https://hdl.handle.net/2123/9285 2026-06-04T20:17:37Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34840 A borderlander’s reckoning Hu, Wavie “The mountains are high and the emperor far away.” Reckonings from a borderland—on walls, my friend J, and choosing a life in diaspora. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29280 An uphill battle: A case example of government policy and activist dissent on the death penalty for drug-related offences in Indonesia Kramer, Elisabeth; Stoicescu, Claudia In 2014, newly-elected President Joko Widodo announced that Indonesia was facing a national ‘emergency’ due to high levels of drug use that necessitated harsh criminal justice responses, including the ultimate punishment of death. On April 29, 2015 Indonesia executed eight prisoners condemned to death for drug-related offences, including seven foreigners, eliciting widespread international criticism. This commentary explores the strate- gies employed and obstacles faced by national anti-death penalty advocates that opposed the 2015 executions, primarily focusing on their efforts between 2015 and 2017. We begin by highlighting existing political narra- tives that make the death penalty an attractive option for the Indonesian government, before discussing key approaches employed as part of anti-death penalty efforts. It is hoped that a better understanding of existing ef- forts to promote abolition and the challenges associated with these approaches will help inform a more systematic and evidence-based approach to policy, practice, and discourse on the death penalty for drug-related offences in Indonesia. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/25173 COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Implications for workers and unions Ford, Michele; Ward, Kristy The labour market effects in Southeast Asia of the COVID-19 pandemic have attracted considerable analysis from both scholars and practitioners. However, much less attention has been paid to the pandemic’s impact on legal protections for workers’ and unions’ rights, or to what might account for divergent outcomes in this respect in economies that share many characteristics, including a strong export orientation in labour-intensive industries and weak industrial relations institutions. Having described the public health measures taken to control the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, this article analyses governments’ employment-related responses and their impact on workers and unions in the first year of the pandemic. Based on this analysis, we conclude that the disruption caused to these countries’ economies, and societies, served to reproduce existing patterns of state–labour relations rather than overturning them. 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21343 The illegal as mundane Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore Ways of studying illegal behaviour are important in the context of Indonesia, a country well known for its failure to deal adequately with the corruption that permeates every level of society. They are perhaps even more salient at the peripheries of the nation-state where government agencies struggle to contain the illegal practices that necessarily emerge where nation-states meet. This article reflects on our experiences conducting a decade-long study of an Indonesian borderlands that, while not initially focused on illegality, came – as a consequence of its ubiquity – to include it as a key construct. This experience led us to grapple not only with methodological questions about how to research illegality but also with assumptions about what illegality is and does. We argue that the only way to recognise and account for the quotidian nature of many kinds of illegal activity in the borderlands is to eschew an ethnography of exception in favour of an ethnography of the mundane. 2019-10-28T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21329 Asia’s Labor Migration and Employment Relations Regimes Ford, Michele What happens when local unions begin to advocate for the rights of temporary migrant workers, asks Michele Ford in her sweeping study of seven Asian countries? Until recently unions in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand were uniformly hostile towards foreign workers, but Ford deftly shows how times and attitudes have begun to change. Now, she argues, NGOs and the Global Union Federations are encouraging local unions to represent and advocate for these peripheral workers, and in some cases succeeding. From Migrant to Worker builds our understanding of the role the international labor movement and local unions have had in developing a movement for migrant workers' labor rights. Ford examines the relationship between different kinds of labor movement actors and the constraints imposed on those actors by resource flows, contingency, and local context. Her conclusions show that in countries-Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand-where resource flows and local factors give the Global Union Federations more influence local unions have become much more engaged with migrant workers. But in countries-Japan and Taiwan, for example-where they have little effect there has been little progress. While much has changed, Ford forces us to see that labor migration in Asia is still fraught with complications and hardships, and that local unions are not