Governing regional migration from the ‘bottom-up’: a nodal approach to the role of transnational activist networks in Asia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the emerging regional governance of migration from the perspective of migrant rights activists and their strategies in advancing a rights-based framework in contrast to the ‘management’ (i.e. control-centred) approach typically championed by states. The key objective is to use the study of civil society activism, through its nodes and networks, to develop a ‘bottom-up’ approach as an alternative to the dominant perspective taken on multilateral migration governance thus far. Drawing on Regulatory Theory, we conceive migration policy as a dynamic process that occurs at multiple levels involving a broad spectrum of institutional actors. In stressing the importance of the increasingly networked form that policy and political interventions are taking, our paper proposes a nodal account of migration governance which is applied specifically to civil society organisations’ attempts to influence governance. Our empirical focus is the case of one key protagonist in the sphere of migrant rights advocacy, the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), which constitutes the largest network of migrant rights organisations spanning countries of origin and destination across most of Asia. Its central role, as we argue, is that of an interlocutor between intersecting and interacting organisational networks. In this sense, it takes on a ‘nodal’ function.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional migration governance
• Asia
• transnational activism
• networks
• nodes
• bottom-up approach

Introduction

Regional migration governance in Asia is a fairly recent phenomenon in policy discourses and as the topic for research. This stands in marked contrast to the long-standing relevance of intra-regional migration corridors in Asia (Battistella 2014). Asia has also been a laboratory of formalised policy frameworks regulating the cross-border movement of workers for decades (Huguet 2016). The dominant mode of regulation occurs in the form of bilateral agreements and concerns strictly temporary contract migration, assisted by a mostly privatised recruitment industry (Jones and Sha 2020). The specific hardships that arise from this scenario for many migrants have given rise to the formation of migrant rights organisations in countries of origin and destination, many of which are part of transnational networks connecting most parts of Asia. Given the temporary nature of labour migration into mostly low-wage types of work assisted by a vast recruitment industry, advocacy organisations and their networks have developed a region-specific understanding of a rights-based approach to migration governance that echoes the ILO’s decent work concept in a holistic manner, including pre-departure, overseas deployment to return (Piper and Rother 2012, 2020).

The central theme of our paper is the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in promoting an alternative approach to the governance of labour migration from a regional perspective, that is, applied to CSOs based in Asia engaging in multi-level, multi-sited advocacy aimed at enhancing protection for intra-Asian labour migrants. Conceptually, our paper is premised on the regulation theory, which conceives of regulation as a dynamic process that occurs at multiple levels and sites, involving a broad spectrum of actors with varying capacities and means of intervention (Drahos 2017)¹). This theory stresses the importance of the increasingly networked form that policy and political interventions are taking. In the field of migration policy, different actors prioritise different regulatory outcomes. The key differentiation is between ‘rules-based’ regulation as evident from the ‘management migration’ approach championed by governments, versus ‘rights-based’ regulation that prioritises the well-being and dignity of migrants and which is at the heart of the advocacy efforts by migrant rights organisations. The rights-based approach blurs the distinction between regulation with its focus on actors and modes of intervention on the one hand and the normative attributes of institutions as highlighted by the concept of governance on the other hand (Drahos 2017). We argue that the act of steering the state-led migration governance project that is narrowly concerned with ‘management’ towards a rights-based approach requires proactive enlargement of transnational activist networks and sustained engagement with other nodal actors in order to assert influence on policy outcomes at key sites of migration governance.

Empirically, our discussion emanates from the perspective of one key proponent of the rights-based regulation, the region-wide migrant rights network the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA). The MFA comprises primarily grassroots organisations located in countries defined as origin and destinations of migration, spanning the key migration corridors for temporary employer-tied workers in Asia, that is, between West (the Gulf), South and Southeast Asia. The MFA concerns itself primarily with the situation of temporary low-wage migrant workers who represent the majority of migrants who move intra-regionally. Our central research question concerns how the MFA uses the network form to rectify the precarious ‘labour’ situation of migrants on the regional governing level. We will argue that network expansion (internal membership recruitment) and network engagement (external relationship building with other nodal actors) are central dimensions leading to consolidation and intensification of efforts. Network expansion and engagement are used to influence processes at key governing sites (such as regional consultation processes) and thus lead to the amplification of efforts or nodalisation. These dynamics are captured by the concept of nodal governance.

In the following section, we first situate the regulation of labour migration within the broader field of migration governance studies. We will provide a conceptual overview of the place of regional perspectives in relation to the broader phenomenon of migration governance and highlight what the Asian experience brings to this debate. The section thereafter discusses our nodal approach to migration governance highlighting the significance of interactions between a variety of actors. This is followed by the empirically informed part, which illustrates these points on the basis of a detailed discussion of the MFA and its multi-dimensional networking activities, resulting in a dynamic process of nodalisation, as we will argue. In this empirical section, we draw from more than a decade of research on MFAs’ advocacy activities, formal and informal interviews with network members and analysis of the various reports and documentations issued by the network. In the short conclusion, we highlight potential future lines of inquiry.

