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Refuge, Governmentality and Citizenship: Capturing ‘Illegal Migrants’ in Malaysia and Thailand1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Eva-Lotta E. Hedman
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Abstract

This article directs attention to dynamics of refuge and governmentality in a region of the ‘global South’, South-East Asia, and brings into focus the major recipients of (forced) migrants, Malaysia and Thailand, neither of which is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, or the 1967 Protocol. Against the backdrop of the illuminating contrast offered by the Thai case, this article argues that, in the case of Malaysia, the mobilization of ‘volunteers of the nation’ in campaigns against ‘illegal migrants’ serves as a performative (re)enactment of ethnic identity and national citizenship in the making of Malays and Malaysians in this postcolonial ‘plural society’. The article explores the wider consequences of the (re)production of (il)legality and identity as a social reality experienced not merely by (forced) migrants, and not only at the border, but also by government officials and national citizens actively mobilized in high-profile campaigns to flush out ‘illegal migrants’ from markets, construction and plantation sites, as well as dwellings in kampong neighbourhoods, city blocks and jungle sites across Malaysia.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 358 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008.

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Footnotes

1

An earlier version of this article was presented at a workshop at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, in May 2007, and I thank participants for constructive comments. Fieldwork and related research for this article has benefited from financial support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the kind assistance of Alice Nah. Matthew Gibney, Francis Loh Kok Wah and John Sidel have also provided much food for thought, for which I remain grateful. As ever, any remaining shortcomings rest with the author.

References

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37 ‘Cops Raid Indon Hideout’, Star, 2 February 2001. The photograph that accompanies this story shows one uniformed Rela officer in charge of the physical apprehension of a young man, with the assistance of three other men wearing informal jackets marked ‘RELA’. No police officer can be seen in this photo.Google Scholar

38 ‘Three Callgirl Suspects Among 21 Illegals Caught’, Star, 29 August 2000. The convenient representation of the Religious Department at this raid was presumably because of the added moral depravity of a situation allegedly involving prostitutes (although prostitution as such is not a crime in Malaysia, merely solicitation). In the accompanying photo, the strangely implausible ‘action shot’ shows a police officer putting an authoritative hand on the shoulder of a malang-clad Indonesian (Achenese) man climbing out of a closet full of clothes, thus further adding insult to injury.Google Scholar

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45 Bernama, 21 March 2007. According to Tan, the majority of the ‘detainees’ in 2006 were Indonesian (17,038), Burma (2,988) and India (1,206).Google Scholar

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48 New Straits Times, 22 April, 2007. This article reports on the arrest of ‘10 Rela members on suspicion of robbing 20 Indonesians during a raid on a kongsi in Kampung Rapat I Ipoh’. See Suaram and Human Rights Watch alerts for summary of Rela abuses.Google Scholar

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60 Ibid. I am grateful to Samuel Cheung for drawing my attention to this recent development.Google Scholar

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66 For a comparative historical perspective on organized religion and the state in Indonesia and Malaysia, see Hedman, Eva-Lotta E., ‘Contesting State and Civil Society: Southeast Asian Trajectories’, Modern Asian Studies, 35: 4 (2001), pp. 921–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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70 Kassim, Azizah, ‘The Unwelcome Guests: Indonesian Immigrants and Malaysian Public Responses’, Southeast Asian Studies, 25: 2 (September 1987), p. 276.Google Scholar For a brief related discussion about the concerns over marriages of migrant men to local women, see Lucy Healey, ‘Gender, “Aliens,” and the National Imaginary in Contemporary Malaysia’, Sojourn, 15: 2 (2000), pp. 234–6.

71 For a related analysis focused on internal migration, see Thompson, Eric C., ‘Malay Male Migrants: Negotiating Contested Identities in Malaysia’, American Ethnologist, 30: 3 (August 2003), pp. 418–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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