Brokers, channels, infrastructure: moving migrant labor in the Indonesian-Malaysian oil palm complex

Abstract

This article problematizes the dichotomy between fluid mobility and fixed infrastructure through a case study of migrant labor recruitment from Indonesia to the Malaysian oil palm industry. Channels of low-skilled transnational migration must be understood in relation to other forms of mobility, most notably that of brokers, who move along adjacent and overlapping routes. Broker mobility is not only shaped by relatively immobile moorings, but also by more fluid ‘moorings’, notably mobile communication, low-cost airlines, and emergent social relationships. In order to understand how the migration process is arranged it is critical to pay attention to the logistical practices that make mobility possible. The article argues that broker mobility, diverse forms of moorings, and logistics come to shape a socio-technical system that can be understood in terms migration infrastructure.

Keywords:

• Indonesian
• Malaysia
• migration
• brokers
• infrastructure
• labor recruitment

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the special issue co-editors Weiqiang Lin, Xiang Biao, and Brenda Yeoh, the journal’s two anonymous reviewers, as well as Ruben Andersson, Ulf Hannerz, Mark Johnson, and Anette Nyqvist for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. The broker is a specific type of middleman, mediator, or intermediary. Most generally, the broker is a human actor who gains something from the mediation of valued resources that he or she does not directly control, which can be distinguished from a patron who controls valued resources, and a go-between or a messenger, who does not affect the transaction. For a more general review of the anthropology of brokers and brokerage, see Lindquist (2015a).

2. See Hugo (2012, 399) on the increase in documented migration. There is no data on the drop in undocumented migration, but my on-going fieldwork in migrant-sending areas, in tandem with Malaysian deportation programs point to a significant drop in undocumented migration (cf. Chin 2008). With the current moratorium for female domestic workers to Saudi Arabia, these figures have dropped to around 510,000 in 2013, but most observers expect that a new memorandum of understanding will lead to renewed growth. There are, however, high-level attempts to expand the ban on migration of female domestic workers (http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/asia/indonesia-migrant-worker-ban/, accessed 22 June 2015).

3. Xiang (2013) argues forcefully that the rise of regulated return migration in Asia signals the reinforcement of the sovereignty of the nation-state.

4. In 2006, the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (Badan Nasional Penempatan dan Perlindungan Tenaga Kerja Indonesia, BNP2TKI) was created to coordinate government activities, both on the national and provincial levels, thus further expanding the regulatory infrastructure.

5. The PL, however, often retains contact with the recruit during the time he spends abroad and a mediator with family members who remain behind.

6. While avoiding potential labor disruptions was certainly of primary concern to Taufik, it was also clear that in contrast to the largely undocumented migration that characterized East Malaysia, documented migration raised new problems concerning the accompaniment of family members, who would have to apply for work visas, which would entail further costs and difficulties. More generally, the increasingly ‘flexible’ labor regime that characterizes the oil palm industry is based on two premises that are also essential to policies concerning ‘circular migration’: only laborers are granted visas and return is compulsory upon completion of the contract (Saravanamuttu 2013).

7. Because of the greater logistical costs for recruiting on Sulawesi, this was a significantly higher sum than would have been offered on Lombok.

8. The organization of debt is strictly gendered. While men borrow money to become migrants, female domestic workers pay off their debt through salary deductions abroad. See Lindquist (2010) for an extensive discussion of this issue.