always able or willing to act. Chapter 1 in book 'From Migrant to Worker' 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21326 From Migrant to Worker: Global Unions and Temporary Labor Migration in Asia. Introduction Ford, Michele What happens when local unions begin to advocate for the rights of temporary migrant workers, asks Michele Ford in her sweeping study of seven Asian countries? Until recently unions in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand were uniformly hostile towards foreign workers, but Ford deftly shows how times and attitudes have begun to change. Now, she argues, NGOs and the Global Union Federations are encouraging local unions to represent and advocate for these peripheral workers, and in some cases succeeding. From Migrant to Worker builds our understanding of the role the international labor movement and local unions have had in developing a movement for migrant workers' labor rights. Ford examines the relationship between different kinds of labor movement actors and the constraints imposed on those actors by resource flows, contingency, and local context. Her conclusions show that in countries-Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand-where resource flows and local factors give the Global Union Federations more influence local unions have become much more engaged with migrant workers. But in countries-Japan and Taiwan, for example-where they have little effect there has been little progress. While much has changed, Ford forces us to see that labor migration in Asia is still fraught with complications and hardships, and that local unions are not always able or willing to act. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21325 The Go-Jek Effect Ford, Michele; Honan, Vivian Worldwide, debate is raging over the growth of app-based transport services as companies like Uber transform the way transport is provided and how consumers access it (Isaac 2014; Aloisi 2015). Often referred to as ‘ride-sharing’ or ‘peer-to-peer’ services, these companies connect passengers with drivers typically not formally registered for taxi work or car hire services through a smartphone app. Passengers pay a set rate, determined by the company, from which a percentage is deducted before the driver receives the rest. Like other large countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has enthusiastically embraced app-based transport services. Indeed, Indonesian consumers have adopted app-based transport services with alacrity, hailing cars, motorcycle taxis (ojek) or even the noisy three-wheel vehicles known as bajaj with just a few taps on their phones. The proliferation of what is known locally as ‘online transport’ (transportasi online) has benefited from commuters’ increasing frustration with traffic congestion and poor public transport, as well as the growing use of smartphones. One of the most popular app-based transport services operating in Indonesia is Go-Jek, a locally owned venture whose drivers’ signature green helmets and jackets can be seen on the streets of most major cities across the archipelago. Such has been the rise of Go-Jek that it is not so much a form of transport as a phenomenon. As one journalist observed, ‘school children, university students, office workers, even the governor of Jakarta … everyone is talking about Go-Jek’ (Kompas, 18 June 2015) 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21327 From Migrant to Worker: Global Unions and Temporary Labor Migration in Asia Ford, Michele What happens when local unions begin to advocate for the rights of temporary migrant workers, asks Michele Ford in her sweeping study of seven Asian countries? Until recently unions in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand were uniformly hostile towards foreign workers, but Ford deftly shows how times and attitudes have begun to change. Now, she argues, NGOs and the Global Union Federations are encouraging local unions to represent and advocate for these peripheral workers, and in some cases succeeding. From Migrant to Worker builds our understanding of the role the international labor movement and local unions have had in developing a movement for migrant workers' labor rights. Ford examines the relationship between different kinds of labor movement actors and the constraints imposed on those actors by resource flows, contingency, and local context. Her conclusions show that in countries—Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand—where resource flows and local factors give the Global Union Federations more influence local unions have become much more engaged with migrant workers. But in countries—Japan and Taiwan, for example—where they have little effect there has been little progress. While much has changed, Ford forces us to see that labor migration in Asia is still fraught with complications and hardships, and that local unions are not always able or willing to act. 2019-04-15T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21303 The Limits of Mutual Aid: Emerging Forms of Collectivity among App-Based Transport Workers in Indonesia Ford, Michele; Honan, Vivian App-based transport has grown rapidly in Indonesia, and now provides work for over a million private commercial drivers. A large proportion of online drivers have joined self-organised community organisations that operate on a mutual aid logic, characterised by horizontal networks and strong social commitment. This mutual aid-based approach, which builds on a long tradition of associational behaviour in Indonesia’s large informal sector, has facilitated high levels of membership and member participation in small, geographically based driver communities. It is less well suited, however, to staging large-scale protests, negotiating with the app-based transport companies or engaging with government. Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork, this article argues that mutual aid-based organising has indeed proved an effective way to reach out to this group of non-traditional workers, but is not in itself enough to effect structural change. Ultimately, everyday forms of collectivism must be complemented by large-scale mobilisation, legal challenges and industrial action if drivers are to challenge the power of their pseudo-employers. To date, however, successful integration between driver communities and larger scale organisations has proven difficult in the face of external hostility and internal divisions 2019-04-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21298 Investing in Care Key to Boosting Economic Growth Hill, Elizabeth; Baird, Marian; Ford, Michele The need to increase women’s labour market participation and economic security is on the ‘to do’ list of most governments and major global institutions. Global consulting firm McKinsey calculates that global GDP would increase by 26 per cent— US$28 trillion—by 2025 if women participated in paid work to the same extent as men. But if this goal is achieved, who will look after the children, the elderly, the disabled and ill? Although both women and men can care for others, global estimates show that women assume responsibility for around three-quarters of all unpaid domestic and community labour. Tensions between women’s participation in paid work and unpaid care work are especially acute in Asia and the Pacific, where the distribution of unpaid work between men and women is particularly skewed. In this region, women perform more than four times as much unpaid labour as men. Managing this unpaid workload makes it difficult for women to increase participation in paid employment at a level commensurate with their increasing levels of education and training. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21299 Politicizing the Minimum Wage: Wage Councils, Worker Mobilization, and Local Elections in Indonesia Caraway, Teri; Ford, Michele; Nguyen, Oanh Indonesia’s weak labor movement transformed local wage councils from institutions of wage restraint into institutions that delivered generous wage increases. This article argues that the arrival of direct elections created an opportunity for unions to leverage elections to alter the balance of power on the wage councils. Activating that leverage required increased contentiousness and coordination among unions. As unions mobilized around wages, conflict with capital intensified and produced disruptive protests that led incumbents to side with workers. Unions also developed innovative tactics to sustain momentum in nonelection years. As unions turned the wage councils in their favor, employers fought back by shifting the scale of the conflict to the national level; the result was the recentralization of wage setting and more modest increases. In a global context of ever weakening organized labor, the Indonesian case shows how weak unions can gain power by mobilizing politically at the local level. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21295 Powering a Modern Life? Residents’ Experiences of the Electricity Supply in Tanjung Pinang Ford, Michele Access to an affordable and reliable electricity supply is vital not only for economic development but also for citizens’ quality of life. Indonesia has made significant progress towards near-universal electrification, but this achievement masks vast disparities in household access to electricity. Problems with affordability and reliability of supply are experienced even in Indonesia’s major cities but are far worse in remote areas and on the country’s many hundreds of inhabited small islands, which are not connected to a major grid. Drawing on Indonesian government data and a survey of householders (N = 360), this article measures variations in the quantity and quality of electricity supply in different areas in Tanjung Pinang, the capital of Riau Islands province (Kepri). As this article demonstrates, interruptions in supply have a serious impact on residents’ capacity to power a modern life. Akses terhadap listrik yang murah dan dapat diandalkan adalah sesuatu yang vital, tidak hanya bagi perkembangan ekonomi, namun juga bagi kualitas hidup para penduduk. Indonesia telah membuat kemajuan yang signifikan hingga mencapai tingkat elektrifikasi yang mendekati universal, namun pencapaian ini menutup ketimpangan akses rumah tangga terhadap kelistrikan. Permasalahan terkait keterjangkauan dan keterandalan penawaran listrik dialami bahkan di kota-kota besar di Indonesia, namun jauh lebih buruk di area-area terpencil dan di ratusan pulau kecil berpenghuni di seluruh Indonesia, yang tidak terkoneksi dengan jaringan listrik besar. Dengan menggunakan data pemerintah dari survey rumah tangga (jumlah sampel 360), tulisan ini mengukur variasi pada kuantitas dan kualitas penawaran listrik di berbagai daerah di Tanjung Pinang, ibukota dari provinsi Kepulauan Riau (Kepri). Seperti yang didemonstrasikan dalam tulisan ini, gangguan listrik memiliki dampak yang serius terhadap kapasitas warga untuk mulai menikmati kehidupan modern. 