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European Journal European Journal of of East Asian Studies 17 (2018) 55–82 East Asian Studies brill.com/ejea

Navigating Migrant Trajectories through Private Actors Burmese Labour Migration to Malaysia

Anja K. Franck University of Gothenburg, Sweden [email protected]

Emanuelle Brandström Arellano University of Gothenburg, Sweden [email protected]

Joseph Trawicki Anderson University of Gothenburg, Sweden [email protected]

Abstract

Recent research on the ‘migration industry’ has provided a means to interrogate how private actors come to be used as a means to facilitate, direct and control migration. Both through incorporating private actors into security functions and outsourcing certain functions to labour brokers, the use of migration industry actors is an important part of the ways in which the state works to maintain its sovereign control over territory and the ways people move across it. Yet this is not the only way in which migration industry actors are used. Instead, private actors also play a key role for migrants, although attention towards how migrants themselves perceive and use these actors during the migration process has received far less attention. Using timelines of migrant trajectories from Burma/Myanmar to Malaysia, the following study therefore sets out to map the private actors involved in the migrants’ projects to travel to and stay in Malaysia—and to investigate how these actors are strategically used by migrants as a means to increase their room to manoeuvre during the migration process. In approach- ing this, the study combines literature on the privatisation and commercialisation of international migration with scholarship on migration trajectories and migrant agency. Empirically the study builds upon fieldwork conducted in the Burmese migrant community in the city of George Town in northern Malaysia.

Keywords migration industry – migrant trajectories – migrant agency – Myanmar – Malaysia

Introduction

The Myanmar government reports that 4.25 million of its citizens have migrated overseas.1 While the majority resides in Thailand, around 15 per cent of those that have left the country currently live and work in Malaysia.2 For the most part such migration is temporary, with migrants spending shorter or longer periods abroad, before returning (temporarily or permanently) to their home communities. Migratory movement from Myanmar—whether regular or irregular—depends on the involvement of private actors. Those leaving the country through regular channels (as guest workers) employ the services of recruitment or outsourcing agencies. These companies not only handle the bureaucratic procedures and paperwork but also organise travel and employment in destination countries. Those that migrate irregularly, on the other hand, tend to use the services of ‘informal agencies’, which mostly function as human smugglers and transport migrants illegally to and through neighbouring countries. While these actors are crucial for the migration journey to begin, our examination of migrant trajectories from Myanmar to Malaysia will illustrate how migrants’ reliance on and usage of private actors does not end there. Rather, we find that the involvement of private actors, whether they be transnational outsourcing companies or small-scale entrepreneurs, continues throughout migrants’ stay in the destination country. Migration research has directed increasing attention towards the role that private actors play in the context of migration flows. This research has variably been conceptualised as the study of the ‘business of migration’,3 the ‘migration industry’4 and ‘migration infrastructure’.5 While this literature has examined a

1 International Organisation for Migration (IOM), ‘Myanmar’, July 2017, https://www.iom.int/ countries/myanmar. 2 IOM, ‘Myanmar’, July 2017. 3 John Salt and Jeremy Stein, ‘Migration as a Business: The Case of Trafficking’, International Migration 35, 4 (1 January 1997): 467. 4 Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration (New York: Routledge, 2013); Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, second edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998). 5 Biao Xiang and Johan Lindquist, ‘Migration Infrastructure’, International Migration Review 48 (1 September 2014): S122–148, https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12141.

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 57 number of aspects, the field has broadly focused on the non-state actors that both facilitate and restrict migration flows.6 Importantly, such literature illustrates how the migration industry not only assists the state in facilitating certain migration flows, but also forms a crucial aspect of the state’s ability to control the nature and terms of migratory movement and stay.7 What this means is thus that the migration industry comes to play a crucial role in states’ attempts to reinforce sovereignty over territory.Through delegating disciplinary power to a range of private actors, such as employers and recruitment agents,8 states are able to very closely control and monitor migrant workers—while simultane- ously shielding themselves from taking responsibility for the conditions facing the migrant workforce.9 The subcontracting of migration functions, long considered a core state function, to private actors should therefore not be read as a loss of state sovereignty, but rather as a way for the state to extend its reach by employing a wider variety of actors in pursuit of its goals.10

6 See for example Ulla Berg and Carla Tamagno, ‘Migration Brokers and Document Fix- ers: The Making of Migrant Subjects in Urban Peru’, in The Migration Industry and the Commercializationof InternationalMigration, ed.Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen (NewYork: Routledge, 2013); Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, ‘Private Security Companies and the European Borderscape’, in The Migration Industry and the Commer- cialization of International Migration, ed. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen (New York: Routledge, 2013); Michał P. Garapich, ‘The Migration Industry and Civil Society: Polish Immigrants in the United Kingdom Before and After EU Enlargement’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34, 5 (July 2008): 735–752, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13691830802105970; Georg Menz, ‘Neo-Liberalism, Privatization and the Outsourcing of Migration Management: A Five-Country Comparison’, Competition & Change 15, 2 (July 2011): 116–135, https://doi.org/10.1179/102452911X13025292603633. 7 Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen, The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration; Yen-fen Tseng and Hong-zen Wang, ‘Governing Migrant Workers at a Distance: Managing the Temporary Status of Guestworkers in Taiwan’, International Migration 51, 4 (August 2013): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468‑2435.2010.00639.x. 8 Alice M. Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control: The Hierarchy of Rights for Migrant Workers in Malaysia’, Asian Journal of Social Science 40, 4 (1 January 2012): 486–508, https://doi.org/10.1163/15685314‑12341244; Joseph Trawicki Anderson and Anja K. Franck, ‘The Public and the Private in Guestworker Schemes: Examples from Malaysia and the US’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (19 December 2017): 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1415752. 9 Anderson and Franck, ‘The Public and the Private in Guestworker Schemes’; Adriana Kemp and Rebeca Raijman, ‘Bringing in State Regulations, Private Brokers, and Local Employers: A Meso-Level Analysis of Labor Trafficking in Israel’, International Migration Review 48, 3 (1 September 2014): 604–642, https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12109. 10 Virginie Guiraudon and Gallya Lahav, ‘A Reappraisal of the State Sovereignty Debate: The Case of Migration Control’, Comparative Political Studies 33, 2 (1 March 2000): 163–195, https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414000033002001.

