not benefit from the status quo, political engagement may aim to contest the political system,
not affirm it.
By shifting the focus from political incorporation to political empowerment, we can bet-
ter understand non-citizen interests and strategies that go well beyond their legal status. State
policies in both the sending and receiving societies set the structural boundaries of non-citizen
political engagement by regulating movement within and between state borders, linking access
to rights and goods to specific groups of people, and establishing the parameters of debate on
national identity, community, and equality. Mainstream and minority mediating institutions
structure the political learning environment for non-citizens and citizens alike and provide the
tools and resources for political engagement. State policies and mediating institutions together
shape non-citizen political identities, both in terms of how non-citizens identify themselves
with the receiving and sending societies as well as in terms of how non-citizens represent
themselves in the public sphere and how they are inserted in public discourse. Finally, indi-
vidual and group-level variables, combined with contextual factors, push non-citizens toward
or pull them away from political opportunities and efforts at political mobilisation.
Distinguishing between modes of non-citizen political participants confronts the normative
bias that naturalisation, voting, and other ‘system-affirming’ acts demonstrate evidence of incor-
poration and are, thus, ‘desirable’ forms of participation, whereas homeland and transnational
political participation are ‘undesirable’ or simply extraneous forms of political engagement that
suggest non-incorporation. The emerging areas of research on non-citizen political engage-
ment in Asia in particular challenge us to examine the grey areas of citizenship, thus helping us
to better understand the gaps between policies and outcomes, the porous boundaries between
citizenship and non-citizenship, and the multiple ways that those who are formally excluded
from the political process voice their interests.
Notes
1 See United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, International
Migration Report 2015, Advance Copy Highlights: www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/
migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2015_Highlights.pdf.
2 Children of current or former South Korean citizens children who gain birthright citizenship in other
countries (so-called ‘anchor babies’) in which their parents did not reside for more than six months are
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275
explicitly excluded. Koreans who lost their citizenship by acquiring a foreign one are eligible to reac-
quire their citizenship, provided (in the case of men) that they have fulfilled military duty.
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21
IRREGULAR MIGRATION
IN ASIA
Are new solutions in sight?
Introduction
Irregular migration is a challenge that confronts countries of origin, transit and destination.
Despite efforts by governments to regulate international migration, no country is exempt from
irregular migration: where there is regular migration, irregular migration cannot be far behind.
Globally, irregular migration accounts for 10–15 per cent of all international migrants (IOM
2010: 29), and in the case of some individual countries, irregular migration may be larger, or as
numerically significant as regular migration.
While irregular migration is a longstanding issue in all parts of Asia, we focus mainly on
Southeast Asia, given the relative magnitude of irregular migration in this sub-region of 640 mil-
lion people, as well as recent developments in migration governance to address irregularity.This
chapter begins with a discussion of the links between the regulation of migration and the crea-
tion of irregular migration. This is followed by a discussion of the trends and patterns as well as
policy responses to address the issues.
Regulating migration
At its core, migration governance is enacted through regulatory frameworks which ensure
compliance with the migration norms of countries of origin, transit and destination, and reduce
irregular migration in the process. For countries of origin, legal migration means documented
and proper exit while for countries of transit and destination, legal migration means docu-
mented and proper entry, work and stay of foreign nationals in their territories. In contrast,
irregular migration results from non-compliance with the migration norms of these countries,
and the category ‘irregular migrants’ encompasses those under the following circumstances: (1)
those who cross national borders without authorisation (this is especially common between
countries which share land borders, e.g. Myanmar and Thailand); (2) those who work without
authorisation (e.g. tourists who work and therefore violate the terms of condition of their
tourist visa); (3) those who overstay their visas; and (4) those who run away from their employ-
ers to whom their legal status is tied (as will be explained later, this is common in Asia).1 But
when migration is unpacked into different moments –exit from an origin country, and entry,
residence and work in a destination country –a migrant’s legal status may shift between regular
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and irregular, suggesting that these categories form a continuum rather than clear-cut polar
opposites (Asis and Battistella 2003: 63). Moreover, in the dynamic context of multiple flows
in the region, different types of migration occur simultaneously or mutate from one type to
another. Until late 2010, for example, migrants from Myanmar to Thailand included those seek-
ing asylum from persecution and migrants seeking employment without the required docu-
ments. Without diligent screening, the former may be misclassified as irregular migrants, and
thereby deprived of much-needed protection. For the latter, the lack of due process can unduly
criminalise migrant workers in an irregular situation while ignoring the role of other actors, i.e.
intermediaries, employers and even governments, in generating irregular migration (Battistella
and Asis 2003: 14). Measures by governments to address irregular migration are often directed
at the irregular practices of migrants while neglecting the irregular practices committed against
migrants by profit-seeking intermediaries or erring employers. As the regulator of migration,
states may also fail to realise how their own migration policies may give rise to irregularity.
For example, restricting migrant workers from changing employers results in the problem of
absconding or runaway workers –the workers become irregular migrants because they have
‘run away’ from the employer who brought them to the country and to whom their work and
stay in the country are tied (see also endnote vi). Also complicating realities on the ground
is the muddling of irregular migration and trafficking in persons. Unlike irregular migration,
there is an international instrument, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, especially Women and Girls, which provides a definition of what constitutes trafficking
in persons. Considered as a crime against persons, trafficking is a criminal activity and those
who have been identified as victims are entitled to support and services. The victim identifi-
cation process requires checking the presence of all three elements –act/process, means and
purpose –to establish trafficking. Without a careful identification process, victims of trafficking
may be presumed to be irregular migrants. Treated as irregular migrants, victims of trafficking
are at risk of arrest and detention, and may be rendered ineligible with regard to accessing
services and support. It should also be mentioned that while legal migrants are presumed to be
protected, specific aspects of their recruitment, migration and employment conditions may have
trafficking-like elements (Asis 2008). Thus, knowledge of the underlying commonalities and
differences of legal migration, irregular migration, refugee migration, and trafficking in persons
is vital to understanding how different types of migration intersect, so as to identify the specific
needs of different migrants. Regardless of the type of migrant, the protection of the rights of all
migrants, including irregular ones, should be respected.
Another important consideration to bear in mind is the marked difference in governance
frameworks for permanent vis-à-vis temporary forms of migration. In traditional countries of
settlement (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), legally admitted immi-
grants have rights to residence, integration and citizenship. Under these conditions, overall,
permanent migrants tend to be better protected compared to temporary migrants. However,
permanent migration is a limited good that can only be accessed by a few. The intensifica-
tion of international migration since the 1970s was largely due to the increasing incidence
of temporary migration. The growing importance of temporary migration prompted the
need to rethink traditional migration theories premised on permanent migration (e.g. Kritz,
Lim and Zlotnik 1992; Massey et al. 1998). In a temporary migration regime, migrants are
admitted for a limited period of time for a specific purpose –for example, employment or
studies –after which they are expected to leave the country of destination, either to return
to their home countries or to migrate to other destinations. In Asia, temporary labour
migration has been prominent since the 1970s. Propelled by the demand for workers by
the oil-r ich Gulf countries, the region witnessed the large-scale movement of workers from
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South, Southeast and East Asia (mainly South Korea) to the Middle East. The rise of newly
industrialised countries in East and Southeast Asia in the 1980s expanded the destinations
for migrant workers, and by the 1990s, other countries beyond Asia also recruited contract-
based workers from the region.