Governance of labour migration: a regional perspective

The study of migration from a governance perspective has become a topic of rising interest. To date, most analyses relate to the global inter-state level or in relation to the workings of selected international organisations (Basok and Piper 2012). The study of civil society engagement with state-led governance systems is still in its infancy but beginning to gain more scholarly attention (Chavez 2015; Schierup et al. 2019; Bisong 2022). Regions as sites of institutionalisation of migration as a policy field also still constitute a fairly under-researched topic, subject to a few studies (Geddes et al. 2019; Lavenex 2019) in which the role of civil society has received very limited attention.

In the few studies that exist on regional institutions, they have been attributed various functions in migration governance. It has been argued, for instance, that compared to the global level, the regional level is more conducive to the realisation of greater freedom to cross-border mobility (Deacon et al. 2011). Other perspectives view the regional level as a preliminary step towards a truly global approach and framework to migration governance (Nita et al. 2017) or as an integral part of multi-level migration governance (Lavenex 2019). Many of these approaches are based on the assumption that geographical proximity, shared historical experiences, and existing institutions such as regional multilateral organisations could provide a foundation for cooperation between states (Lavenex and Piper 2022) – notwithstanding that they might have different if not opposing interests in relation to their (self-)classification as primary countries of origin, transit or destination.

There are a number of reasons which warrant our focus on Asia. As a region, it has been a lively laboratory for state-civil society dynamics in relation to an evolving multilateral approach to migration. It is the world’s most populous region, with a fast-growing labour force in some sub-regions. Given its huge diversity in terms of growth trends and income disparities across different countries, intra-regional migration has been and will remain an important livelihood strategy. Most governments that consider themselves primarily as ‘origins’ of migrant labour in South and Southeast Asia have come to promote outflows of migrant workers by signing Memoranda of Understanding and setting annual deployment quotas, for instance. Although the key migrant-receiving countries, in particular Malaysia, officially speak of the desire to reduce migration (or tackling dependency on specific origin countries such as in Singapore and some Gulf states), there is little sign that they have managed to do so. The ‘permanence’ of temporary migration in structural terms is in line with the practice of using migration to foster development through remittances and skills transfer in origin countries on the one hand, and the use of low-wage labour to fill vacant jobs in sectors viewed as undesirable by the general public in destination countries on the other hand (Withers 2019). To this end, administrative structures and policy frameworks regulating migration have gradually been put in place. The well-established regulatory system of the Philippines and its ‘migrant export’ policy (Rodriguez 2010) has been promoted as a model for other origin countries in the South (especially Bangladesh) and Southeast Asia. For advocacy organisations, the Philippines have also served as a model given the depth and breadth of migrant rights advocacy efforts leading to numerous positive outcomes (Chavez and Piper 2015).

Yet, there are huge gaps regarding the protection of migrant rights on the part of both origin and destination countries. Employer-tied temporary migration schemes, buttressed by an extensive web of recruitment agencies, the so-called migration industry (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen 2013), have been the standard practice in the sub-regions of Asia for decades (Farbenblum 2017). They revolve largely around securing a steady supply of disposable workers for seasonal and temporary industry-specific (in the typical sectors, for example, construction, agriculture and manufacturing) and care or domestic work at the low-skill and low-wage end where most of rights abuses occur. A vibrant and expanding migrant rights sector has developed to address such issues at the national, regional and global levels. Here, we focus on this sector’s regional ‘rights’ work.

For migrant rights activists in Asia, two concerns have arisen from the gradual emergence of multilateral governance of labour migration: (1) in institutional or process-related terms, governance of labour migration has offered limited channels for participation, affecting activists’ ability to represent their constituencies effectively in various fora or processes that come with a variety of participatory formats. This is compounded by the multiplication of governing sites in terms of geography and level. The second (2) concern relates to substance, that is, the dominant, managerialist approach to migration policy that focuses on placement of migrant workers, rather than addressing hiring and employment practices by employers and recruiters in relation to labour standards and labour rights (Piper, Rosewarne, and Withers 2017). This disconnect between the dominant form of migration governance preoccupied with deployment (‘migration management’) neglecting to address inferior if not abusive working conditions and labour standards (‘labour governance’) is what activists have begun to address in their alternative vision to labour migration governance: the rights-based approach. The network form is thereby a vital strategy that is taking on increasing complexity.

By taking migrant rights activism as the starting point, this paper develops a distinct ‘bottom-up’ perspective to the dominant depiction in most existing analyses of multilateral migration governance as state-led. We do so in order to demonstrate that the emerging project of migration governance as the product of inter-governmental processes is contested and responded to by civil society organisations and their networks on the basis of their own visions of what migration governance should look like and how it should function (Lavenex and Piper 2022).

Nodal governance of migration: beyond a state-centric approach

Despite being recognised and acknowledged as one of the key global challenges, migration remains one of the bastions of national sovereignty, with states holding on dearly to the right to determine admission of non-citizens. Yet, migration policy has not been unaffected by the trend over the past decades that has led to fundamental changes in its regulation via globalisation. To be sure, the state has not disappeared from the sphere of regulation, although some might have become rule-takers rather than rule-makers (as evident from the powerful influence countries of destinations have over countries of origin in the governance of migration). Instead ‘the state becomes part of a network of regulation in which the tasks of regulation are redistributed in various ways among actors within the networks’ (Drahos 2017, 4).