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The central role played by private actors in migration management is per- haps the clearest in the Asian context,11 where brokers and private agencies often arrange most stages of the process and can even serve as quasi-employers. Whereas several studies in the Southeast Asian context have focused upon the impacts of this for migrants’ susceptibility to exploitation in the labour market,12 considerably less attention has been granted to the way that migrants themselves perceive and use these private actors during the migration process.13 This is unfortunate given that the migration industry not only maintains particular relationships to the state, but is also conditioned and shaped by its relationship with migrants from below. Based upon fieldwork conducted in the Burmese migrant community in Malaysia, the following study therefore sets out to investigate the ways in which migrant actors strategically use (and do not use) migration industry services in order to achieve their particular aims over the course of the migration process. In doing this we draw upon the growing body of work on migration trajectories. Such research has helped forward the analysis of migration not as a unidirectional act but as a process14—in which

11 Danièle Bélanger, ‘Labor Migration and Trafficking among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 653, 1 (1 May 2014): 87– 106, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213517066; Amarjit Kaur, ‘Labour Migration in South- east Asia: Migration Policies, Labour Exploitation and Regulation’, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 15, 1 (22 February 2010): 6–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860903488195; Kristin Surak, ‘The Migration Industry and Developmental States in East Asia’, in The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, ed. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen (New York: Routledge, 2013). 12 Bélanger, ‘Labor Migration and Trafficking among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia’; Graeme Hugo, ‘The New International Migration in Asia’, Asian Population Studies 1, 1 (1 March 2005): 93–120, https://doi.org/10.1080/17441730500125953; Thu Huong Lê, ‘A New Portrait of Indentured Labour: Vietnamese Labour Migration to Malaysia’, Asian Journal of Social Science 38, 6 (1 January 2010): 880–896, https://doi.org/10.1163/156853110X530787; Johan Lindquist, ‘Labour Recruitment, Circuits of Capital and Gendered Mobility’, Pacific Affairs 83, 1 (2010): 115; Biao Xiang, ‘Labor Transplant: “Point-to-Point” Transnational Labor Migra- tion in East Asia’, South Atlantic Quarterly 111, 4 (Fall 2012): 721–739, https://doi.org/10.1215/ 00382876‑1724156; Tseng and Wang, ‘Governing Migrant Workers at a Distance’. 13 But see Sabina Lawreniuk and Laurie Parsons, ‘After the Exodus: Exploring Migrant Atti- tudes to Documentation, Brokerage and Employment Following the 2014 Mass With- drawal of Cambodian Workers from Thailand’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 38, 3 (1 September 2017): 350–369, https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12199; Johan Lindquist, ‘Bro- kers, Channels, Infrastructure: Moving Migrant Labor in the Indonesian–Malaysian Oil Palm Complex’, Mobilities 12, 2 (4 March 2017): 213–226, https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101 .2017.1292778. 14 Brian du Toit, ‘Rural–Urban Migration with Special Reference to the Third World: Theo- retical and Empirical Perspectives’, Human Organization 49, 4 (1 December 1990): 305–319, https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.49.4.016734370u13v727; Ralph Grillo, ‘Betwixt and Between:

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 59 both the broader framework that governs migration and migrant agency play a critical role.15 The trajectories approach, we suggest, forwards a more in-depth reading of the ‘migration industry’, not only in enabling us to identify the large number of actors involved but also in unpacking the productive role these actors come to play for migrants’ room to manoeuvre during different stages of the migration process. In our inquiry we have used timelines to map our respondents’ different movements and decisions during the migration process: their preparations before migrating, their journey to and stay in Malaysia, and their (possible) preparations for return. This longitudinal method helps us draw attention to the ‘evolution of migrant trajectories’16—inclusive of the way that aspirations may change over the course of the migration trajectory17 and how private actors are used in order to navigate the migration regime to achieve the migrants’ objectives. In the coming sections we will introduce the context in which this research has been carried out, presenting some key aspects of the Malaysian migration regime as well as our methodology. This will be followed by the empirical findings, organised according to the different phases of the migrant trajectory: preparations to leave Myanmar, the journey to Malaysia, the period of stay in Malaysia and possible return.The emphasis here lies with identifying the actors involved and the role that they played during the different phases.

Trajectories and Projects of Transmigration’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33, 2 (1 March 2007): 199–217, https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830601154138. 15 Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho, ‘Migration Trajectories of “Highly Skilled” Middling Transnationals: Singaporean Transmigrants in London’, Population, Space and Place 17, 1 (January 2011): 116–129, https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.569; Joris Schapendonk, ‘Moving and Mediating: A Mobile View on Sub-Saharan African Migration towards Europe’, in Communication Tech- nologies in Latin America and Africa: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, ed. Mireia Fernández- Ardèvol and Adela Ros Hijar (Barcelona: IN3-UOC, 2009), 293–318; Ernst Spaan and Felic- itas Hillman, ‘Migration Trajectories and the Migration Industry: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Examples from Asia’, in The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, ed. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen (New York: Routledge, 2013). 16 Schapendonk, ‘Moving and Mediating: A Mobile View on Sub-Saharan African Migra- tion towards Europe’, 300; Joris Schapendonk, ‘Turbulent Trajectories: African Migrants on Their Way to the European Union’, Societies; Basel 2, 2 (2012): 27–41, http://dx.doi.org .ezproxy.ub.gu.se/10.3390/soc2020027. 17 Schapendonk, ‘Moving and Mediating: A Mobile View on Sub-Saharan African Migration towards Europe’; see also Jörgen Carling, ‘Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immobility: Theoretical Reflections and Cape Verdean Experiences’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28, 1 (1 January 2002): 5–42, https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830120103912.