The emergence of the Middle East as a magnet for temporary migrant workers fol-
lowed on the heels of the end of the guestworker programme in Europe in the 1970s,
which, in turn, was preceded by the termination of the bracero programme in the US in
1964 (Martin 2006). These two precedents had different trajectories: in Europe, the end of
temporary labour migration saw the transformation into de facto settlement (when family
members were allowed to join the migrant workers) while in the US, the termination of
the bracero programme segued into irregular migration (when migrant workers opted to
remain in the country). To avert the possibility of settlement, the Gulf countries estab-
lished a temporary labour migration programme which regulates the admission, work
and stay of migrant workers through the following mechanisms: by limiting the work
and stay of migrant workers to a two-year contract, by restricting the transfer of migrant
workers to another employer or sector, and by not allowing family reunification to less
skilled migrant workers. The two-year contract precludes continuous residence, which
forecloses the possibility of a condition that will qualify migrants to access the right to
residence in other destinations. Similar policies were adopted by destination countries
in East and Southeast Asia. Some countries adopted additional measures to keep labour
migration temporary. For example, in Singapore, a monthly levy is imposed on companies
and employers hiring foreign workers in order to encourage employers to innovate and
wean off dependence on foreign workers. Taiwan adopted a one-time entry and a cap on
the maximum years of employment for migrant workers. Initially set at two years (Lee and
Wang 1996: 286), the cap has been raised over the years to the current maximum of 12
years. In 2015, law-makers proposed extending the maximum stay to 15 years while the
advocacy group, Taiwan International Workers Association, opined that there should be no
cap in the first place (Taipei Times 2015).
Immigration reforms in the US in 1965, and in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
in the 1970s, brought about massive immigration from non-European countries. By the
1990s, there was a shift towards more stringent requirements for permanent migration and
the introduction of temporary migration schemes in these settlement countries (although
there are also moves to allow transition to permanent migration for select immigrants, such
as international students). The turn to temporary migration schemes in settlement coun-
tries and the discourse of (managed) circular migration in the European Union hint at the
growing gravitation towards this scheme, a change which raises concerns. The experience
of Asia with temporary labour migration points to the inadequacies of the programme to
protect migrant workers because it limits migrants’ full participation in destination coun-
tries and restricts their eligibility to avail themselves of support services. Withholding rights
and imposing surveillance on migrants’ stay and employment fosters conditions that ironi-
cally contribute to irregular migration. For example, when migrants run away from abusive
working conditions, they become irregular migrants because they have absconded from their
employers. Their act of running away is registered as a violation of the conditions of stay, but
what is often overlooked are dire working conditions that may push migrants to seek better
conditions. Thus, while the mechanisms to tie the employment and stay of migrants to their
employers may aid governments in keeping track of migrants, they may also end up forcing
migrants to endure difficult working conditions, or risk becoming absconders or runaways
when the conditions become unbearable.
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Cambodia and Laos moving to Thailand since the early 1990s. Demographic, economic and
political factors constitute the context for understanding the flows to Thailand. Geography is
also a contributory factor: Myanmar, from where more than 80 per cent of migrants come,
shares a long and porous land border (about 1,900 km) with Thailand. After peaking in the
1970s, Thailand is now experiencing population decline, particularly among the working age
population (years 15–39) (Huguet 2014).
According to the Thailand Migration Report 2014, the number of foreigners in Thailand
in 2013 reached 3.6 million, of whom 2.7 million were from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
The number comprised 92,008 skilled workers, 1,082,892 migrants with work permits and
1,592,870 with an irregular status. Of those with work permits, 40 per cent were women.
The distribution by nationality of origin of those with work permits and verified nationality
(899,658) revealed that 86 per cent were from Myanmar, 10 percent from Cambodia and under
4 per cent from Laos. Apart from migrants, who are mostly in less-skilled occupations, the for-
eign population in Thailand also includes stateless persons (281,938), refugees (127,038) and
tertiary-level international students (20,155) (Huguet 2014).
Similar to Malaysia,Thailand has a larger share of irregular migrants vis-à-vis regular migrants.
Considering the country’s long and porous borders and the weak enforcement of migration
policies (ADB 2013), Thailand forged memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to facilitate legal
labour migration with its neighbours –Cambodia and Laos in 2002 and Myanmar in 2003.
However, only a relatively small number of migrants have found employment in Thailand
through MOU arrangements (139,048 at the end of 2012) (Huguet 2014).
Irregular migration has been addressed in Thailand in various ways, including annual regis-
trations. However, such registrations are difficult to verify as numbers always drop during the
following year’s renewal, making it difficult to confirm whether those who had not renewed
registration had returned to their home country or were still in Thailand. Since 2009, irregular
migrants have had the opportunity to regularise their status after undergoing national verifica-
tion by their country of origin, and perhaps more than 1 million have availed of this possibility
(Huguet 2014).
The crossing of borders to find employment has generated immense border mobility, both
attracted by and driving border economic areas. Border towns and industries where the legal
status of the labour force is unclear are characterised by vulnerabilities for migrants as well as
child labour and trafficking (ADB 2013).
Although several social protection measures have been implemented by Thailand in favour
of migrant workers, including the enrolment of registered workers in the social security fund
and access to health insurance for all migrants, gaps still exist in the inadequate social security
coverage and limited access to complaint mechanisms. In fact, the complaint mechanisms are
considered ineffective as they were not designed for migrants working in Thailand (ILO 2013).
A recent initiative is the adoption of the National Policy, Strategies and Measures to Prevent
and Suppress Trafficking in Persons for 2011–2016, which aims to provide guidelines and to
coordinate action to fight human trafficking (Jayagupta 2013).
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part of traditional migration routes involving the Sulu archipelago and southern Philippines and
Indonesia. Irregular migration to Sabah mostly originates from the same areas, but the history
and dynamics of irregular migration in this area are distinct from those in West or Mainland
Malaysia (Kanapathy 2008). In addition, the foreign population includes a few thousand from
the Philippines recognised as refugees, and many stateless children. Given the long history of
migration in these areas, many migrants have built communities in Sabah.