2018-12-11T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21296 The International Labour Organization as a Development Actor in Southeast Asia Ford, Michele; Gillan, Michael; Thein, Htwe Htwe Typically, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is discussed in narrow terms with specific reference to its role in setting labor standards and the success or otherwise of its attempts to convince governments and employers to respect them. Yet over several decades it has also sought to engage in other aspects of the world of work including knowledge production and employment generation through projects more readily associated with international development organizations or even grassroots non-governmental organizations. Although there is by no means a consensus among either scholars or practitioners about the efficacy of these interventions, it is clear that the ILO has managed to embed its concept of ‘decent work’ not only into contemporary discourse concerning the rights of workers and the duties of employers and states to respect them, but also that around economic development. In this chapter, we discuss the extent to which the ILO can be understood as a development actor, how its emphasis on development has evolved over time, and how its development agenda has been pursued by means of various strategic initiatives and programs. Our analysis is grounded in Southeast Asia, which as a region is important in terms of size, population and economic weight but also because of the profound changes in political and economic status experienced by its 11 states. Not surprisingly, the ILO has played an important and sometimes controversial role in reshaping the legal and institutional framework of labor regulation in the post-authoritarian states of Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and now Myanmar. Less recognized is the fact that this work is part of an integrated development agenda that has included measures to create opportunities for employment through large-scale development projects, entrepreneurship initiatives and deeper integration into global production networks, increasingly carried out in conjunction with influential member states, most notably the United States of America, and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. We illustrate these different aspects of the ILO’s role as a development actor with reference to these different post-authoritarian states. Particular attention is paid to Myanmar, where the ILO’s enactment of its development agenda has benefited both from its special status in that country but also from its experiments elsewhere in the region. 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21011 Shipwrecked? The ethics of underwater cultural heritage in Indonesia Pearson, Natali 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21009 Naval Shipwrecks in Indonesia Pearson, Natali This paper examines naval heritage in Indonesian waters, focusing on HMAS Perth (I) and other Allied vessels that sank in the Java Sea and the Sunda Strait in 1942, and argues for a re-consideration of what we understand by value and loss as it relates to this heritage. While the recent (2013-2017) illicit salvaging of these wrecks for scrap-metal has prompted international criticisms, an examination of Indonesia’s colonial and post- war history serves to contextualise what the international community sees as ambivalence towards these wrecks, while also suggesting a wider apportioning of responsibility. Furthermore, a historical perspective demonstrates that the salvaging of objects from HMAS Perth dates to the 1960s. Some of these activities, including David Burchell’s 1967 expedition and more recent interactions with the site by divers and other stakeholders, can be understood as ‘cultural impacts’. But other early salvaging, such as that which resulted in the profit-motivated recovery of HMAS Perth’s two bells, can be seen as an early precursor to the larger- scale salvaging we see today. The paper concludes by advocating a new approach that accepts neither non-disturbance nor the inevitability of loss, but instead prioritises the advance, judicious removal of symbolic objects from threatened warship wrecks. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21010 Maritime archaeology in Vietnam: Australian involvement Pearson, Natali 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21016 Exhibition review: Phaptawan Suwannakudt’s “Retold-Untold Stories” Pearson, Natali 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21013 Perspectives on the Past: Ritual in Southeast Asia Leadbetter, Michael; Cheng, Nien Yuan; Pearson, Natali; Sastrawan, Jarrah 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21006 Archipelago: a journey across Indonesia Pearson, Natali 2017-04-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21012 Preserving our Maritime Pasts Pearson, Natali 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20990 Protecting and Preserving Underwater Cultural Heritage in Southeast Asia Pearson, Natali This chapter examines Southeast Asia’s significant underwater cultural heritage, which faces a range of threats. The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage has afforded greater protection to underwater cultural heritage worldwide but has been less effective in Southeast Asia due to its limited uptake. In light of this, the author uses case studies to argue for a broader understanding of how protection and preservation of Southeast Asia’s underwater cultural heritage can be achieved. These management approaches include cultural diplomacy, public-private partnerships, commercial involvement and the increasing professionalisation of maritime archaeology. While some of these approaches are in line with the principles enshrined in the 2001 UNESCO Convention, others are at odds with these principles. Despite this, we cannot afford to dismiss these alternative approaches, as the threats faced by underwater cultural heritage in Southeast Asia are time critical. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20995 Ganga to Mekong: a cultural voyage through textiles Pearson, Natali 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21000 Activism and aid: young citizens’ experiences of development and democracy in Timor-Leste Pearson, Natali 2017-04-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20991 Palma Africana Chao, Sophie 2019-07-04T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18841 From Cronyism to Oligarchy? Privatisation and Business Elites in Myanmar Ford, Michele; Gillan, Michael; Htwe Htwe, Thein Privatisation is contentious but in Myanmar it has not so much been its merits or drawbacks that have attracted attention as questions around implementation. In Myanmar, the implementation of privatisation has broad significance for the political economy. A first phase of privatisation was focused on small to medium-sized enterprises and did not have a significant economic impact. A second phase, commenced in 2008, consolidated the interests of a business elite with personal connections to the military regime. The impact of this second phase of privatisation was such that some elements of this elite strengthened to the extent that they no longer relied entirely on patronage, creating opportunities for diversification in their strategies of wealth creation and defence. For this reason, it is argued, the wealthiest strata of Myanmar’s business elite is now best conceived as not simply consisting of cronies but rather as a nascent form of oligarchy. In theoretical terms, this suggests that greater attention to the qualitative difference between cronyism and oligarchy is warranted, as is close study of processes – like privatisation and political reform – that enable or require a wider range of strategies of wealth defence. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17649 Introduction: Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore Men and masculinities are the subject of burgeoning scholarly interest, much of it driven by a desire to render masculinities visible. Masculinities scholars argue that men as men have rarely been treated as the subjects of scholarly research; the man as ‘male’ occupies the space of ‘the universal, normative subject’ (Louie 2002: 5) – a figure rarely problematized or deconstructed. These scholars claim that even within gender studies men have been largely absent (Connell et al 2005: 1). The aim of research on men and masculinities is therefore to put men at the centre of scholarly enquiry as gendered beings. This has led to an explosion of writing about men and masculinities. In the context of Asia, much of this work is focused on China and Japan (see Brownell and Wasserstrom 2002; Louie 2002; Roberson and Suzuki 2002; Louie and Low 2003; Geng 2004) or on South Asia (Derné 2000; Osella et al 2004; Banerjee 2005). There has been considerable less research on men and masculinities in Southeast Asia where, according to Peletz (1995: 102), masculinity and its constructions ‘have been taken for granted’. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17652 Institutions and Collective Action in Divided Labour Movements: Evidence from Indonesia Caraway, Teri; Ford, Michele Under what conditions do trade unions in divided labour movements cooperate? Does cooperation in one domain increase the likelihood of cooperation in the other? Do institutions facilitate or discourage cooperation? We explore these questions through an examination of collective action across federation and confederation lines in post-Suharto Indonesia. Using a comparison of union cooperation in the policy and electoral domains, we demonstrate that tripartite wage-setting institutions have played a central role in facilitating collective action in the policy domain, encouraging unions to look beyond shop-level issues to policy issues identified by their respective national organizations as affecting workers. The relative absence of collective action across organizational divides in the electoral domain, meanwhile, can be explained by the institutional context, which creates higher barriers to unions working together. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17651 In Search of a Living Wage in Southeast Asia Ford, Michele; Gillan, Michael Purpose – Debates over the definition, processes and outcomes of minimum and “living” wages are heated and often politically contentious in garment-producing countries. Internationally, there have been various initiatives to promote and support the implementation of a living wage for workers in labour-intensive manufacturing, ranging from corporate-driven social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives to the long-standing living wage campaign of the global unions. One prominent regional initiative is the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA). The purpose of this paper is to assess its reach and effect in Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach – A living wage campaign is assessed with reference to Indonesia and Cambodia, two important garment manufacturing countries in Southeast Asia. The paper draws on data collected in interviews with garment manufacturers, brand representatives, trade unionists and labour NGO activists, including members of the AFWA Steering Committee in Indonesia and Cambodia, complemented by a systematic review of documents and reports produced by the AFWA. Findings – As the paper shows, despite a series of initiatives, the Asia Floor Wage has failed to gain traction in Cambodia or Indonesia. This is so, the paper argues, because national economic, political and institutional contexts are the primary drivers of the strategies and priorities of constituent organisations, governments and industry stakeholders. In the absence of robust local and regional coalitions of trade unions, efforts towards a common and coordinated regional approach to living wages are thus unlikely to gain traction. Originality/value – To a large extent, the literature on the concepts and practices associated with the living wage has focussed on developed rather than developing countries. This paper extends the literature by providing a systematic examination of a transnational wage campaign in developing Asian countries. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17643 Responses to Changing Labour Relations: The Case of Women's NGOs in Indonesia Ford, Michele The feminisation of factory work and increases in female labour migration are two widely noted effects of globalisation on the work of women in developing countries in the late twentieth century. While factory labour and domestic service overseas may seem to have little in common, in both cases, women experience a degree of commodification of their labour not found in most other sectors of the economy. In Indonesia, while a majority of women continue to work in subsistence agriculture and the informal sector, the number of women working in the manufacturing sector and as migrant domestic workers overseas has increased significantly in recent decades. Numerous accounts have been written about the parlous living and working conditions of both Indonesian female factory workers and migrant domestic labour. Yet, while it is important to document the hardships faced by women whose patterns of work have been affected by the global economy, it is equally important to focus on those same women’s attempts to mediate their work experiences, and the effects of globalisation on those processes of mediation. This chapter argues that the initiatives of local, middle-class non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have had an important effect on the ways in which factory workers and migrant domestic workers formulate their own strategies of resistance. 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17645 Introduction: Thinking about Indonesian Women and Work Ford, Michele; Parker, Lyn Women and Work in Indonesia is an edited collection of papers that aims to examine the meaning of work for women in contemporary Indonesia. The chapters interrogate some of the formerly clear-cut divisions that even the rhetoric of advanced capitalism is now questioning: the splits between work and life, work and family, between paid work and housework, paid work and child care, and between production and reproduction. In focusing on women's life experiences, we assume a broad meaning tor the word 'work', including not only those activities that bring in income but also home duties, child care, healing and civic work that fulfils obligations for maintaining social and community networks. This in turn impels interrogation of assumptions about economic activity, remunerable activity, divisions of labour, state and other formal definitions of work, and ultimately about the public and private spheres. The book thus seeks to make a significant contribution both to empirical studies of the lived experience and meaning of women's work in Indonesia and to feminist thinking about women's work in the non-Western world. 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/17646 Women and labour organizing in Asia: diversity, autonomy and activism Broadbent, Kaye; Ford, Michele Women have become the new face of industrial labour – and of labour activism – not only in Korea, in all but the most and least developed countries of Asia. Export-oriented industrialization strategies favoured throughout East and Southeast Asia, and more recently in parts of the sub-continent, brought with them a feminization first of factory labour and then of the diverse agglomeration of contract and home workers that now produce consumer goods for the world. The rapidly increasing economic importance of the Asian region in the global context highlights the need for detailed analysis of the institutions and practices which constitute civil society in Asia. Globalization, with its opening up of Asia’s economies, and the concomitant growth of feminized labour-intensive industries, has shone a spotlight on male-dominated union organizations in the region and their failure to protect women’s interests. The chapters in this volume explore women’s responses to these unions’ shortcomings. They examine the strategies female labour activists have employed within and outside the organized labour movements in nine very different Asian contexts, the challenges they face, their frustrations, and their successes. 