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The Malaysian Migration Regime

The Malaysian policy framework on migration needs to be seen in the context of historic as well as contemporary modes of governing populations in the Southeast Asian region. As shown in the work of Ong, colonial logics in ‘the state-differentiation of citizens’—along the axis of class, gender and race— are today being ‘reinforced as well as cross-cut by new ways of governing that differentially value populations according to market calculations’.18 What this essentially means is that states tend to treat different segments of population differently ‘in relation to the demands of global markets’.19 Interestingly, and as highlighted by Nah, scholarly engagement with different forms of ‘graduated sovereignty’20 in the Southeast Asian region has only haltingly engaged with its relation to immigration control regimes throughout the region.21 This is unfortunate given the observation that such regimes ‘continue to draw rigid distinctions: between a “citizen” and “non-citizen”, between a “legal” and “illegal” person, and between different categories of non-citizens’.22 These distinctions, Nah suggests, are ‘increasingly biopolitical’ and form the basis for the introduction of ‘neoliberal practices as exceptions to authoritarian rule’.23 In the Malaysian case this involves the introduction of explicit hierarchies in the rights and entitlements of non-citizen groups, based on ‘a calculation of their potential economic contribution to the nation’.24 What this effectively entails in the Malaysian context is the differentiation between ‘high-skilled’ and ‘low- skilled’ migrant workers, where the latter face significant limitations in their civil and social rights. In the section below, we will take a closer look at the framework governing migration to Malaysia. Before doing so, we would however like to point out that although we will here refer to this framework as a ‘migration regime’ that encompasses not just legal rules but patterns, processes, and institutions,25 the

18 Aihwa Ong, ‘Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia’, Theory, Culture & Society 17, 4 (1 August 2000): 58, https://doi.org/10.1177/02632760022051310. 19 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’, 487. 20 Aihwa Ong, ‘Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia’. 21 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’. 22 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’, 488. 23 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’. 24 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’. 25 For a review of current debates regarding ‘regimes’ in migration studies see Kenneth Hor- vath, Anna Amelina and Karin Peters, ‘Re-thinking the Politics of Migration. On the Uses and Challenges of Regime Perspectives for Migration Research’, Migration Studies 5, 3 (1 November 2017): 301–314, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx055.

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Malaysian policy framework is far from coherent. Rather, it has been described as both ad hoc and inconsistent,26 and as trying to reconcile contradictory policy agendas.27 Keeping this in mind, it is nonetheless possible to identify some core elements of this policy that are of vital interest to the topic of this paper. The first relates to the ‘outsourcing method’ of recruitment, introduced through the 2012 ‘contractor for labour’ amendment to the 1955 Employment Act,28 which allows employers to ‘use the services of outsourcing companies to supply and manage’ foreign workers for the manufacturing, plantation and agricultural sectors.29 These outsourcing companies recruit workers, often through sub-agents in sending countries, and organise their labour contracts, travel documents and journeys to Malaysia.30 In addition to the 280 registered outsourcing companies that run such activities, there are around 1,000 private employment agencies registered with the authorities.31 These agencies also recruit workers from abroad but, in a difference from outsourcing companies that continue to function as the employer throughout the duration of the worker’s contract, private recruitment companies transfer the workers directly to the employer once contracts are signed.32 There are additionally a myriad of private actors involved in administering renewals of passports, work passes, health certificates, return travels and remittances. Some of these agencies are outsourcing companies while others are small-scale entrepreneurs and/or migrant-run enterprises that operate both with and without valid licences. Among the respondents in this study the whole ensemble of private actors involved in the migration process was mostly just referred to as ‘agencies’—

26 Alice M. Nah, ‘State Power and the Regulation of Non-Citizens: Immigration Laws, Policies, and Practices in Peninsular Malaysia’, PhD dissertation (National University of Singapore, 2011). 27 Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas, Labour Migration in Malaysia and Spain: Markets, Citizenship and Rights (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 64. 28 Rafael Munoz Moreno, Ximena Vanessa Del Carpio, Mauro Testaverde, Harry Edmund Moroz, Loo Carmen, Rebekah Lee Smith, Caglar Ozden, Kamer Karakurum-Ozdemir and Pui Shen Yoong, ‘Malaysia—Economic Monitor: Immigrant Labor’ (The World Bank, 1 December 2015), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/753511468197095162/ Malaysia‑Economic‑monitor‑immigrant‑labor. 29 Ministry of Home Affairs, ‘Current Policies: Foreign Worker Management’, accessed 7 De- cember 2017, http://www.moha.gov.my/index.php/en/bahagian‑pa‑dasar‑dasar‑semasa. 30 Verité, ‘Forced Labor in the Production of Electronic Goods in Malaysia: A Comprehensive Study of Scope and Characteristics’,September 2014, https://www.verite.org/sites/default/ files/images/VeriteForcedLaborMalaysianElectronics2014.pdf. 31 Munoz Moreno et al., ‘Malaysia—Economic Monitor’, 56. 32 Munoz Moreno et al., ‘Malaysia—Economic Monitor’.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 62 franck, brandström arellano and anderson without any further specification as to who these actors were in terms of size, operational range or legal status. A second and important aspect of the Malaysian migration regime is the employer-sponsored work pass system. In order to work in Malaysia, low- skilled labour migrants, or foreign workers as they are officially termed, are required to obtain temporary work passes which are renewable on a yearly basis for up to ten years.33 Such work passes effectively tie the foreign worker to one designated employer and restrict the possibility to change that employer during their stay in Malaysia,34 although those hired through an outsourcing company can (at least in theory) file for a transfer of workplace. The designated employer is further responsible for renewing work passes and for ensuring ‘that foreign workers are deported to their origin countries’ upon the completion or termination of their employment.35 If a worker absconds the employer is obliged to report this to the Immigration Department, who will then ‘black- list’ that worker and confiscate the security bonds that workers have to provide prior to or upon arrival.36 Finally, the Malaysian state response to immigration has been increasingly securitised. This process has involved both discursive and institutional shifts, whereby migrants have become scapegoats for various social disorders and their presence in society increasingly framed as a security threat.37 Convincing the public that the government is in control of this ‘problem’ has also provoked a whole range of new policies geared towards combatting ‘illegal’ immigration and making displays of the state’s sovereignty over its territory. There are several components to this agenda. The first has been to pursue regularisation and expulsion campaigns, which have typically started with a period of amnesty, during which time irregular migrants have been offered the opportunity to ‘voluntarily’ return to their home countries or apply for the required documentation. These have been followed by large-scale and highly publicised expulsion campaigns that function, as Nah38 suggests, as educational and ide- ological instruments to communicate ‘clearly and consistently that irregular

33 Immigration Department of Malaysia, ‘Foreign Worker’, accessed 7 December 2017, http:// www.imi.gov.my/index.php/en/foreign‑worker.html. 34 Nah, ‘Globalisation, Sovereignty and Immigration Control’. 35 Immigration Department of Malaysia, ‘Foreign Worker’. 36 Immigration Department of Malaysia, ‘Foreign Worker’. 37 Alexander R. Arifianto, ‘The Securitization of Transnational Labor Migration: The Case of Malaysia and Indonesia’, Asian Politics & Policy 1, 4 (October 2009): 613–630, https://doi .org/10.1111/j.1943‑0787.2009.01145.x. 38 Alice M. Nah, ‘Legitimizing Violence: The Impact of Public “Crackdowns” on Migrant Workers and Refugees in Malaysia’, Australian Journal of Human Rights 17, 2 (2011): 138.