Trends and patterns of irregular migration in the region established in the late 1990s have
not changed much. Singapore and Brunei Darussalam have managed to uphold legal migration
processes and to contain irregular migration. Common to both are established and transparent
labour migration policies and procedures6 (although some of these measures have raised rights’
concerns) and the employment of migrant workers in the formal sector (although the number
of foreign domestic workers in both countries is significant). In Malaysia and Thailand, the
majority of migrants work in agriculture (palm oil plantations in Malaysia), transport, services
and the fishing industry, mostly sectors which do not offer ample workers’ protection. With
regard to origin countries, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam represent those which have
institutions, policies and mechanisms in place to govern labour migration (the Philippines, in
particular), while Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are relative newcomers in terms of institu-
tionalising labour migration. As was mentioned, it was only in 2002 and 2003 that they entered
into an agreement with Thailand to cooperate in promoting labour migration through legal
channels. Available data suggest that the legal channels have only captured a small portion of
total migration flows.
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provide and prepare workers for employment in Korea; part of the preparation is studying for
and passing the Korean language examination. The government-to-government arrangement
is aimed at eliminating fee-charging private recruitment agencies to protect migrant workers
from excessive placement fees. Once migrant workers are in Korea, they receive the same treat-
ment as Korean workers, except that migrant workers have restrictions concerning employer
transfer. Migrant workers can work and stay in Korea for four years and ten months and may be
able to return to work in Korea after a six-month interval. Although the EPS is a step forward,
an assessment of the programme found implementation problems and provisions that erode the
protection of migrant workers (Kim 2014). The limitations of the EPS reflect the fundamental
flaw of temporary labour migration programmes; that is, such programmes based on enforcing
transience cannot be a viable solution to a systemic or structural labour shortage (Kim 2014).
Another indication of a major crack in the EPS is the resurgence of irregular migration follow-
ing a noticeable decline soon after the EPS was implemented.
As suggested by the earlier discussion, international migration in Southeast Asia shows
no sign of slowing down. Among the sub-regions in Asia, Southeast Asia may have taken the
most strides in working out a regional approach to address irregular migration issues. The first
such effort, which also included countries beyond the region, was the Bangkok Declaration
of 1999. The declaration called for concerted efforts in the fight against irregular migration
where the approach should be comprehensive and balanced: while criminalising smuggling
and trafficking in human beings, it called for the humanitarian treatment of migrants. The
document, however, remains just a declaration; and there is no information on whether actual
steps have been taken according to the plan of action. In the last decade or so, the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted migration-related declarations and a convention
that may strengthen region-wide initiatives. The 2004 ASEAN Declaration against Trafficking
in Persons Particularly Women and Children commits governments ‘[t]o undertake actions to
respect and safeguard the dignity and human rights of genuine victims of trafficking in persons’.
The commitment to fight trafficking was stepped up in 2015 with the adoption of the more
binding Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Thus far,
Cambodia and Singapore have ratified the Convention; a minimum of six ratifications is needed
to enforce it. In 2007, ASEAN adopted the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of
the Rights of Migrant Workers. Items 2 and 4 of general principles refer to undocumented
migration: ‘The receiving states and the sending states shall, for humanitarian reasons, closely
cooperate to resolve the cases of migrant workers who, through no fault of their own, have
subsequently become undocumented’, and ‘Nothing in the present Declaration shall be inter-
preted as implying the regularisation of the situation of migrant workers who are undocu-
mented’.The 2007 Declaration tends to be minimalistic and guarded when it comes to irregular
migration. It is interesting that one of the four general principles specifically mentions that the
Declaration should not be taken as suggesting the regularisation of undocumented migrant
workers. Moreover, the rest of the text does not mention irregular migrant workers. What is
mentioned is for ASEAN to ‘[t]ake concrete measures to prevent or curb smuggling and traf-
ficking in persons by, among others, introducing stiffer penalties for those who are involved in
these activities’. The establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in December
2015, an important step towards the aspiration to become a single market and production base,
is silent on irregular migration. As regards migration, the AEC aims to promote the mobility of
skilled labour, which is a small component of labour migration in the ASEAN.
In general, it can be said that while all governments want to fight irregular migration, their
actions are either ambiguous and/or ineffective. Registrations and amnesties function more
as tools to assess the level of the phenomenon rather than instruments to eliminate it. Such
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measures create uncertainties for migrants while smugglers and other intermediaries continue
to profit from the mismatch between unabated demand for migrant workers, the large sup-
ply of aspiring migrant workers in the region, and increasingly restrictive admission policies.
Memoranda of understanding, such as the ones between Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and
Laos, or that between Malaysia and Indonesia, provide for some level of protection to migrants
but are less successful in ensuring adherence to migration norms and policies. Even initiatives
against irregular migration by countries of origin are indecisive in enforcing measures to regu-
late the recruitment industry.The preoccupation to generate foreign employment leads to some
leniency in dealing with recruitment agencies. In spite of the best initiatives, the promise of a
better life through migration is very potent; policies can regulate migration to some extent,
but they cannot control it. The persistence of irregular migration even in the best administered
migration programmes indicates that without addressing the causes of migration, regulating
migration can only reap limited success.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding decades of experience in governing migration, countries in Asia continue
to reckon with the presence of irregular migrants. The intractability of irregular migration
cannot be separated from the intractability of regular migration, that is, migration continues
to feature as a ‘constant’ rather than an ‘aberration’ in human history (Castles, De Haas and
Miller 2013: 317). According to our earlier research on irregular migration in Southeast Asia
(Battistella and Asis 2003: 14), regular and irregular migrations are mirror images of each other.
The research also indicated that the causes (both macro and proximate factors) and channels for
regular and irregular migrations are the same, and the migrants who figure in both migrations
have similar characteristics. The second point is important because it indicates that irregular
migrants are not any more ‘deviant’ compared to those who go through the regular channels
of migration. Rather, it is the different access to legal and irregular channels of migration that
leads to different migration pathways. In general, those who are legally recruited tend to be less
problematic and are better protected than those who are illegally recruited. However, migrant
workers who go through licenced recruitment agencies may be subjected to irregular practices,
such as excessive recruitment fees or salary deductions. Migrants’ legal status may be more
fluid rather than a fixed, clearcut dichotomy of legal vs. irregular. For example, a migrant who
went through a licenced recruitment agency may have left his/her country of origin legally,
entered a destination country legally, but can be rendered irregular if he/she runs away from the
employer indicated in the contract. Or an irregular migrant worker may be able to regularise
his/her status should a government decide to conduct a regularisation programme. While not
discounting that some migrants may knowingly seek out irregular means to enter, stay or work
in another country, the study did not find many such cases. Among others, lack of accurate
information about migration and/or employment conditions in foreign countries may predis-
pose prospective migrants towards irregular channels (Asis and Mendoza 2013; IOM 2010: 30)
as well as administrative obstacles and the growing complexity of migration procedures (IOM
2010: 30, also see Linquist and Xiang, this volume, Chapter 11). Migrants can be misinformed
about actual conditions because intermediaries, given their stake in the migration process, are
not likely to disclose real conditions. As ‘merchants of labour’ (Martin 2005), intermediaries and
brokers provide information on what is possible, not necessarily what is real.