As founders and members of international organisations or multilateral entities, states remain the key protagonists within the formal institutional sphere of global and regional governance. They are also the main funders of the political work carried out by those institutions. Yet, civil society organisations have engaged with global and regional processes and multilateral organisations as sites for their advocacy (Scholte 2011). In the case of migration governance, relatively little is known about the experience of civil society navigating the space of global and regional policy-making processes, including the obstacles and opportunities civil society actors are facing in the attempt to influence such processes and outcomes (Grugel and Piper 2011; Bisong 2022).

Scholarly critiques of multilateral migration governance have analysed the operations of international organisations in terms of neoliberal narratives that depoliticise migration policy and present it as a subject suitable for managerial governance (Geiger and Pécoud 2010). Few studies (Grugel and Piper 2007; Piper and Rother 2012; Schierup et al. 2019) have to date analysed global migration governance from the viewpoint of civil society and the political activism emanating from the ‘bottom up’. Such bottom-up perspective highlights the production of a counter-narrative to the state-dominated efforts aimed at coordinating migration policy in a narrowly defined scope (‘management’). Placing a bottom-up perspective at the centre allows us to assess the extent to which global migration is a deeply political project embedded in uneven power dynamics. Our nodal account demonstrates how a civil society actor such as the MFA strategically works on amplifying its cause by expanding its ‘internal’ membership, seeking durable cooperation with other networks (‘external engagement’) and targeting governing sites in a sustained manner; and in doing so, it takes on a steering role with a clear purpose in mind.

Governance from the bottom-up: from networks to nodes

Scholarly interest in the study of networks has proliferated since the 1990s, shifting from its roots in organisational studies to broader conceptualisations of social networks (Scott 2004) to culminate in the idea of the rise of the ubiquitous ‘network society’ as famously developed by Castells (2000). Network analysis includes the influence of digital technologies upon networks (Castells et al. 2006), manners of circulating information and the distribution of other resources (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Actor–network theory (ANT) conceives of the world as a collection of heterogeneous activities, of numerous networks of association interrelated by the movement of ‘traffic’ through their links (Latour 2007). Scholars of political activist networks have investigated questions on how networks function and how they function well (Diani and McAdam 2003). Overall, the conceptualisation of networks frequently implies flatter, dynamic and more fluid forms of economic and social organisation that are emerging to reflect the ‘stretching out’ of social relations under globalisation (Routledge and Cumbers 2009).

The core function of networks, as it emerges from these studies, has been the exchange of information and strategic use of resources. Underemphasising concerted action and coordinated intervention, networks in such conceptualisations often appear to have no nodes from which some kind of steering and control would emanate. We would, however, argue that coordinated action by civil society actors is required. This is so because, in the current political climate surrounding migration, there is a distinct lack of concern and political will for improving migrants’ labour rights, as the result of and compounded by the multi-stakeholder involvement in and multi-level/multi-sited nature of migration governance. In order to assert activists’ influence, taking leadership and some level of control is necessary – and to do so by engaging with governing processes from within governing sites. The example of the MFA is illustrative of such ‘steering’ action manifested in the complex networking activities it generates and is involved in, captured as we argue by the notion of nodalisation.

Drawing on social movement scholarship, which has amply demonstrated that it is civil society organisations that occupy a key role in the struggle for justice and equality for marginalised people (Della Porta et al. 2006; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001), the argument advanced here goes as follows: the act of steering the state-led migration governance project currently narrowly concerned with ‘management’ in the direction of a rights-based approach requires proactive expansion of transnational activist networks and engagement with other nodal actors in order to amplify, intensify and consolidate efforts aimed at achieving a rights-based approach. In the case of labour migration, those nodal actors include the global union federations, the International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation for Migration (Piper and Foley 2021). The politically contentious nature of migration as a policy area requires civil society actors to form linkages across various networks in order to gain strength in numbers (consolidation); to access a variety of ‘governing sites’ (amplification) and to promote migrant rights among broader human rights and social justice-related constituencies (intensification).

The internal expansion of transnational networks (consolidation) and the relationship building with intersecting external networks results over time in durability and sustainability of their interaction (intensification), thereby enhancing the visibility and efficacy of their message (amplification). These dynamics are captured by what we refer to as nodalisation of networking activity. Conceptually, this requires a perspective that builds on established network approaches, such as the seminal work of Keck and Sikkink (1999). But in line with regulation theory, the focus is shifted from ‘resistance’ or ‘contestation’ to ‘influence’ in relation to an institutional environment characterised by multi-level, multi-sited and multi-actor dynamics. This requires internal and external processes of coordination and cooperation via the establishment of a node that operates across various levels (the local, national, transnational and global) and across different types of meso-level networks – a role carried out by the MFA, as we will show.