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 63 migrants are transgressors of the law, a threat to “national security”,and considered enemies of Malaysia’.The latest one of these programmes, known as the 6P programme, was initiated in 2011 and its final stage was launched as the nation’s ‘biggest ever crackdown’, during which half a million ‘unwanted foreigners’ were going to be ‘flushed out’ of the country.39 Second, while the Immigra- tion Department is formally responsible for handling immigration, the Royal Malaysian Police has been granted extensive powers to arrest and detain any- one suspected of violating the Immigration Act.40 Police controls, roadblocks and raids in living areas and workplaces have therefore become a central aspect of migrants’ everyday lives.41 Irregular migrants have also been criminalised— and those found to violate the Immigration Act face fines, imprisonment and detention as well as caning.42

Methodology

The following study forms part of a larger research project on Burmese migrants in Malaysia. The empirical material consists of observations, informal conversations and group interviews in the Burmese migrant community, as well as 31 in-depth interviews with Burmese migrant workers: 15 women and 16 men, between 20 and 45 years of age and mostly belonging to the Myanmar ethnic majority population, the Burmans. In terms of legal status, 18 of our respondents held an irregular status, 11 were regular migrant workers and the remaining two were holders of a UNHCR card.43 The legal status of these respondents was, however, far from ‘stable’. All of those who had entered the country with a regular immigration status had, for example, at some point ‘run away’ from their designated employer and had thus continued to stay irregularly in the

39 The Star, ‘Nation’s Biggest Ever Crackdown Soon’, The Star Online, 28 August 2013, https:// www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2013/08/28/nations‑biggest‑ever‑crackdown‑soon/. 40 Nah, ‘State Power and the Regulation of Non-Citizens: Immigration Laws, Policies, and Practices in Peninsular Malaysia’. 41 Anja K. Franck, ‘A(Nother) Geography of Fear: Burmese Labour Migrants in George Town, Malaysia’, Urban Studies 53, 15 (1 November 2016): 3206–3222, https://doi.org/10.1177/00420 98015613003. 42 Nah, ‘Legitimizing Violence: The Impact of Public “Crackdowns” on Migrant Workers and Refugees in Malaysia’, 139. 43 Given that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on refugee status (1951) or the so-called New York Protocol (1967), the rights of refugees are not recognised. A UNHCR card therefore (in theory) protects the holder from detention and deportation, but does not grant them the right to work.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 64 franck, brandström arellano and anderson country. Some of them had managed to secure a regular status at a later point during one of the amnesty periods, although some had ended up absconding from their employers once more. In fact, as many as 19 out of our 31 respondents had experienced a shift in legal status during the course of their stay in Malaysia—some of them up to six times. In this context, ‘legality’ and ‘illegality’ are thus not easily characterised as distinct categories. Quite to the contrary, and as we will see in sections to come, the migrants in our study not only moved in and out of legal statuses, but also occasionally found themselves between different ‘poles of legality’, experiencing a sort of semi-legal status.44 The continuum of regularity and irregularity displayed in the stories of our respondents provides interesting and important accounts of how migrants actively navigate their migration trajectories to increase their room to manoeuvre,45 as well as how various private actors often play a central role in these processes. Whereas accounts of the migratory process have been featured in all of the interviews conducted in Malaysia over the years, two field visits were explicitly dedicated to investigating migrant trajectories using longitudinal approaches. This essentially meant that we asked the respondents to take us through their entire migratory process, starting from the point of the migratory decision up until the time that the interview took place. Using a map of the region, we encouraged the respondents to identify all the places they visited from the point they left their home community up until their current place of residence, and the actors involved in the process. These interviews usually lasted several hours—sometimes divided into different occasions—and were mostly conducted in the privacy of someone’s home. This did not mean, however, that the interviews were always ‘private’, as migrant worker homes are usually crowded. People would therefore often come and go—and sometimes also get involved in the conversation. Over the course of the fieldwork we worked with two research assistants (themselves migrant workers from Myanmar), who provided the interpretation from Burmese to English and helped seek out respondents from their respec- tive networks. During several field visits we also stayed in the apartment of one of these assistants together with a group of seven migrant workers. This provided the opportunity to get a grasp of everyday life in the migrant community, but was also important for building trust and networks within the Burmese migrant community.

44 See also Lawreniuk and Parsons, ‘After the Exodus’, 357f. 45 See also Susan Bibler Coutin, ‘Cultural Logics of Belonging and Movement: Transnational- ism, Naturalization, and US Immigration Politics’, American Ethnologist 30, 4 (November 2003): 508–526.

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In analysing the collected material, we created timelines, focusing upon identifying which actors had been involved over the course of the trajectory, what function/assets these actors had provided as well as their roles in how migrants navigated the legal framework. While our interest in private actor involvement draws on the work on ‘migration industries’,46 our trajectories approach also prompted a somewhat broader definition of the actors involved in the commercial fervour that surrounds and facilitates the migration process. Based on the migrants’ narratives we have here included all actors that they identified as directly involved in the process. As will become clear in the coming sections, some actors that are usually not included as migration industry actors have therefore been included (for example family members and employers)— while major movers of this industry (such as transnational companies that provide security or control functions on behalf of states) have been excluded.

