Labor and Conflict in Southeast Asia
Date
2011-12-16
Authors
Nesadurai, Helen E S
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Canberra, ACT: The Australian National University - MacArthur Asia Security Initiative
Abstract
LABOR migration is an important process in
Southeast Asia, the second busiest hub of
transnational migration in the world after
the US–Mexico border. Cross-border labor
flows in Southeast Asia have deepened
regional interdependence. Migrant workers
have contributed to key economic sectors in
receiving countries like Malaysia, Singapore,
and Thailand, while labor outmigration has
reduced employment pressures and offered
remittances to sending countries like the
Philippines and Indonesia.
But despite its economic value, labor migration
in Southeast Asia is controversial. For
receiving countries, migrant workers are
often considered a security problem threatening
both the state and particular societal
groups. For sending countries, domestic anger
over the often tenuous plight of their nationals
abroad can stoke resentment towards
the government and society of their hosts.
In such situations, although economic interdependence
might be expected to make
such conflicts easier to address, labor migration
can act to inflame bilateral relations.
The way in which migrant workers are securitized
is vital for explaining the origins of
such conflicts. Labor migration has the potential
to evoke emotional responses in both
their host and home societies, since it raises
issues both about who gets what and about
how people are treated. Both economic and
ideational factors play a key role in mediating
how these issues are managed.
Over the last decade, two main labor migration
conflicts have arisen in Southeast Asia,
between Malaysia and the Philippines and
Malaysia and Indonesia. Both were catalyzed
by security-motivated operations against
undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia.
However, the two bilateral conflicts followed
radically different trajectories – with the
role of emotions in the home state, and the
discursive construction of the security threat
posed by different migrant groups in Malaysia
determining how these conflicts evolved.
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Citation
Nesadurai, Helen E. S. (2011) “Labor and Conflict in Southeast Asia,” ANU–MASI Policy Background Paper, No. 8, 16 December.
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