Emanating from a broad vision of regulation as ‘influencing the flow of events’ (Parker and Braithwaite 2005) and as multi-sourced (Drahos 2017), this leads to our argument for a nodal account of transnational and cross-sectoral networking. Such nodal analysis of networks involves key influencers (individuals and organisations) located at the meso-level, that is, space between ‘the state’ and ‘the market’. In addition to civil society and grassroots organisations, this space is populated by trade unions, journalists, researchers, parliamentarians and even opposition party members in countries with non-liberal democratic political cultures. In this realm of intersecting and interacting networks, we view the MFA as displaying the central characteristics of an activist ‘node’. Its nodal function, therefore, is at the core of our analysis and conceptualisation of the dynamism of civil society actors’ attempts to advance the rights of migrant workers within a regulatory space populated by multiple actors located at various levels.

More concretely, nodalisation involves taking leadership and some form of control in order to establish durable and sustainable network activity. Hence, we can safely assume that this works better on the regional level, where linkages or alliances with other actors across sectors and policy levels can be formed in a durable manner on the basis of shared types of challenges and common goals. Further networking with stakeholders whose portfolio is not exclusively defined by migrant worker concerns leads to mainstreaming of migrant worker issues and accessing of additional political actors and resources and, as a result, has amplifying effects.

In the few studies that exist on nodal governance (Benington and Harvey 1999; Burris, Drahos, and Shearing 2005; Drahos 2004), nodes have been conceptualised ranging from being loosely configured elements of a network to being products of intersecting networks or to key individuals who participate in multiple networks. Our examination of a specific region-wide network of migrant associations in Asia, the MFA, adds insights into the fledgling study and conceptualisation of nodal governance. We do so by discussing the MFA’s internal and external nodalisation efforts and how their combination effects affect their influence on the multi-sited and multi-level process of regional migration governance.

Activist networks and nodes: the Migrant Forum in Asia

This section analyses MFA’s proactive network expansion and network engagement in relation to multi-actor, multi-level and multi-sited governing processes, with a focus on the regional level. We will examine the MFA’s use of the network form based on the three dimensions of nodal governance: network expansion (internal), network engagements (external) and the way these two are linked when participating in specific governing sites such as the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD).

MFA as a node and proactive network expansion (internal dimension)

The Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) started out in the early 1990s as a loosely structured umbrella network of migrant rights organisations in Hong Kong. It became more formalised and started to emerge as a significant player when its headquarters was moved to Manila in 2003. While the network is linking its typically grassroots and locally oriented members across borders and to multi-sited political spaces at different levels, the actual space where the headquarters is located still matters. The significance of being in the Philippines stems from the long history of vibrant social movements and migrant worker activism in that country. Moreover, as per Robert O’Brien, global governance literature focuses on ‘getting it right’ within institutions and has less to say about the agency of peripheral states in rejecting rules dictated to them (O'Brien 2000). While the Philippines do not necessarily ‘reject’ rules, it has shown increasing (albeit reluctant, see Chavez and Piper 2015) leadership and concern for defending the rights of its people overseas. Regular criticism from civil society notwithstanding, in comparison to other countries in the region, it is widely considered the ‘gold standard’² (personal communication with Elle Sana, Centre for Migrant Advocacy (CMA) 29 February 2018). Therefore, the Philippines’ political culture opens up a space for asserting and building up CSO influence for the MFA, providing political opportunity structures that a headquarter position in a country less concerned with (or even opposed to) the concept of migrant’s rights might not provide (Piper and Uhlin 2002). The MFA also builds on a long tradition of social activism in the Philippines, which started in the era of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos; migrants were involved in the mass movement for democratisation from an early stage on (Rother 2009b).

The advocacy of the MFA is guided by ‘a vision of an alternative world system based on respect for human rights and dignity, social justice and gender equity, particularly for migrant workers’.³ The membership of the network consists of non-government organisations (NGOs), grassroots associations (some of which had been established by returned migrants) and labour unions formed by migrant workers, as well as individual advocates in (especially West) Asia who are committed to promoting and advancing the rights and welfare of migrant workers.⁴ In its self-description, the MFA explains its primary role as being ‘a facilitator, a regional communication and coordination point between member-organisations and advocates, forging concerted action to address discriminatory laws and policies, violence against women migrants, unjust living conditions, unemployment in the homeland and other issues affecting migrant workers’. It is clearly linking issues experienced by (male and female) migrants in countries of origin and destination along the migration cycle (pre-departure, overseas stint and return).

Taken from this, we propose that nodalisation takes on two forms: first, by the MFA secretariat acting as a node within the sphere of its existing formalised membership structure, serving as the secretariat, disseminating information within the network, providing resources and training. Second, the MFA is also trying to proactively expand the density of nodes within this form by reaching out to related nodal actors in order to create intersecting networks between these new partners.

In relation to this extended form, the MFA as a whole is a node in the increasingly evolving multi-sited governance structure of migration; here, the MFA tries to connect with the growing number of nodes engaging with various policy levels, including the regional and the global. While this ‘network of networks’ (Piper, Rosewarne, and Withers 2017) manages to participate as a unified actor, there is also a clear interplay between the core and extended membership – for example, when the MFA network members are strengthened by their participation in such regional and global events or when the connection between network members is increased through their joint participation in such fora, facilitated by the MFA secretariat.