Leaving Myanmar

For the vast majority of our respondents, economic hardships were cited as the main reason to migrate. While there are several possible destination countries for Burmese migrants, Malaysia often surfaced as a preferable option due to the fact that wages are considerable higher when compared to neighbouring Thai- land, while the cost of recruitment is lower relative to Singapore or countries in the Middle East. Many of our respondents further had some form of pre- vious connection to Malaysia—through family members and/or friends that were either currently working or had previously worked in Malaysia. In the preparatory phase a number of non-state actors proved important for facilitating vital information and services, as well as funds to cover the costs associated with migrating overseas. Looking at Khin’s journey, featured in Fig- ure 1, several formal and informal actors could be identified. As he had made the decision to migrate, ‘a man in his village’ (identified as Actor 1 in the figure) provided him with the contact information for an agency in Yangon (Actor 2) that would organise the journey and necessary paperwork to go to Malaysia. In order to pay this agency for their services, totalling around 800USD, Khin borrowed money from his brother (Actor 3) in exchange for a promise of monthly repay- ments and roughly 100USD in interest. Khin also had to pass a medical test,

46 Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen, The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration; Rubén Hernández-León, Metropolitan Migrants:The Migration of Urban Mexicans to the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 66 franck, brandström arellano and anderson Timeline of Khin’s migration trajectory figure 1

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 68 franck, brandström arellano and anderson and although he actually failed this examination (showing signs of tuberculo- sis) his agency paid the doctor (Actor 4) to falsify the paperwork and declare him healthy. Khin’s experience is fairly typical of those that migrated to Malaysia through formal channels. On the one hand, such stories reveal a clear dependence on the services of private actors. On the other hand, they also demonstrate how informal and formal services overlap and are co-dependent.47 In Khin’s case the contact with a formal agency was for example mediated through ‘a man in his village’—and his brother provided the required funds against the payment of interest. Although family and friends are rarely identified as being part of the migration industry complex,48 our study shows how they play a vital role not only as facilitators of migratory movements but also in the commercial fervour that surrounds it. The ‘enduring distinction’ in the literature between ‘altruistic social networks and profit-oriented networks’ is, in other words, problematic given that ‘profit, trust and empathy’ in reality tend to work together.49 Also, the reason why migrants seek out the services of private brokers and outsourcing companies can be traced back to the complex and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures that surround regular migration.50 But while the involvement of such agents no doubt works to facilitate cross-border labour mobility, it also inflates the costs of migration.51 The 12 respondents in our study that had migrated through formal channels had paid fees ranging up to 1,500USD. In addition to this, and as indicated in Khin’s encounter with the doctor, the migratory process often involves a number of ‘informal fees’ to various public servants involved in the bureaucratic procedures. While Khin stated that his agency had paid the bribe to the doctor, a recent study by Vérite52 found that workers officially recruited from Myanmar to Malaysia paid up to 830USD each in ‘corrupt or improper’ fees. The high costs associated with regular recruitment procedures were an important factor in why many of our respondents said they had taken the

47 See also Lindquist, ‘Labour Recruitment, Circuits of Capital and Gendered Mobility’. 48 Cf. Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen, The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, 8–10. 49 Johan Lindquist, Biao Xiang and Brenda S.A. Yeoh, ‘Opening the Black Box of Migration: Brokers, the Organization of Transnational Mobility and the Changing Political Economy in Asia’, Pacific Affairs 85, 1 (2012): 9. 50 Lindquist et al., ‘Opening the Black Box of Migration’, 14. 51 Bélanger, ‘Labor Migration and Trafficking among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia’. 52 Verité, ‘An Exploratory Study on the Role of Corruption in International Labor Migration’ (The Freedom Fund, January 2016), 11, https://www.verite.org/wp‑content/uploads/2016/ 11/Verite‑Report‑Intl‑Labour‑Recruitment.pdf.

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 69 decision to migrate through irregular channels. All but one of the 18 respondents that migrated irregularly to Malaysia had used the services of what they referred to as ‘informal agencies’ to organise their journey, often buying some form of ‘all-inclusive ticket’ from their home town to their destination in Malaysia. While this was cheaper relative to the formal option, many still had to take loans to cover the costs. Apart from helping solicit the funds to go, family members and friends were often directly involved in the migratory process, and in several cases family members already present in Malaysia had made the arrangement with the informal agencies.

Travelling to Malaysia

There were major differences in the number of actors involved in regular and irregular travel to Malaysia. Whereas those that travelled through regular channels went directly via air from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur or Penang, those travelling through irregular channels often spoke of a significant number of actors involved in transporting them via Thailand to Malaysia. Even though the migrants had bought ‘all-inclusive’ packages with agencies in Yangon, once on the road a whole myriad of seemingly well-coordinated actors were involved in the process. Looking at YinYin’s journey from Malaysia, captured in Figure 2, such actors included not only various car and boat drivers that transported the group she was travelling with (Actors 3, 5, 7 and 9), but also agency representa- tives that provided guidance during the journey, accompanied the group during border crossings and organised the reception upon arrival (Actors 4, 6 and 8). Although journeys like this often included both mental and physical hardships, most informal agencies had delivered what was agreed: transportation and drop-off in Malaysia. There were, however, a few cases where the migrant had been deceived during the journey, and in one case a woman had upon arrival in Malaysia been sold to a brothel. Her case, again, reveals the prob- lems of perceiving personal networks as inherently ‘altruistic’53—as it was her childhood friend from the home village that lured her into this trafficking-like situation. It is further important to note that beyond organising transportation, private actors play a very direct role in facilitating both formal and informal border crossings. Many of those travelling irregularly were for example unaware of when and where they had crossed the border—as they were travelling in the

53 Lindquist et al., ‘Opening the Black Box of Migration’, 9.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 70 franck, brandström arellano and anderson boot of a car or in the luggage compartment under a bus. It was thus the smugglers’ decisions when and where the border crossing would be made, and after the crossing migrants were simply informed that ‘now you are in Malaysia’. Although the procedure was somewhat different for those travelling through formal channels, a number of regular migrants also spoke of having crossed the border ‘via proxy’. Khin, for example, explained that he never actually per- sonally dealt with immigration upon arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Instead, he and his group had been taken to a separate waiting area— which the migrants referred to as a kind of ‘prison’—to await their agency representative. Once the agency representative arrived, all the passports were collected in order for the agency to process these documents collectively through immigration control. As Khin was taken past the immigration officials he was fingerprinted, but he never spoke to the border guards. ‘“No need,” our inter- preter who had been through the same procedure explained, “the agency cov- ered [it all]. Bom bom bom, you give your fingerprint and then out.”’ What is interesting about the above is that it illustrates how private actors come to mediate migrant workers’ relationship to the state. While much of the modern migration system is established on the basis that it is individuals with verifiable identities who move across borders and that it is passports which guarantee both that identity and its permitted mobility,54 this mass processing cleaves the corporeal individual from their paper existence. The migrants we spoke to about this arrangement stated that the agency representative was in fact essential to them being released from the holding area they were taken to. In some cases, depending on the type of visa that had been issued, migrants did pass the immigration control on their own. In some of these cases agencies provided them with so-called ‘show money’—a significant enough quantity of funds that could be shown in immigration control as assurance of their ability to support themselves—which was then handed back to the agency on the other side of the gate.