Gaps and inconsistencies in migration governance also contribute to the intractability of
irregular migration. Governments cannot be too zealous in eradicating irregular migration
because pursuing legal migration can be costly, requiring investments in funds, personnel and
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political will. However, governments also have to consider potential economic fallouts. For
origin countries, relentless pursuit against irregular migration could cost jobs and remittances
from overseas employment; for countries of destination, prospects of unmet labour needs and
higher production outlay also create problems. Irregular migration is almost a non-issue when
the economy is going well and there is relative peace; it becomes contentious and politicised in
uncertain times.
At the regional level, the ASEAN has, in more recent years, given increasing attention to
migration issues. After decades of migration, the 2007 Declaration finally acknowledges the role
of international migration in the development of origin and destination countries. Regional
cooperation is relatively easy to commit to on the movement of the highly skilled. But even in
this regard, much needs to be done to make this possible. What has been achieved thus far in
relation to the AEC is the conclusion of Mutual Recognition Agreements for eight professions.
However, it is important to note that international migration in the ASEAN (and in Asia in gen-
eral) is mostly the migration of less-skilled migrant workers. The adoption of a declaration and
eventually a convention against trafficking in persons, especially women and children, reflects
the consensus to combat human trafficking. Consensus and cooperation are less evident on the
issue of irregular migration. The very careful wording in the 2007 Declaration as not implying
the regularisation of migrants in an unauthorised situation suggests reluctance to submit to a
regional approach to address this reality.
The need for a regional framework for cooperation on international migration was high-
lighted by the Rohingya crisis in 2015. The Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group residing
in Rakhine state in Myanmar. The Myanmar government does not recognise them as one
of the country’s ethnic groups and instead considers them as refugees from Bangladesh, and
Bangladesh does not consider them as its citizens either. Due to persecution, many Rohingyas
fled to Bangladesh in the 1970s, but later some were repatriated to Myanmar. A wave of riots
in Rakhine state in 2012 resulted in some 100,000 Rohingyas seeking refuge in neighbouring
countries.Thailand had become a transit country for Rohingyas seeking to reach Malaysia. Since
2013, Thai authorities had caught and detained about 3,000 Rohingyas (ECHO 2016). In May
2015, the plight of the Rohingyas caught media attention because of thousands of Rohingyas
(and some Bangladeshis) adrift at sea and the discovery of graves in the Thai-Malaysian border
area. On 29 May, Thailand convened the Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian
Ocean to address the humanitarian crisis. An immediate but temporary solution was reached to
deal with the urgent situation: ‘Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to continue to provide humani-
tarian assistance and temporary shelter to those 7,000 irregular migrants still at sea, provided
that the resettlement and repatriation process will be done in one year by the international
community’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand 2015). Several follow-up
meetings were held to discuss this crisis and proposals presented for cooperation and mecha-
nisms to respond to distress at sea –but no clear indications on the repatriation or resettlement
of the Rohingyas, and less so, no lasting solutions to their plight had been reported. The call
for an ASEAN response to the crisis has been raised, including the need to develop a regional
framework concerning irregular migrants (as well as refugees and those forcibly displaced) and
refugees, but to date nothing has been agreed on.To shepherd a regional approach, ASEAN will
have to hurdle at least two key challenges: to engage ten national governments whose will on
overall policies and laws on migration continue to prevail (Petcharamesree 2016) and to incul-
cate responsibility sharing in regional arrangements concerning migration.
Similar crises in other parts of the world indicate that the governance of migration is in
need of a new perspective. The idea that it is possible to achieve prosperity and safety within
the borders of nation-states and to somehow protect this for citizens through exclusionary
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migration policies is challenged by the tens of thousands who attempt to enter and cannot be
easily, if not forcibly, turned away. Irregular migration has become more than just an attempt
to circumvent migration policies and norms. It is a movement reflecting global disparities in
demography, development and democracy, and as such, the tried and tested limits of the usual
approaches need serious rethinking.
Notes
1 According to IOM (2010: 30), persons who had been moved by smugglers and traffickers initially find
themselves in an irregular situation. We are more inclined to believe that those who had been smug-
gled and trafficked will not only be at risk initially but for a longer time. If arrested, both categories
of migrants may be lumped with irregular migrants. Particularly for victims of trafficking, this misclas-
sification can have adverse consequences. Since smuggling is considered a violation against the state,
smuggled persons may be subject to detention and punitive sanctions.
2 South Asia mostly comprises origin countries while East Asia and West Asia (GCC countries) are mostly
destination regions. For details regarding irregular migration in other sub-regions, see Fargues (2012)
concerning the Arab Mediterranean area and IOM (2015) concerning Central Asia.
3 International migration systems are formed when countries establish linkages forged by flows and coun-
terflows of people, goods, capital and ideas. These flows create a fairly stable and regular movement
involving a significant number of people between countries (or specific areas between countries). For a
recent review of the migration systems framework, see Bakewell (2012).
4 As of December 2015, data from the Malaysian Human Resource Ministry reported that the country
has 2,135,035 documented foreign workers and an estimated 1.7 million illegal workers.
5 Borneo Island comprises Brunei Darussalam, Sabah (East Malaysia), Sarawak (East Malaysia) and
Kalimantan (Indonesia). Sabah and Sarawak are part of the Federation of Malaysia; both have their own
immigration policies. Sarawak receives fewer migrants than Sabah.
6 Some policies and measures may be effective in enabling the state to better monitor migrant workers’
stay in the destination, e.g. tying migrant workers’ residence and employment permit to the employer,
but may erode migrants’ rights. In the GCC, for example, the kafala system (sponsorship system) serves
the purpose of monitoring migrants’ entry, stay, work and exit. Rights’ advocates, however, view the
system as breeding abuse because it gives the kafeel (sponsor) control over the worker. A kafeel can cancel
a worker’s residence permit, which will render the worker irregular. The system also requires the kafeel
to issue an exit permit at the time of the worker’s departure. A kafeel can prevent a worker from leaving
by accusing the worker of criminal activities, such as stealing.
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22
MOBILITIES ON EDGE
Migration at the margins of nation-states
Juan Zhang
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With new theoretical development on borders and mobilities (see e.g. Richardson 2013),
novel concepts such as ‘borderwork’ (Jensen 2012), ‘border regime’ (van Houtum 2010), ‘border
spectacle’ (de Genova 2013), and ‘borderland strategies’ (van Schendel and de Maaker 2014) start
to bring forward critical readings of myriad practices and relations with regard to transnational
migration. Jensen’s ‘borderwork’, for example, describes how the European Union’s mobility
policies produce intangible borders and differential politics that separate the highly mobile
European elites from those who are deemed slow-moving or immobile (Jensen 2012). By
calling borders a ‘regime’, scholars pay attention to the ‘ensemble of practices and knowledge-
power-complexes’ (Casas-Cortes et al. 2015: 69) and theorise migration as a defining force in
producing contemporary borders.