Network engagement (external dimension)

The strategies behind these networking initiatives can be divided into (1) obtaining outside support for capacity building within its own network such as the Diplomacy Training programme (DTP), an independent Australian NGO⁵; and (2) linking up with outside stakeholders in order to strengthen its outreach, gain additional allies and thus amplify its mission. There is a regular interplay between these levels on the basis of collaboration with new networks potentially contributing to the ‘deepening’ of the MFA’s internal membership structure by bringing in additional resources, knowledge and new strategic partners in the countries where the MFA members are located. These extended partners fall predominantly in the domain of civil society actors, although in the political context of migrant activism in the region, a rather broad definition of civil society is being used here since it also includes representatives of media, trade unions and even parliamentarians (who often represent smaller opposition parties). Considering that government and politics in several Asian countries is dominated if not monopolised by ruling parties, representatives of the opposition, which struggle to be heard and to make progress in the purely parliamentarian space, constitute in this context a ‘non-governmental’ example.

MFA has facilitated the training of several investigative journalists through the above-mentioned DTP programme. Hom Karki, writing for Kantipur and the Kathmandu Post in Nepal, participated in DTP courses in both Dubai and Nepal and has written extensively on issues such as forced labour, unpaid salaries, compensation, access to justice and domestic worker issues, bringing thus the MFA agenda to a wider audience (Dtp 2018, 10). The cooperation of MFA with journalists has led to the creation of a dedicated network of South Asian journalists based in both origin and host countries of migrant workers, South Asian Media for Migrants (SAMM) (Dtp 2018, 10). The main goals of the network are sharing of information, in particular on relevant standards, as well as awareness-raising and giving voice to migrant advocacy (Dtp 2018). This is very much in line with the MFA agenda, which is horizontally thereby diffused through the DTP-MFA programme to media representatives in the region with the aim of further dissemination to and ultimately influencing of the wider public in countries of origin and destination.

Besides media, the MFA has also been creating links with the law community in the region through the network ‘Lawyers Beyond Borders (LBB)’. The close connection between the two organisations is already apparent in the internet address, which reads http://lawyersbeyondborders.mfasia.org. Indeed, this is a direct result of

4 years of thinking and strategising by the MFA and its various partners who wanted to bring together lawyers who work on the cases of migrant workers, primarily in the Middle East and GCC country context, to move towards impact litigation and policy advocacy in their work. ⁶

The network was formed at a meeting in Bangkok in November 2011 and has since then held several conferences, participated in the DTP training programme and launched further country chapters in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Among the programmes and initiatives of the network was a conference on ‘Building Partnerships for Justice for Migrant Workers’ in Bangkok, Thailand, a free Legal Law Clinic in the Philippines ‘Access to Justice Periodic Forum’, the publication of a free ebook on ‘Selected Philippine Laws, Rules and Regulations on Overseas Employment’ as well as a national consultation in Lebanon and a regional Workshop on Ethical Business and Recruitment Practices in Labour Migration in the Middle-East, North Africa and Asia in Dubai. In early May 2020, MFS and LBB jointly released ‘An Appeal to Governments on Behalf of Migrant Workers in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic’ including 20 specific recommendations to governments of counties of destination and origin respectively, such as ‘To include COVID-19 as one of those diseases that should be recognized within labor laws and social security legislation that will entitle migrant workers to claim compensation, medical and allied care’.⁷

The function of the MFA as an enabling node is clearly confirmed in the mission statement of the network: ‘Lawyers Beyond Borders also forges important connections among lawyers and grassroots organizations working with migrant workers on the ground through the MFA’s members and partners, as well as migrant communities in both countries of origin and destination.’⁸ This quote highlights how the MFA, on the one hand, provides its existing infrastructure to the newly formed network and, on the other hand, simultaneously uses it for expanding its outreach. It thereby acts as a node and hub to which outside partners can ‘dock on’ and in the course of time can become themselves nodes of the network. In this sense, the notion of ‘nodes’ takes on dynamism and expansive meaning.

LLB also closely cooperates with a further outreach programme of the MFA, the Asian Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Labour Migration 2020, from here on ‘the Caucus’ (whose website likewise refers directly to the MFA⁹). It was initiated by the MFA in 2007. Since 2008, meetings were held parallel to the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA). In 2011, the network changed its name from ASEAN to Asian Caucus in order to include parliamentarians from South Asia, highlighting that the scope of ‘regional’ migration governance is gradually becoming more expansive and inclusive. In order to reach beyond holding annual meetings, in 2014, the process was formalised with two major goals in mind: To promote the cause of migrant workers in the respective national parliaments and to collectively engage in the development of agreements and legislation at the regional and international levels.