Staying/Remaining in Malaysia

Navigating the Continuum of Legality and Illegality Whereas the relationship between a migrant and an informal agency (smug- gler) mostly ended upon arrival in Malaysia, migrants’ relationship to formal

54 John Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State, Cam- bridge Studies in Law and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 71 recruitment/outsourcing companies tended to continue. There were essentially two ways in which this relationship played out: (a) the worker was outsourced to an employer, in which case the agency continued to function as the formal employer, or (b) the recruitment company handed the worker over to a formal employer. For migrant workers both options presented difficulties— and a key problem identified was that neither agencies nor employers delivered on promises made in the contracts signed (or verbally agreed to) with the agencies in Myanmar.55 Pursuing action against employers and recruitment agents was, however, often difficult as outsourcing agents would, for example, dismiss claims regarding inconsistences in contracts on the grounds that they had not been part of drafting the original. Employers would, on the other hand, avoid responsibility through referring to the fact that the outsourcing agent was actually the formal employer.56 While state policies clearly played a fundamental role in creating the context under which these migrants could become coerced into working under conditions that they had not actually agreed to,57 none of the interviewed migrants viewed it as a viable option to contact the Malaysian authorities in cases of abuse. This is indicative of the way that the state through subcontracting to private actors is able to shield itself from responsibility for workers’ conditions.58 The empirical material revealed several ways in which the combined effect of state policy and privatisation worked to decrease foreign workers’ room to manoeuvre. First, the outsourcing system significantly inflates the costs associated with migration (see above). Upon arrival in Malaysia the migrants were often heavily indebted, and before settling such debt they were unable to return to their home communities.59 Importantly, however, the current system also inflates the costs of hiring foreign labour, where government fees alone (paid to the Immigration Department) range from around 200USD up to 880USD, depending on sector of employment and nationality of the worker.60 In addi-

55 See also Vicki Crinis, ‘Sweat or No Sweat: Foreign Workers in the Garment Industry in Malaysia’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 40, 4 (1 November 2010): 589–611, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/00472336.2010.507046. 56 Anja K. Franck and Emanuelle Brandström Arellano, ‘“IThink Every Boss in MalaysiaTreat Me like a Slave”: Non-Citizenship and Experiences of Forced Labor in Malaysia’ (Southeast Asian Studies Symposium, University of Oxford, UK, 2014). 57 Bélanger, ‘Labor Migration and Trafficking among Vietnamese Migrants in Asia’. 58 Kemp and Raijman, ‘Bringing in State Regulations, Private Brokers, and Local Employers’, 607. 59 Bélanger, ‘Labor Migration andTrafficking amongVietnamese Migrants in Asia’; Lê, ‘ANew Portrait of Indentured Labour’. 60 Malaysian Employers Federation, ‘Practical Guidelines for Employers on the Recruitment,

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 72 franck, brandström arellano and anderson tion, a World Bank report indicates that outsourcing companies may charge employer companies in Malaysia twice the amount that is actually paid to workers in wages.61 In order to protect their investment, employers resort to a range of coercive measures to prevent workers from absconding—one of the more common methods being to confiscate the migrants’ passports and identity documents. Second, migrant workers do not have any real possibility of changing their employer once they have arrived in Malaysia. They therefore depend on their designated employer to retain their legal status. Third, and relatedly, ‘the legal production of illegality’ in Malaysia62 effectively discour- ages newly arrived migrants from leaving their designated employers to find work ‘illegally’. As we will see, however, after some time in Malaysia many regular migrants nonetheless make the decision to abscond from their employers, although during periods of amnesty some of these migrants decided to become regularised again. What is interesting about this, as noted also in Selby’s63 work from Thailand, is that legal status is not necessarily the most important factor for migrants’ sense of vulnerability. Instead, they navigate the legal framework in ways that enable them to increase their room to manoeuvre and enjoy less abusive employment relationships,64 and in such processes, legal status is viewed ‘within a wider context of power, protection and support’.65 In order to navigate the legal framework in this way, as revealed in Khin’s story below, the migrants often rely on the workings of private actors, such as friends within their network, employers and private agencies. Following Khin’s timeline in Figure 1 we see that upon arriving in Malaysia he was taken to a house owned by his Malaysian agency (Actor 5 in the figure). Following a week’s stay in this house, during which time the agency sorted out all of the bureaucracy, he was presented with a job in a tile shop. Around

Placement, Employment and Repatriation of Foreign Workers in Malaysia’, December 2014, 41, http://www.mef.org.my/Attachments/MEFReport_PGERPERFWM.pdf. 61 Munoz Moreno et al., ‘Malaysia—Economic Monitor’, 57. 62 Nicholas P. De Genova, ‘Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life’, Annual Review of Anthropology 31, 1 (2002): 419–447, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040 402.085432; Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas, ‘Legal Production of Illegality in a Comparative Perspective. The Cases of Malaysia and Spain’, Asia Europe Journal 8, 1 (June 2010): 77–89, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308‑010‑0249‑8. 63 Don Selby, ‘Patronage, Face, Vulnerability: Articulations of Human Rights in Thailand’,The International Journal of Human Rights 16, 2 (1 February 2012): 378–400, https://doi.org/10 .1080/13642987.2011.566415. 64 See also Olivia Killias, ‘“Illegal” Migration as Resistance: Legality, Morality and Coercion in Indonesian Domestic Worker Migration to Malaysia’, Asian Journal of Social Science 38, 6 (1 January 2010): 897–914, https://doi.org/10.1163/156853110X530796. 65 Lawreniuk and Parsons, ‘After the Exodus’, 365.