While much of the new border research has been undertaken in the European and North
American contexts, Asian borderlands begin to stimulate interest as offering alternative per-
spectives on the histories, logics and processes of border making and border crossing. Willem
van Schendel and Erik de Maaker (2014) have convincingly argued that Asian borderlands are
essentially historical products of colonial conquest and domination, and their existence was
realised not through natural processes but violent struggles and contestations. Population move-
ment through and across various sovereign spaces in Asia has been happening for centuries, and
only in recent decades has been recast as an issue of ‘migration’ (Ludden 2003). In this sense,
it may be productive to take a step back and rethink the relationship between migration and
borders.
Rather than taking ‘migration’ as something apolitical, as a natural force in producing bor-
ders of various kinds, it is important to also consider the opposite. Borders are often ‘enacted’
first as an effective strategy of governing mobile populations, and in doing so ‘othering them as
migration’ (Casas-Cortes et al. 2015: 70). The politics of migration and the politics of ‘b/order-
ing’ (van Houtum et al. 2005) go hand in hand, generating different articulations of inclusion
and exclusion, movement and stasis, identity and belonging.
This chapter examines migration and mobility in Asian borderlands by taking a view from
the ‘margins’ of contemporary nation-states. Borders as ‘margins’ do not suggest that they are
marginal to contemporary experiences. Rather, they provide alternative, off-centre perspectives
on a range of political questions –who defines the border, who navigates the border, who is
policing the border, and who claims ownership of the border –that are central to debates on
governance and mobility, security and citizenship, global forces and local strategies. By docu-
menting how borders can be lines that separate as well as spaces that connect, this chapter main-
tains that the border is always a site of situated social relations and contested power. Highlighting
the edginess of the border and its transgressive potentials, this chapter argues that the border has
become part and parcel of contemporary migration processes and migrant lives in many parts
of Asia.
Drawing on my research in the China-Vietnam borderlands, I provide an account on the
transgressive ‘livelihood strategies’ (Eilenberg and Wadley 2009) of Chinese and Vietnamese
borderlanders vis-à-vis their cross-border mobility. In particular, I focus on migrant counter-
topographies to develop an analytical framework on entrepreneurial transgression at the border.
Borderlanders carefully negotiate state-determined border spaces as they produce alternative
routes and relations. Their negotiations and experiments generate controversial zones of profit
and morality.
The following section provides a general depiction of mobile Asian borderlands and their
ambiguous histories. Their ambiguity and contestedness create particular characteristics of per-
meability and permissiveness. These two characteristics set the specific condition for transgres-
sive politics. I then discuss two aspects that mark the transgressive politics vis-à-vis migrant
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mobility. The first deals with migrant strategies and counter-topographies. The second deals
with fluid identities at the border and critical social networks that different migrants forge.
Lastly, I discuss how mobile practices in the borderland sharpen migrant ‘edginess’ when trans-
gressive actions redefine the normal and the moral. My aim is to show that such edginess is
central to borderland migrant subjectivities.
Territorial boundaries formed a frantic kaleidoscope, as perhaps half of the total popu-
lation consisted of mobile artisans and workers; peasants colonising new land; itiner-
ant merchants and nomads; pilgrims; shifting cultivators; hunters; migratory service
workers and literati; herders; transporters; people fleeing war, drought and flood; and
soldiers and camp followers supplying troops on the move. All of this mobility sparked
widespread conflict and a huge expansion of commercial activity, commodity produc-
tion, and economic interconnections; it formed the space of modern empires and
globalisation.
(Ludden 2003: 1063).
Over the centuries, territorial authorities of various powers recognised this high level of mobil-
ity, but they never intended to, or were able to, gain full control of territorial order in the way
that modern borders do. In fact, modern borders did not come into existence before the age
of colonisation. Colonial state-making craft and map-making technologies saw the birth of the
modern nation-state in Asia, with now a sharply defined ‘geo-body’ (Winichakul 1994). But
human and commodity mobility in this part of the world could in no way be contained by this
narrowly defined territorialism. The mobile populations that had travelled to and resided in the
vast zones of contact and exchange continued to traverse borders to maintain familial ties, to
expand agricultural and economic activities, to escape war and hardship, and to explore new
opportunities. The ebb and flow of transnational movements rendered territorial borders fluid
and stretchable, where different actors and forces competed for resources, power, and wealth.
Even today, many of Asia’s land borders are not demarcated, especially in the hard-to-reach
mountains, forests, and deserts. Some borders are marked in a haphazard way, with border
markers serving no more than symbolic functions. The Burma-Bangladesh border, for example,
stretches into the River Naf with only an ordinary buoy that floats about the river as a border
marker (see its image in van Schendel 2006). Many existing Asian borders are heavily contested,
and violent conflicts continue to surround issues of demarcation (e.g. the India-Bangladesh
border and the North-South Korea border). Some borders have arbitrarily partitioned com-
munities of the same ethnic identification, creating competing claims over identity, belonging,
and citizenship (Eilenberg and Wadley 2009).
Towards the end of the Cold War and with the forces of globalisation, Asian borders wit-
nessed growing movements of individuals and commodities. At the same time, some borders
became hardened, heavily militarised, and deeply involved in international politics of security
and development. Powerful international agencies arrived at the frontiers of developing coun-
tries with both humanitarian and political agendas that are backed by certain ideologies of
development.Their aid packages came with strings attached, incentivising or even commanding
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nation-states to both enhance border control and promote border connectivity at the same time.
Cross-border infrastructure, various economic belts and corridors were constructed to facilitate
regional economic integration.These new international forces, together with state agencies and
local actors, help to create new ‘border regimes’ that promote discriminatory and anti-poor
politics (see Hughes 2011).
This is not to suggest, however, that borders and borderlanders are held captive by the
increasingly intensive and expansive control exercised by power players from the ‘above’. The
economic and political interests these individuals and communities pursue are sometimes in
opposition to state interests (van Schendel and de Maaker 2014). And people perceive the
opportunities and dangers of the border in strategic ways. Historical and ethnographic accounts
have documented how borderland subjects actively engage with the state and processes of glo-
balisation and development. Their opportunism and pragmatism have produced unique social
worlds and subjectivities (Kalir et al. 2012; Flynn 1997; Walker 1999; Scott 2009). Most of
these accounts highlight the porosity of the border, and the ‘permissive politics’ played out by
local actors and stakeholders. These permissive politics can be heavily gendered (Sur 2012) and
ethnicised (Alff 2017). They produce not exceptional spaces of infringement, but productive
partnerships between the state and local actors.
Borderland permissiveness constitutes a particular kind of transgressive politics that comes
to dominate life at the margin of the state. By transgressive politics I do not mean overt resist-
ance or rebellious acts enacted by local actors against the state or state-like authorities. I call it
‘entrepreneurial transgression’, as it speaks more about strategic manoeuvring and flexible rela-
tion making. Transgressive actions open up new spaces of opportunity and produce ‘counter-
topographies’ that give different meanings to transnational politics. Drawing upon my research
in the Hekou-Lao Cai border at the China-Vietnam borderland,1 I discuss how Vietnamese
migrant women cross the border informally and enter the sex and entertainment sector for
profit, and how mobile Chinese traders develop multiple identities and critical business net-
works as they engage with, go around, and sometimes transgress state regulations and local
norms. Migrant entrepreneurial transgression is gendered and spatially negotiated. It brings
certain ‘edginess’ to migrant practices when they participate in the trans-border marketplace as
their own agents.
