Introduction: Globalization and Migrant Workers in Asia

1 Introduction Globalization and migrant workers in Asia Kevin Hewison and Ken Young Migration, especially for work, is a major issue for the twenty-first century. The scale of the transnational movement of workers is huge. While accurate statistics are not easy to locate, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are roughly 96 million ‘migrant workers, immigrants and members of their families’ worldwide, with a remarkably conservative estimate of seven million in South and East Asia (ILO 2002). The ILO estimates that the rate of growth of the world’s migrant population more than doubled between the 1960s and the 1990s, with much of this growth having originated from developing countries and regions. Migration for work has become a central – albeit a contested – element of the current phase of globalization. Migration is as old as human society itself, and has been a significant element shaping Asian societies in the past. The current phase of migration takes place in a unique context. Indeed, labour migration, both domestic and transnational, is a crucial element in the vast and complex social and economic transformation that is taking place in Asia that involves pressure-cooked processes of industrial- ization and urbanization, each taking place within a new phase of capitalist globalization that has seen remarkable increases in trade and investment flows. These processes are changing the Asian world as we have known it at a pace unmatched in any country or region that has experienced these changes in the past. No one volume could hope to adequately address labour migration issues within such a changing context in their entirety. The scope of this volume remains broad, but of necessity it is also selective. Many mainstream issues and cases are addressed, but we have also endeavoured to gain comparative insights by offering studies of cases that have been relatively neglected until now. With the exception of Nepal as a source country for migrants to Hong Kong, our case studies are confined to East and Southeast Asia. Our analysis of transnational labour flows has concentrated on the movement of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. While others have analysed the migration of professionals (see, for example, Iredale 2001), we have focused on the workers who are not only moving in increasing numbers, but are critical for development in the region. In addition, from the 1980s onwards there has been a significant feminization of transnational labour recruitment (see Medel-Anonuevo 1996), so we give considerable, although not exclusive, attention to the experiences of women workers. 2 Kevin Hewison and Ken Young While large-scale labour migration is clearly part of sustained, dynamic historical processes, the forms it takes, and the experiences of the workers themselves, vary considerably. The impacts of globalization and other endogenous national trans- formations are uneven. They vary between economic sectors, and their conse- quences for society in general and workers in particular are subject to many localized political and historical influences. It therefore was plain to us that our cross-disciplinary analyses needed to contextualize recent labour flows in terms of history, gender and cultural landscape. Moreover, in collaborative reviews of our developing research, the contributors readily agreed that it was desirable to address the ‘life-cycle’ of migrant labour. The advantages of this approach apply more generally, but are particularly significant in the investigation of the prevailing contractual, legal and personal situations of contemporary transnational workers (such as Thais, Filipinas and Nepalis in Hong Kong, Indonesians in Taiwan and Lao and Burmese in Thailand). While our case studies are concerned for the most part with the experiences of ‘foreign’ workers, our life-cycle emphasis reveals that in many cases international migration for work belongs to patterns of economically stimulated movements that often develop initially within a national setting, leading on, at a later stage, to transnational job-seeking. Here, as in other respects, the development of networks has been important. The remarkable mobility of labour in Asia is also illustrated by the frequency with which migration flows are ‘serial’ in nature. By this we mean that the flows of workers out of a country or region are offset by complementary inflows from yet other sources – thus, for example, Thai workers may migrate to Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong in search of higher-paid opportunities, while Cambodians, Laos and Burmese migrate to Thailand to take the same kinds of jobs Thais do overseas (e.g. as domestic workers or construction workers). Attention to context, in all its dimensions and variation, is necessary to bring into view the full range of outcomes that migrants experience as frequently mar- ginalized participants in the economy and society of receiving countries. We examine in detail the networks, mechanisms and actors involved with labour migration and human trafficking, including families, brokers, remittances, debts, smuggling, state agencies and so on. Through an understanding of the life-cycle of migration and work, the volume presents sociologically developed accounts of workers’ experiences. We submit that such studies can reveal much that is neglected in statistically obsessed research, and bring to light aspects of the motivation and rationality of migrants and others that are otherwise lost in the simplistic reductionisms of ‘market’ and demographic analyses. One of the qualities that distinguish the patterns of migration of skilled and semi-skilled workers from other classes of migrants, notably the internationally seamless movement of professionals and executives, is the extraordinary, if not always successful, effort that is directed towards the control and regulation of poorer workers by employers and states. While many migrant communities have developed networks that are very effective in meeting some of the needs of migrants, on the legal and political level workers remain disorganized. Often this Introduction 3 disorganization is a policy pursued by the state, as in the case of the Thai state, which excludes migrant workers from coverage by labour laws. Indeed, in many cases migrants lack the full range of political and other rights available to citizens. In addition, many migrant workers are indebted to labour agents and financial institutions, and face the prospect of expulsion for breaches of an unfamiliar legal system. As mentioned, states have played a major role in this process, as they do in facilitating the advance of globalization more generally. Obviously, receiving states strive to regulate and direct the influx of skilled workers, to define their lim- ited legal entitlements and to set clear boundaries that, in most places, exclude migrant workers from many of the rights and protections enjoyed by citizens. Sending states also play a highly significant part, both in regulating and in encour- aging these labour flows, though they cannot be seen, for obvious political reasons, to exhibit an orientation that is perceived as punitive. Since the flow of remittances from wealthy labour-importing regions to poorer countries and regions frequently makes a major contribution to foreign exchange earnings and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of sending countries, migration poses far-reaching social, economic and legal policy issues for them as well. Control of migrant labour is by no means an exclusive concern of governments. Employers, recruitment agents and labour brokers (in both sending and receiving countries), lawyers, training organizations, money lenders, banks and credit agencies, smugglers, bureaucrats and a wide variety of other intermediaries all seek to gain from the transnational flow of workers. As our studies show, cultural constructs, stereotypes of migrant groups and of ethnic-national ‘characteristics’ perpetuated both by word of mouth and by news media, are integrated into the expectations of employers and invoked as part of rationales that seek to justify the regulatory regimes that migrants encounter. Workers have developed a variety of means for coping with, and even partially evading, some aspects of these control mechanisms. Their own kin and community networks, supplemented in varying degrees by ethnic, religious and national support groups and by energetic non- governmental organizations (NGOs) – both local and transnational – do provide them with significant resources. However, the overwhelming balance of all these institutionalized controls leaves migrant workers in a largely disorganized and frequently vulnerable state. Thus issues of human and labour rights and lack of effective organization remain as major concerns. Some key issues of this nature are addressed in the third part of this volume. Some of our contributions concentrate on wider issues of labour migration while others offer more detailed comparative analyses of particular cases, but all are concerned with both general trends and with understanding the ways in which these trends have operated in a variety of sub-regional contexts. Both the specific operation of state policies and local cultural and institutional mechanisms are addressed, and, in that context, human rights issues related to labour migration and trafficking are identified. To achieve these aims, the collection develops both theoretical discussions (Part I, Chapters 2–3) and a series of cases. In developing the

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