Joint activities with LBB included a Fact-finding Mission to Malaysia in April 2014 where consultations with a number of actors took place, including Members of Parliament, the Migration Working Group, the NGO Migrant Care, Malaysian Trade Union Congress, trade unions, Bar Council Malaysia, the National Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), foreign missions and migrant leaders. As an outcome, 18 recommendations to promote and protect the rights of migrant workers were issued. These included more comprehensive and rights-based agreements, usually in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) but also linked to the regional level, in particular Malaysia’s role in the then-ongoing drafting process of the ASEAN Framework Instrument on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. MFA hence served as a hub connecting advocacy on the national, bilateral and regional levels in cooperation with various stakeholder organisations. The MFA also actively encourages the linkages between these organisations – when in 2013 an advisory board was created for the Caucus, LLB members were invited to join: ‘It is an opportunity for effective policy advocacy, where the MFA’s network of lawyers can work with the advisory group in identifying key issues of labour migration and migrants’ rights to tackle’.¹⁰

The nodal structure of the network also became apparent in the description of the purpose of this newly established board – acting as ‘a focal point for the caucus, with responsibilities such as coordinating with the MFA to develop programs for future Caucus meetings and acting as a representative body for the Caucus in engaging with SAARC and ASEAN, among other responsibilities’ (Dtp 2018, 10). The MFA and its interconnected networks are thus aiming to jointly engage and influence the major regional organisations in Southeast and South Asia. Further activities of the Caucus included participation in a regional conference on domestic workers in Asia, a field visit to Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand, and support statements for human rights activists in the region.

There is one downside to these initiatives, which is that they are very much dependent on external funding. When the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), which was instrumental in setting up the Caucus, ended its funding for the project, this was a major obstacle to its continuation. Based on their internet presence or lack thereof, the media and lawyer networks seem to have slowed down after an enthusiastic start. On the upside, this is where the benefit of being connected to a node such as the MFA becomes obvious: In other cases, the withdrawal of the main funder might have meant the end of the initiative. With the Caucus, in contrast, the joint and individual advocacy continues with resources coming now either directly from the MFA or the parliamentarians’ own budget. The migration caucus also manages to continue within the larger umbrella network of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, where several of its members are also sitting on the board. The parliamentarians are also connected to the MFA either directly through their advocacy on migrants’ rights or through joint membership in a broader human rights network with a focus on democracy, development, etc., in the region (see below).

Influencing regional and global governing processes

Adrian Pereira, Executive of the North-South Initiative (NSI) in Malaysia, who has been engaging with the DTP since 2006 as participant and organiser, describes how this involvement has led to capacity building for influencing policies on the national level and beyond:

For many years in Malaysia, the migrant workers, human rights advocates and trade unions were working separately. But through the skills gained in the DTP workshops, together we managed to bring all parties together to collaborate and build strong solidarity networks amongst different actors especially in responding to the migrant workers rights violations and proposing joint policy reforms at grassroots, national, regional and global levels.¹¹

This example highlights how the strategy of the network is not limited to contestation but clearly aims to influence the political process on multiple levels through participation and, to some extent, cooperation. This is also evident in one of the more recent jointly organised networking events, a ‘Human Rights and Migrant Workers Capacity Building Program’ in Beirut, Lebanon in 2018 that brought together ‘almost 30 participants composed of civil society representatives, trade unions and journalists from 16 countries such as Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, Nepal, Ethiopia, the Philippines, India and Qatar’.¹² The list of participants shows that the MFA also acts as a node for dialogue with countries of destination – in fact, ‘how to build different collaborations between countries of origin and destination’, ‘how to engage the private sector and governments’ and ‘how to engage the media in lobbying and advocacy work’ were among the major items on the agenda.¹³ It also highlights that the MFAs role as a node are closely linked: among the participants of the meeting were several international organisations (IOs) such as ILO and ‘different conventions and human rights mechanisms related to migrant workers’, in particular the negotiation process of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular migration (GCM) were discussed – which thus became an additional site for further efforts to influence the migration governance project. This demonstrates the interaction with IOs along the global-regional spectrum, with multiple stakeholders being engaged in the form of bottom-up governance. It also highlights how efforts at ‘internal expansion’ and ‘external engagement’ have increased the influence in these processes.

Besides setting up its own structures, the MFA is also taking part in and making use of existing structures – a combination of what has been termed ‘invented’, ‘invited’ (Ålund and Schierup 2018; Schierup et al. 2019) and ‘instrumentalised’ spaces (Bisong 2022). These include regional and global inter-governmental processes as well as those which are initiated by civil society.

With regard to government-led initiatives, the network places major importance on two interconnected regional consultation fora: The Colombo Process and the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD). The Ministerial Consultation on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labour for Countries of Origin, as the Colombo Process is formally called, was established in 2003. From the Southeast Asian region, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are members, while Malaysia is among the partner and observer states. The process has three major thematic foci, which are protection and provision of services to migrant workers; optimising benefits of labour mobility; and capacity building, data collection and inter-state cooperation. Initial meetings of the process were infrequent, with a five-year break between 2011 and 2016, but in the past years, the process seems to have made efforts towards more continuity. In addition, 2008 marked the start of engagement with destination countries in a further process: The Ministerial Consultations on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labour for Countries of Origin and Destination in Asia, commonly referred to as the ‘Abu Dhabi Dialogue’ (ADD). This meeting brings together the twelve member countries of the Colombo Process up with seven countries of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia as well as additional countries of destination, including Malaysia and Singapore, which are attending as observers. The agenda bears similarities to the Colombo Process, but provides more focus to the perceived nexus between migration and development, thus linking it to the debates in current global processes such as the GFMD (Global Forum on Migration and Development) (Rother 2019). The IOM has played a facilitating role in the process, serving as the ADD Secretariat from its inception in January 2008 to April 2012:

In the 2nd ADD Ministerial meeting in April 2012 a set of Interim Operating Modalities were established that called for the Outgoing Chair, Current Chair and Incoming Chair to act as the ADD Secretariat and IOM’s role transitioned to one of Observer and Thematic Expert.¹⁴

The MFA has participated in several meetings of the Colombo Process (CP), including acting as a resource person for the Fourth Meeting of the Colombo Process Thematic Area Working Group (TAWG) on ‘Pre-Departure Orientation and Empowerment (PDOE)’ and a further working group on remittances in July 2018 in Manila.¹⁵ MFA representatives provided input on how the CP could help to empower migrants as well as an overview on social protection mechanisms for migrant workers. Besides trying to influence the agenda of the Colombo Process, it seems to be the ‘action-oriented’ dimension of the ADD that has increasingly attracted the interest of the MFA network. The rights and protection of domestic workers are among the main issues which the MFA has advocated for in the process – including advocating for a unified Standard Employment Contract and the incorporation of Domestic Work in the labour legislation. In recent years, the MFA has started to employ its ‘inside-outside’ strategy (Rother 2009a) when dealing with the ADD: Hence, when the ADD Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) took place in May 2018 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the MFA was for the first time invited to send a delegation to the meeting. The network considered this opportunity to advocate inside the process as ‘a major breakthrough’ since it had been asking for the inclusion of civil society in the official process ‘for the longest time’: the MFA believes that ‘promoting and joining civic engagements is one of the key components in achieving better governance and ensuring that laws and policies for migrant workers have a human rights based perspective.’¹⁶

In parallel, the MFA organised a Civil Society Parallel Event outside the ADD meeting. Here, the Sri Lanka chapter of the above-discussed LBB served as a partner as well as Helvetas-Sri Lanka, Community Development Services (CDS), Solidarity Centre-Sri Lanka and the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF), highlighting the multi-stakeholder approach of the network. In fact, the civil society programme was explicitly ‘designed to utilize the fact that there were a number of participants who have been engaged in the different sectors and expertise who are working with grassroots communities and promoting the rights of migrant workers’.¹⁷

The engagement of the MFA in these processes is also linked to the global level since in 2014, the MFA joined the Migration and Development Civil Society Network (MADE) and has acted since then as the lead organisation for MADE Asia and the MADE Thematic Working Group on Labour Migration and Recruitment. Amongst its main roles is the goal to taking ‘the lead in mobilizing Asian civil society organizations to engage in global and regional inter-governmental processes such as the GFMD, Abu Dhabi Dialogue and Colombo Process’ (MADE n.d., page 2). It can, therefore, be said that MFA has been assigned the hub function amongst the nodes of migration governance in Southeast Asia, actively establishing new spaces of influence and linking up these spaces and the actors involved while also feeding knowledge and other resources into the expanding network.

With regional migration governance in Asia still being in a nascent stage, the MFA has established itself as one of the major civil society players in global spaces, trying to influence global policy processes and institutions and, thus, linking the regional to the global space (and vice versa). One such ‘invited’ space has been the regional consultations and reviews on the GCM. In a statement during the Closing Ceremony of the First Asia-Pacific Regional Review of the GCM, 12 March 2021, MFA chairperson William Gois highlighted that ‘trade unions, civil society and youth-led organisations are recognised as practitioners and partners with government constantly and concretely at local and national levels, as well as in and across regions’.¹⁸ Besides highlighting three essentials rights for migrants – the right to organise, to remedy and to recovery – the network also tried to influence the process of GCM deliberations and the preparations for the upcoming International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) by calling for an expansion and extension of the space for migrant civil society participation: ‘We must immediately engage in transforming the dialogue and action on how to build upon and improve the process of leading up to the IMRF’. This is indicative of how MFA aims beyond the roles assigned to civil society actors in existing network research such as information sharing and contestation: the focus here is on influencing and action, and in this regard, there is a willingness to cooperate with non-CSO actors (governments, etc.).

Not reliant on governments and IOs to provide these spaces, MFA has, in collaboration with several partners, created its own spaces: the Civil Society Priorities Webinar Series on the IMRF, which is directed towards its membership but also a wider public, including politicians and other decision-makers. It addresses issues such as ‘Migration, COVID-19 and a New Social Contract’ and ‘Regular Pathways and Irregular Migration’¹⁹ and follows up on a comprehensive webinar series on each of the 23 GCM objectives.

Furthermore, MFA has created its own global space of influence, the Call for an Urgent Justice Mechanism for Repatriated Migrant Workers. This initiative brings together MFA with the above-mentioned Lawyers Beyond Borders (LBB), social justice civil society organisations, the South Asian Regional Trade Union Council (SARTUC) and global union federations. One of the aims to be achieved with this campaign is to have the ILO place this issue on the agenda at its next, annually held ILO tripartite Congress.²⁰

Conclusion

This paper’s specific objective was to inquire into how the network form of meso-level organisations (here: migrant rights activists) evolves and is used as a strategy to rectify the imbalance between the dominant ‘managed migration’ policy paradigm and a rights-based approach.