Entrepreneurial transgression
The border town of Hekou is situated at the southern tip of Yunnan province in Southwest
China (Map 22.1). It shares a 193-kilometre international border with Lao Cai in northern
Vietnam. These two towns are connected by the Red River and Nanxi River, which for
centuries have provided sustenance for local communities and served as important trade
routes for trans-regional merchants. Before the demarcation of international borders in the
1950s,2 trade flourished along the waterways, and interactions between the Vietnamese and
the Chinese were frequent. Local communities on both sides of the border shared kinship
networks and traversed the frontier with ease. Intermarriage was (and still is) a common
practice (Grillot 2012). In the 1970s and much of the 1980s, border conflicts and political
stalemate dominated the frontier, turning private border crossing into a deadly endeavour as
the borderland became heavily militarised. From the 1990s onwards, successive economic
reforms in both countries brought life back to the frontier, as Hekou and Lao Cai became
‘special economic zones’ that enjoyed favourable state policies on trade, investment and tour-
ism. A battlefield in the past, Hekou is now one of the busiest crossings in the region, and a
land of opportunities for many.
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Among those who frequently cross the Hekou-Lao Cai border for economic opportunities,
young Vietnamese women constitute a special group. The majority of them cross the border
illegally to solicit business in Hekou’s burgeoning commercial sex sector. Their youthful bod-
ies (as many are in their late teens or early 20s) and exotic appeal tantalise erotic imaginations
of Chinese men who seek pleasure at the border. Since the early 1990s, Hekou has gradu-
ally developed a reputation of being a ‘men’s paradise’, where Chinese men could indulge in
exotic intimacy unavailable in most inland cities in China (Grillot and Zhang 2016). Hekou’s
Vietnamese sex workers embrace strong aspirations for wealth accumulation and the develop-
ment of personal opportunities. For many, working in the sex sector –although far from ideal –
offers a fast and relatively effortless way of accumulating income (Kempadoo and Doezema
1998). They could ‘optimise’ their limited ‘capital’ (Zheng 2009) and participate in the bor-
derland economy. In the local context, selling sex is not so much considered criminal or the
distasteful commodification of the body, but more of a ‘market experiment’ of the self for many
(Zhang 2012).
More interestingly, Hekou’s commercial sex sector flourished in tandem with the prolifera-
tion of the anti-trafficking discourse in the borderland. Since the 2000s, with generous financial
support from the Chinese central government and powerful international agencies such as the
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Asian Development Bank, the local government in Hekou frequently launched anti-trafficking
campaigns and rescue missions to save and repatriate trafficked victims who have been sold as
wives to rural Chinese men and exploited as ‘sex slaves’ in the commercial sex settings. However,
the majority of Hekou’s sex workers could be labelled as ‘illegal’ migrants, as many crossed the
border without official identity papers and valid entry permits. Their illegal entrance and sex
worker status would automatically qualify them as ‘trafficked victims’.Yet few of them are rec-
ognised as ‘victims’ and get ‘rescued’.
In a curious way, Hekou’s Vietnamese Street represents a migrant ‘counter-topography’ (Katz
2001). Cindi Katz and other feminist geographers (e.g. Dixon 2011; Mountz 2011) use ‘coun-
ter-topography’ to make visible the politics of location and differentiation and their effects
in producing ‘in-between’ places and subjects. Sex work as self-experiment at the borderland
produces such paradoxical ‘in-between’ places and identities. Sex workers’ lives and experiences
are intimately connected to regional activities of economic growth and global discourses of
anti-trafficking and human rights. And these experiences both include and exclude migrant
women from rightfully claiming their position in the larger economic-political processes tak-
ing place at state margins. On the one hand, migrant women’s sexuality helps to stimulate
cross-border business and interaction, which serves strategic functions in bridging regional
economic integration and development; on the other hand, their illicit border crossing can be
used to serve different political agendas on human security and protection. The irony is that
the former is never officially admitted and the latter never practically enforced (Zhang 2012).
Migrant women continue to arrive via unauthorised channels without papers, stimulating the
borderland economy with their sexual appeal. Anti-trafficking and anti-crime politics will also
continue to generate headlines and attract international funding as long as these do not actually
interfere with the local business practice.
Vietnamese migrant women’s participation in Hekou’s sex sector can be read as both entre-
preneurial and transgressive. Local borderlanders regard their capitalisation on youth and sexu-
ality as embodying an ‘open attitude’ and market spirit. The inherent illicitness of the sex trade
and the illegality of their border crossing remain transgressive, especially in the eyes of the state
and state-like international bodies. But this transgression is very much tolerated, and perhaps
even tacitly encouraged, as local stakeholders not only patronise these sex venues but also rely
on the sex sector to attract future business. Permissive politics at the border thus carve out
unique zones of licitness, giving new meanings to opportunistic and oftentimes exploitative
practices.
Borderland edginess
Entrepreneurial transgression illustrates the innately unstable and shifting relationship between
mobile bodies and fixed categories, between migrant strategies and transnational politics. It can
be argued that the border as a unique site of engagement has played a significant role in pro-
ducing various kinds of ‘grey spaces’ that allow for multiple manoeuvring by local actors. Their
transgressive practices give meaning to what I call ‘borderland edginess’ as migrants and traders
explore different terrains of possibility and impossibility.
By definition, a border indicates an edge, which points to marginalisation as well as edginess.
‘Social edginess’ –a term coined by Erik Harms (2011) –expresses how being on ‘edge’ has its
marginalising effects, but also strategic potentials.
Edginess emphasises the possibility and the risks associated with moving into, out-
side, and across the boundaries created by discrete categories… For some, the ‘edge’
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that develops on the edge of pure categories enables new forms of creative action; for
others, it constrains social action in significant ways, most clearly by relegating less
advantaged social actors to the margins of social consciousness, the grey zone that lies
between commonly understood categories of action and social status
(Harms 2011: 36).
While Harms’s discussion focuses on the rural–urban divide in Vietnam, and how citizens at
the city’s edge negotiate their rights for recognition and empowerment; in the context of the
borderland, such an analysis of the ‘edge’ can be equally productive. The ‘edge’ that the border
brings can be risky; but for many it also means an advantageous position in the local world
of business. Vietnamese sex workers entail such borderland ‘edginess’ because they challenge
conventional categories. It is hard to pin them down as either ‘helpless victims’ of transnational
trafficking and the sex trade (as most of the international agencies would portray them –see
Mahdavi, this volume, Chapter 14), or entrepreneurial agents of their own will. They are no
doubt marginalised individuals; but their marginalisation can sometimes be turned into an edge.
Migrant sex workers are not the only group that embodies such edginess in the borderland.