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 73 the same time the agency handed Khin’s passport over to the owner of the tile shop (Actor 6), who kept it as a sort of ‘insurance’ in order to prevent Khin from absconding. Two years later, following a number of conflicts between him and his employer regarding the working conditions, Khin wanted to switch employment. Bringing this problem to his agency he was threatened with deportation. In fact, Khin says, the employer and the agency had already organised his ticket to return to Myanmar. For Khin, returning to Myanmar was not an option and he instead ‘ran away’ from his employer. With the help of a friend (Actor 7) he found employment in a restaurant (Actor 8). The fact that he had absconded also meant that he now remained and worked ‘illegally’ in Malaysia. Through an advertisement on the ongoing regularisation programme (called the 6P) in one of the Burmese newspapers in Malaysia (Actor 10) Khin, with the help of some friends (Actor 9), found information on how to proceed with an application for a new passport and work permit. In order to do this, however, an employer had to sponsor his application. After his employer at the restaurant had agreed to do this, in exchange for around 110USD, they approached an agency (Actor 11) that could organise the paperwork. At the time this agency had set up a stall at Komtar, the shopping centre in downtown George Town where the Burmese migrant community go to do their shopping and remit money back home (the so-called ‘Burma shops’, Actor 15 in Figure 1). He paid the agency over 1,100USD for the procedure. One year later the paperwork had to be renewed, for which he once more paid the agency close to 800USD and his employer another 110USD. In light of the high fees associated with renewing the permit Khin decided that it was no longer worth it. A friend (Actor 12) then provided the contact to an employer that would hire ‘illegal workers’, a phone shop owner where Khin worked at the time of our meeting. Like so many others, Khin thus moved in and out of legal jurisdiction during his time in Malaysia and various private actors were vital to facilitate such movements. While brokers recruiting labour abroad have often received the greatest attention in the literature, Khin’s timeline reveals how there are a number of additional private agents/agencies that are used for various purposes throughout the stay in Malaysia. Apart from friends who provided essential information about bureaucratic procedures and connections with prospective employers, these actors included magazines that target the Burmese migrant worker community, private agents that help migrants navigate the regularisation procedures and agencies that organise the informal transfer of remittances back to Myanmar (the so-called hundies). Curiously, within migration industry literature, even as brokers, recruiters and visa agents are considered quintessential aspects of the migration industry, employers are rarely included in conceptualisations of the migration industry

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 74 franck, brandström arellano and anderson and models of migrant movement.66 However, as Rodriguez argues: ‘employers play important, if not critical, roles in the development of immigrant labor streams, ranging from passive hirer to central organizer. Regardless of their level of action, all employers function as gatekeepers to the labor market’.67 Beyond this critical gatekeeping role, employers are central to obtaining/retain- ing legal status and are also frequently involved in provisioning a variety of other services, such as food, housing and capital, which facilitate migrants’ stay in host countries and/or assist their eventual return home.68 Given this, we find it important for employers to also be considered part of the migration industry.

Not Having an Agency until It’s Needed Khin’s story is illustrative of the way that private actors were also employed to remedy troublesome situations created by the involvement of other private actors. As his agency and employer collaborated, confiscated his passports and threatened him with deportation, other actors were used as a way to solve his problem: offering employment and services that would allow him to apply for a new work permit. But, as illustrated in the trajectories literature,69 the aspirations of migrants may change over the course of the migration process due to a combination of factors relating to their ‘individual characteristics’ as well as the ‘common emigration environment’.70 In our work this was visible in that during particular periods, for example during major crackdowns on ‘illegal’ immigration, migrants were particularly interested in regularising their status, most commonly because the conditions of ‘illegality’ had become too complicated or frightening to master. During other periods, or with additional experience, the regularisation process could seem to not be a worthwhile endeavour. Khin, for example, decided not to pursue a second renewal of his work permit, as the higher wages earned as a regular migrant would no longer compensate for the high costs associated with the regularisation process. The way that migrants strategically use private agencies to further their objectives was also visible in other ways. Some migrants, for example, ex-

66 But see Fred Krissman, ‘Sin Coyote Ni Patrón: Why the “Migrant Network” Fails to Explain International Migration’, The International Migration Review 39, 1 (2005): 4–44; David Spener, ‘Critical Reflections on the Migration Industry Concept’ (Migration in the Pacific Rim, University of California at Los Angeles, 2009), http://www.trinity.edu/dspener/ clandestinecrossings/related%20articles/migration%20industry.pdf. 67 Nestor Rodriguez, ‘“Workers Wanted”: Employer Recruitment of Immigrant Labor’, Work and Occupations 31, 4 (1 November 2004): 453, https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888404268870. 68 See also Lawreniuk and Parsons, ‘After the Exodus’. 69 See Schapendonk, ‘Turbulent Trajectories’. 70 Carling, ‘Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immobility’, 13.

European Journal of East AsianDownloaded Studies from 17 Brill.com10/04/2021 (2018) 55–82 05:29:56PM via free access navigating migrant trajectories through private actors 75 plained that they had paid private agencies in order to put the agency’s (company) name as their ‘employer’ when filing for a new work permit. Through this they were thus able to obtain a semi-regular status while maintaining the right to choose (and change) their own employers. YinYin’s story provides an interesting example of how private actors were used very strategically. As she successfully built up her business—through working double shifts with different employers as an ‘illegal’ worker and finally buying the food hawker stall she was working in (Actors 10, 11 and 12 in her timeline)—she had no need for the services of agencies. Asked if she had employed the services of an agency while in Malaysia her response was simply: ‘What for? What do I need an agency for?’ But, as we will see in the next section, once she had taken the decision to go back to Myanmar, YinYin expressed that she needed an agency in order to make a regular (legal) return journey possible. In our material there were further examples of migrants who had started their own businesses or worked for companies in the migration industry complex. One respondent, for example, ran an informal agency that organised returns to Myanmar for his fellow citizens. Another respondent ran a small company that did outsourced work for the Myanmar Embassy in detention camps, and another did some occasional work for his elder brother who ran an informal remittances company (a hundi). While this speaks to the need to further problematise stereotyped notions of migrants as ‘victims’ and migration industry actors as ‘perpetrators’,71 our respondents fairly unanimously conveyed a deep-rooted suspicion and scepticism towards the private agencies/companies that supply services to migrants and their employers. Many stated that such outsourcing agencies systematically sided with employers in case of conflicts and lied to migrant workers in order to make the most money. Not having to depend on an agency was therefore seen as one of the major advantages of living as an irregular migrant. While ‘illegality’ certainly presents some major challenges in everyday life, the freedom of not having to depend on an agency and being able to choose and change employer for many thus seemed to outweigh the advantages of being regular. As such, illegality was sometimes a deliberate choice—aimed to increase the room to manoeuvre and avoid exploitation.72