Our contribution to the field of regional migration governance is the analysis of dynamic network activities and multi-level, multi-sited relations at the intersection of Regulation Theory and studies of transnational activist networks. Our focus on institutional complexity leads to the argument for a nodal account of governance characterised by internal expansion and external engagement with the view to amplify efforts aimed at influencing migration policy. Such an account goes beyond the established network approach in that it draws out purposive efforts by highlighting network’s internal deepening as well as external broadening through engagement with other networks. The nodal account is characterised by multi-sited activism, aiming for durability and sustainability to enhance efficacy. While the network functions to ensure the flow of information, sharing experiences and developing of strategies, nodes coordinate action taken to or aimed at various governing sites. In the case of the MFA, this role is occupied by its secretariat, which takes leadership and, thus, exercises some form of control in steering its internal network and in coordinating with the external nodal partners. This is an evolving space: the structure of the nodal governance network is by no means static but characterised by significant dynamism and adjustments, in reaction to internal (fluidity of actors, etc.) as well as external (new challenges, political opportunity structures, etc.) developments. Roles of networks and nodes can change, be swapped or added on overtime. Yet, for the network to maintain some form of overall stability, central coordination is required, which is, as we would argue, being provided by the MFA and its ‘nodal’ secretariat.

As for beneficial outcomes in relation to migrants’ rights protection, our paper focussed on the ‘network effect’, that is, the increasing breadths and depths of the MFA in its interaction with ‘local’ CSOs and other nodes. The most notable impacts of its network form and nodalisation so far have been in the areas of capacity building across the network, provision of resources (in particular in the area of ethical recruitment), agenda-setting in policy fora at various levels and sites, documentation of rights violations (most recently relating to wage theft) and the general shaping of discourse towards rights-based approaches. MFA’s members are capitalising on the ‘network effect’ by pushing for policy change also nationally.

Although this paper has focussed on one case study of a particularly well-established nodal ‘bottom-up’ governance network, we think that the nodal governance approach could also be fruitful for analysing other less developed or emerging regional and transregional activist networks, such as those in relation to corridors between Africa and the Gulf/Middle-East where migration is regulated in similar ways as in the Asian case, that is, for the purpose of predominantly temporary, employer-tied low-wage labour. Further insights generated from research into other cases could be instrumental for gaining a greater understanding of ‘governance of action’ (intra-and inter-organisational network dynamics) that is to produce ‘governance in action’ (vis-à-vis regional and global institutions).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This broad theory was developed by the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet), an interdisciplinary program set up on 2000 by John and Valerie Braithwaite and based at the Australian National University where Nicola Piper was Research Fellow between 2001 and 2004.

2 This is also indicative by the Philippines’ ratification record of relevant international instruments, such as the 1990 UN Convention and various ILO conventions.

3 https://mfasia.org/about-us/the-organization/

4 ‘MFA is a regional network of migrants, migrant rights advocates, faith based organizations, academia, members of the media, lawyers, and individuals working on social justice for migrant workers and members of their families. The MFA network is currently represented by 250 organizations in around 26 countries in Asia and the Middle East.’ (email communication 29 March 2021).

5 For an extended analysis of the DTP program and the diffusion processes among the core MFA membership, see Piper and Rother (2020).

6 http://lawyersbeyondborders.mfasia.org/about-us/

7 https://mfasia.org/an-appeal-to-governments-on-behalf-of-migrant-workers-in-the-midst-of-the-covid-19-pandemic/

8 http://lawyersbeyondborders.mfasia.org/about-us/

9 http://asianparliamentarians.mfasia.org/

10 http://lawyersbeyondborders.mfasia.org/category/activities/page/2/

11 https://www.dtp.unsw.edu.au/adrian-pereira

12 http://dtp.unsw.edu.au/mena-regional-capacity-building-program-rights-migrant-workers-lebanon-10-14-april-2018

13 https://mfasia.org/human-rights-and-migrant-workers-capacity-building-program/

14 https://www.iom.int/abu-dhabi-dialogue

15 https://mfasia.org/mfa-participates-in-colombo-process-tawg-meetings-on-pre-departure-orientation-and-empowerment-pdoe-and-remittances/

16 https://mfasia.org/2989-2/

17 https://mfasia.org/civil-society-mobilizing-for-the-abu-dabhi-dialogue-senior-officials-meeting/

18 William Gois, CSO and Trade Unions Statement in the Closing Ceremony of the First Asia-Pacific Regional Review of the GCM, 12 March 2021; available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7LH0YnDU4o

19 http://mfasia.org/save-the-dates-international-migration-review-forum-imrf-2022-civil-society-priorities-webinar-series/

20 Laura Foley and Nicola Piper (2021) ‘The other pandemic for migrant workers: wage theft’ (blog), https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/pandemic-border/other-pandemic-migrant-workers-wage-theft/