Chinese traders, who migrated from mainland provinces to the border, also demonstrate how
they can maintain an edge in the trans-border marketplace. Studies on small-scale trade between
Chinese and Vietnamese and its effect have been well documented (Turner 2010; Bonnin 2011;
Chan 2013). These detailed accounts show how small traders and businessmen are able to neu-
tralise their marginality by engaging in multiple livelihood strategies that sometimes involve
bending or even breaking the law. Here, I focus on a common yet legally ambiguous practice
of their trade –smuggling.
At the Chinese side of the border, smuggling –or zousi in Chinese –is commonplace. It is
the ‘second economy’ (MacGaffey and Mukohya 1991), indispensible to border’s economic life.
While the word still carries negative connotations, in the border its everyday meaning has been
heavily decriminalised. Zousi, literally ‘to pass the private goods’, like the sex trade, is tolerated
by the permissive politics at the border. In Hekou, smuggling takes place in various forms and
at various locations. The busiest spot for smuggling is a stretch of pebbly riverbank about 15
kilometres away from town. Seasonal produce, prohibited commodities, and the occasional tour
groups (with no entry visas to Vietnam) are brought to Lao Cai from this point by motorised
boats. In Hekou, a rice trader named Mr Ho told me that this unofficial crossing was an impor-
tant alternative for his business, especially when he wanted to trade more than what the official
quota allowed.3 Like most borderland traders, he did not think that ‘smuggling’ was completely
illegal. He pointed out that the popularity of this unofficial crossing did not mean that everyone
could use it effectively without getting caught. ‘Smuggling’ is thus considered a practical skill
that only a few borderland traders have mastered.
Many traders become acquaintances and business partners with the local law enforcement
officers. Gifts, holidays, shopping cards, dinners and parties –these gestures of ‘friendship’ con-
solidate critical networks that borderland traders establish with other trading parties, local offi-
cials, and out-of-town guests. Mr Ho, for example, relied on his friendship with a senior officer
in Hekou’s Customs Office for information and updates on periodic inspections and raids at
various smuggling hotspots. This senior officer once told me in private that traders like Mr
Ho were in fact ‘good citizens’ because they were easily scared (danxiao) and always practised
discretion when they smuggled goods across the river. In other words, they were still the ‘rule-
abiding’ (shou guiju) traders who rarely made trouble. Traders with more complicated back-
grounds and connections (e.g. with local gangs) were a different story. Officers working in
Chinese Customs told me that not only was ‘smuggling’ regarded as a local skill, but ‘combating
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smuggling’ required equal skilfullness.The law enforcement needs to make calculated, pragmatic
decisions on arrest and detention, especially the specific time this should occur, or its particular
location. In a way, Chinese local authorities actively explore and exercise what Andrew Walker
(1999: 111) calls ‘profitable regulation’ in pursuit of their own wealth and legitimacy. It is not
necessary, and perhaps counter-productive, for every law and regulation to be strictly followed.
‘Good traders’ would maintain a strong relationship with the local authorities in pursuit of
profit. ‘If the control becomes too tight, these good traders would simply go somewhere else
less strict and we are left with hooligans and real troublemakers,’ one of the officers told me.
Apart from the critical networks that borderland traders maintain with local authorities and
other business partners, entrepreneurs on the border construct multiple identities to suit differ-
ent social and business needs. Some Vietnamese traders in Lao Cai are from a Chinese origin,
and in the cross-border business scene, they highlight their ‘Chineseness’ to secure partnership
with Chinese traders (Zhang 2015). Some Chinese traders have learned to speak Vietnamese
after their arrival at the border; many choose to marry a Vietnamese wife or have a Vietnamese
girlfriend.Their new ‘Vietnameseness’ helps expand their business networks beyond the border-
land and into the bigger Vietnamese marketplace. Some Chinese traders start a second family in
Vietnam, which is usually held by the Vietnamese girlfriend or mistress who appears as the ‘wife’
in front of the neighbours.The Vietnamese family thus becomes a stable base for these mainland
Chinese businessmen, who then adopt a new ‘ethnic Chinese’ identity in Vietnam which works
to their advantage.
Apart from national identities, regional and hometown-based identities become important
markers for friendship and collaboration. Chinese traders who come from the same province of
origin tend to form a closer bond. Especially at moments when internal conflicts arise among
Chinese traders in Hekou, hometown-based identities become even more critical. Traders from
the same ‘old home’ (laoxiang) defend each other’s interests and sabotage other traders by steal-
ing clients, reporting them to the authorities, and sometimes involving the local gangs to settle
scores. On occasions, hometown identities become less significant if traders share other similar
experiences, such as being veteran soldiers or laid-off workers. Identity politics are thus exer-
cised in a flexible way in the borderland. How these different identities are played out depends
on the individual understanding of the situation, and their negotiations of the advantages, dis-
advantages, risks and opportunities.
The critical networks the borderland traders establish, and the multiple identities that they
engage with, highlight their edginess as both transgressive subjects and pioneers in the transna-
tional marketplace.Their broad business networks and their flexible identity strategies give them
an edge in economic pursuits. Their experiments with alternative routes and illicit dealings also
indicate the more risky and precarious aspects of the borderland business practice. Borderland
edginess, manifest as business flexibility and transgression, becomes characteristic of mobile
individuals who instigate self-enterprising practices that give new meanings and mutations to
‘marginality’ and migrant pragmatism.
Conclusion
At the China-Vietnam frontier, national borders are crossed and controlled ‘entrepreneurially’
to suit the different interests and politics of local actors.The borders are demarcated and policed
by state authorities, but their meanings and significance are defined by those who actually cross
the border for various motivations. Migrant subjects, in particular, explore alternative routes that
challenge the officially designated border space. Rather than reading this as migrant criminal-
ity or a form of local resistance, I regard it as a widely practised localised spatial strategy that
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enables actors to not only make their lives viable, but also express their own economic and
political claims. Across the vast Asian borderlands, similar spatial strategies are adopted by diverse
communities of different linguistic, religious, and ethnic backgrounds (Endres 2014; Sur 2013;
Eilenberg and Wadley 2009). Migrant practices shed light on the ways in which the production
of various ‘in-between spaces’ –illegal passages, immoral trade, dangerous liaisons and corrupt
engagement –in fact contribute to globalisation processes as these marginal zones provide mul-
tiple linkages and more organic forms of connectivity.
Focusing on the various transgressive politics of borderland migrants, this chapter offers
a reflection on the entwinement of mobility and the border from the position of the edge.