71 For similar reasoning around the view of ‘brokers’, see Lindquist et al., ‘Opening the Black Box of Migration’. 72 See also Killias, ‘“Illegal” Migration as Resistance’; Pei-Chai Lan, ‘Legal Servitude and Free Illegality: Migrant “Guest” Workers in Taiwan’, in Asian Diasporas: New Formations, New Conceptions, ed. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas and Lok C.D. Siu (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer- sity Press, 2007), 253–277; Garcés-Mascareñas, ‘Legal Production of Illegality in a Compar-

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 76 franck, brandström arellano and anderson

Returning to Myanmar

After nearly four and a half years in Malaysia, during which time she had sup- ported her husband and four children back home, YinYin was at the time of our interview set on returning to Myanmar. But, she told us, ‘I do not want to go back underground [irregularly]. I am scared [of that] … So many people came this [the illegal] way and I heard so many stories of difficult experiences.’ In order to return to Myanmar via air, she therefore wanted to regularise her status. She found information on how to do this via the Burmese magazines (Actor 15 in Figure 2) and together with a friend (Actor 16), who was familiar with the proceedings, she went to Kuala Lumpur to visit the Myanmar Embassy. She also employed the services of an agent that could organise the paperwork (Agent 17). Interestingly, it was thus not until she was returning home that YinYin per- ceived it useful to employ the services of an agency. Several of the migrants interviewed, like YinYin, were making preparations to return to Myanmar. Several others had already travelled back to Myanmar for shorter or longer periods, before once more returning to Malaysia. The stories of these migrants reveal—yet again—how private actors are utilised throughout the entire migration process. In some cases, migrants had also returned to Myanmar as a means to become regularised. One respondent, for example, explained that his employer, following increasing crackdowns on ‘illegal’ migrants, ‘sponsored’ (through a loan) the respondent’s journey in order for him to return as a regular migrant worker. For regular migrants, transportation back to Myanmar was organised through their recruitment or outsourcing agency. Those travelling back ‘illegally’ utilised informal agencies (smugglers) and would often be picked up in vans or cars at their residence and be transported to the Thai border where new actors ‘took over’. The stories of those that travelled in this way illustrate how the lines between formal and informal actors and practices overlap.73 Several of the respondents, for example, stated that the informal agents collaborated with Thai authorities, particularly the police. Thai authorities, several migrants told us, transported them across Thailand and once at the border crossing to Myanmar provided them with instructions on how to bypass Myanmar border authorities. A few migrants also sent us images from their phones during the actual journey, starting with being smuggled across the Malaysia–Thai border,

ative Perspective.The Cases of Malaysia and Spain’; Garcés-Mascareñas, Labour Migration in Malaysia and Spain. 73 See also Lindquist, ‘Labour Recruitment, Circuits of Capital and Gendered Mobility’.

Conclusions

The migrant trajectories presented here suggest that a shift is required in terms of how the migration industry is understood in relation to the lives of migrants. First, the trajectories approach makes visible the way private actors play a central role during the entire migration process: during the preparatory and mobility phases as well as during stay and possible return back home. A focus upon all of these phases further has implications for the kinds of actors considered to be part of the migration industry. As we have shown, familial and relational networks, while long considered part of what facilitates international migration, are not always altruistic and the support of this network may also come with expectations of remuneration. Employers too, while recognised for creating demand for workers, have frequently been overlooked for the more central role they play in various stages of the entire migration process. From recruiting and selecting workers to providing essential legalisation documents, food, housing and capital, activities for which they often charge additional fees, employers play a central role in the overall migration industry. Inherent to our reading of the trajectories approach is further the recogni- tion that migrants are not mere helpless victims during the migration process.74 Quite to the contrary, our examination has shown how migrants navigate the migration regime in order to increase their room to manoeuvre. Part of this is that migrants also strategically use private actors—or, equally important, do not use them—at different moments in order to achieve particular goals. Khin used agents and employers at one point to regularise his migration status, but later made the choice not to use them, finding the benefits of regularisation did not outweigh the costs. For YinYin, visa agents were only used at the very end of her stay as it was only at that point that the advantages afforded by regularisation were worth the fees. By drawing on more expansive migrant trajectories that include not just their initial migration but the various actions taken throughout their stay, a more nuanced understanding of their choices is possible. We believe that such analysis is useful not only for deepening our thinking about the composition of the migration industry, but also for understand-

74 Ho, ‘Migration Trajectories of “Highly Skilled” Middling Transnationals’.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 55–82 from Brill.com10/04/2021 05:29:56PM via free access 78 franck, brandström arellano and anderson ing the ways in which migrant agency shapes the interactions between workers and the industry. Even as they are often sources of worker abuse, visa agents and brokers are also tools employed strategically by migrants at various moments. An understanding of this helps deepen and nuance our understanding of the dynamics that exist between migrants and migration industry actors. The experience of migrants with migration industry actors is also sugges- tive of the ways in which state power is translated into action as the state seeks to govern migrants. Migration industry actors, backed by the state, exert considerable control over migrants. However, the ability of migrants to switch between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ status, and the susceptibility of various actors to bribes and fees that make such moves possible, suggests that the projection of state power over both migration and migrants can be altered by the particular ways in which migrants and the industry interact. Even as outsourcing affords the state new pathways to reinforce its sovereignty over migration through the outsourcing of certain functions to private actors, this power is not absolute. Recalling Castles and Miller’s characterisation of the migration industry as a ‘meso-structure’75 lying between states and individuals, this perspective opens an important avenue in thinking about how the industry is shaped not just by states from above, but also by migrants from below.

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