Borderland migrants participate in ‘edgy businesses’ –exemplified by cross-border commer-
cial sex and smuggling –that are often deemed illegal by the state. In doing so migrants pro-
duce plural meanings of the border through transgressive manoeuvring. Borderland edginess is
heightened when state-led border making is continuously confronted and reshaped by mobile
actors’ experiments and controversial crossings. My ethnographic examples show that such edg-
iness can be unexpectedly productive, as it generates new spaces of market participation for the
marginalised and the criminalised.4
Borderland edginess and its associated transgressive politics have wider implications in
migration and mobility studies in the context of Asia. Borderlanders are neither the mobile
elites nor the vulnerable migrants, when their in-between-ness continues to shape bordered
migrant identities that cannot be easily contained by fixed conceptual categories. Moreover,
the linking of borders and migrant mobilities suggests a new approach in understanding the
power of permissive politics at work, which can be stretched and relaxed in some instances, and
turn unexpectedly oppressive and aggressive in other situations. Migrant subjects are able to
explore the various spaces permitted in this malleable regime of control; but ultimately they are
subjected to its power, especially if such permission is suddenly withdrawn or the conditions of
such permission change.
Malini Sur (2013) argues that permissive politics are a matter of state optics and they are
used as a strategy of governing the frontier by deliberately ‘looking away’ from certain flows
and crossings. This form of ‘benign dismissal’ on the part of the state sustains the regime of
permissiveness, and turns migrant transgression into inconsequential actions that do not deliver
significant legal or political effect. Under the permissive regime at the border, those who par-
ticipate in sex work or smuggling are often dismissed as economically productive yet politically
insignificant. This official denial or dismissal also brings along productive potentials. As ‘apoliti-
cal’ participants in the transnational marketplace, these mobile actors are able to mobilise mul-
tiple resources and capitals. Crossings at the China-Vietnam borderland thus continue to bear
an edge, as mobile actors refashion practices and discourses of freedom and entrepreneurialism
at the margins of nation-states.
Notes
1 The ethnographic materials are drawn from my 12-month fieldwork in Hekou and Lao Cai in 2007,
and a short one-month fieldtrip in 2012. Pseudonyms are used throughout this chapter.
2 The marking of international borders between the Southwest of China and northern Vietnam started
first with the French colonists who navigated the Red River in search of new markets for trade. The
imperial officials of the Qing Court participated in border making as an act of challenge to the French
exercise. During this period this border region was in effect ruled by a local lord –a Chinese military
rebel Liu Yongfu, the leader of the Black Flags (Heqi jun) –who maintained control over trade rights on
the two rivers and demanded tax and protection fees (Davis 2014). The international boundary existed
but did not perform any practical function. In the 1950s the newly independent People’s Republic of
296
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China started a more systematic exercise of border making, which was then stopped when military
conflicts took place between China and Vietnam in the 1970s. When the Sino-Vietnamese border
war ended in 1989, border-marking exercises continued in full force alongside massive minesweeping
operations. However, long stretches of the China-Vietnam border remains unmarked due to difficult
geographical terrains. Some of the existing borders are also being questioned and debated upon with
regard to their precise locations. The demarcation of borders in this part of the region is far from over
and will continue to be debated and negotiated.
3 Rice as a high-value commodity is heavily regulated by both the Chinese and Vietnamese states. Official
permission and import quota has to be sought from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce before traders
can bring Vietnamese rice into the Chinese market.
4 It however can also be undermining as transgressive practices further the marginality of certain social
actors who are running the risk of being formally denied the political potentials of their actions.
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Index
expatriates 198, 201–202, 205; labour migration cultures: definition 162–163; Korean cultural
of 255; left behind by migrant parents 256–258; industry 84; as local concern 164–165; of
in marginal circumstances 255–256; multiracial migration 117–119, 165–166; separation from
191–192, 193, 204–205, 256; transnational economics 163–165
families 250–252
Chin, K. 67 data limitations 67, 93, 174, 181
China: borderland with Vietnam 291–296; cultures Davis, K. 25
of migration 165–168; ethnic return migration De Brauw, A. 218
103–104; higher education migration 75, de Haas, H. 212–213
81–83; logics of migration 166–169; migration de Maaker, E. 289
policies 144–145; Nationality Laws 39, 40–41, Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of
42; return migration 95–96, 180–181 the Rights of Migrant Workers (ASEAN) 283
Chinese Eastern Railway 146 democracies, development of 265
Chinese migrants: after 1949 40–41; after 1978 ‘denizens’ 264
41–43; asset insecurity 130; to Canada dependency ceiling 144
129–131; Chinese schools 40; cultures of deportability 193
migration 165–168; early 20th century 38–40; diaspora: introduction to 33, 43–44; Chinese in
early traders 35–37; in Hong Kong 200, 240; South Asia 35–43; meanings of 33–35; medical
mass labour migration after 1850s 24–25, migration and 119–120; nation-building and
37–38; meanings of diaspora and 33–35, 43–44; 240; networks and movements 268, 272–273;
political movements 26; to Singapore 241–242; return migration 95–96, 97–98
to United States 68; to Vietnam 294–295 direct action 268
Chu, J. 167 diversity: within cities 203, 238–239; coexistence
‘circumvention’ medical travel 121–122 and control 242–244; postcolonial cities and
cities: overview 14; coexistence and control 239–242
242–244; diversity, migration and 203, 238–239; documentation 147–148, 191, 269–270
home-spaces within 245–246; as migration domestic abuse 66, 192
destination 28–29, 175–178; postcolonial domestic work 144, 245–246
239–242; self/other divides 245–246; as source donations of remittances 229
communities 177 dual citizenship 40–41, 42, 271–272
citizenship: introduction to 13; of cross-border Duara, P. 156
children 255–256; debates over 26; dual 40–41,
42, 271–272; economic 134–135; flexible 42, economic citizenship 134–135
134–135; by investment 130–131; policies economics: definition 163; as driver of mobility
268–269, 270–271; wealthy migrants 129–131, 143–145; separation from culture 163–165
134–135 edginess 293–294, 296
civil society actors 270–271 education: children as educational migrants
class 132–134, 203 252–254; Chinese schools 40; as class
Cohen, E. 196, 198–199, 203–204 reproduction 133–134; of expatriates 205; higher
Cold War period 40 education in China 81–83; higher education
colonies: early Chinese traders and 35–37; in Singapore 86–87; higher education in South
migration from/to 53, 54, 154–155 Korea 84–86; higher education migration 75–80;
communication: as migration facilitator 223; in international schools 201–202; investment
technologies 22, 152; transnational families in Japan 230; as migration strategy 42; wealthy/
and 251 middle class migration 133–134, 251
community-support 217 electoral participation 267, 268–270
comparison in migration studies 216–218 emigrating without settling 132–133, 135
compensation of employees 227 ‘emotional turn’ 10
contact zones 203, 242–243 employers 225–226, 278
Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Employment Pass (E-Pass) 57
Especially Women and Children (ASEAN) 283 Employment Permit System (EPS) 98, 99,
cosmopolitan workers 121 282–283
counter- topographies 15, 293 enclavement, spaces of 242–244
‘credit ticket’ system 24 enclosure 243–244
Cresswell, T. 59 encounters: in home-spaces 245–246; in
crises 23, 285–286 postcolonial cities 239–242; in transient spaces
Cultural Revolution 41 242–244
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