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16496 Social Activism in Southeast Asia: An Introduction Ford, Michele From People Power in the Philippines to the Saffron Revolution in Myanmar, Southeast Asia is a region in constant political and social flux. It is home to myriad forms of social activism, from lone cyber-activists and small study groups to semi-professional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and mass movements that advocate change on a plethora of issues from ethnic or religious identity, to labour and gender rights, to gross human rights violations, to the environment. Some activists and organizations operate entirely in their local or national context. Others are deeply embedded in transnational activist networks. But almost all imagine themselves to be engaged in a struggle against the state, which is simultaneously seen as enemy and potential ally in the struggle for social change. 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16489 Contested Borders, Contested Boundaries: The Politics of Labour Migration in Southeast Asia Ford, Michele This chapter examines the political economy of labour migration in the region, with a focus on its implications for collective action. It argues that the pivotal role of temporary labour migrants in Southeast Asiaposes intellectual and practical challenges to the way we think about work, mobility and the nature and exercise of labour rights both by individuals and collectively. While temporary labour migration is a serious short-term threat to already weak trade unions in the region, internationally-driven responses to the challenge it presents also offer hope of reinvention and renewal. If even only partially successful, attempts to broaden union constituencies and develop alliances across sectors and national boundaries stand to better equip trade unions to deal not only with temporary labour migration but with the other challenges to organized labour posed by neoliberalism. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16348 Labour Migration and Human Trafficking: An Introduction Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore; van Schendel, Willem Anti-trafficking initiatives grew exponentially since the United Nations passed the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (hereafter the UN Trafficking Protocol) in 2000. This book contributes to the growing critique of the anti-trafficking agenda by exploring the ways in which the UN Trafficking Protocol has been taken up by policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, and international agencies in Southeast Asia. This region is recognized internationally as a ‘hotspot’ for human trafficking, but there have been few attempts to critically evaluate the vast numbers of anti-trafficking programs and projects or counter-trafficking laws and regulations in operation in the region. Instead, much of the literature has focused on documenting the role that international agencies and NGOs have played in counter-trafficking programs; the development of anti-trafficking laws and policies; or empirical studies of human trafficking cases and/or trends.2 In order to address this gap, the authors in this collection focus their attention at the local level and pay careful, systematic attention to the ways that anti-trafficking initiatives have been taken up and translated by different stakeholders at different scales. As these cases show, anti-trafficking initiatives include rescue and repatriation programs for ‘victims’; education programs about the dangerous habits of smugglers and traffickers; development programs aimed at improving economic livelihoods in ‘hotspots’; and international and bilateral policing efforts aimed at securing borders and arresting people smugglers and traffickers. Associated with the rise of a strong discourse of transnational crime prevention, these initiatives have been accompanied by numerous anti-trafficking laws and protocols passed at local, national and regional levels. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16337 Trafficking Versus Smuggling: Malaysia's Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act Lyons, Lenore; Ford, Michele In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Malaysian government has faced increasing pressure to improve its treatment of its large migrant population. To address international criticism and to improve the treatment of victims of trafficking, the government introduced an Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) Act in 2007, which was subsequently amended in 2010 to include crimes associated with migrant smuggling. The first section of this chapter traces the emergence of the Act, while the second documents and analyses national and international responses to it. The chapter argues that the Malaysian example offers important insights into the ways in which international pressure can be brought to bear on the drafting of national laws dealing with human trafficking and smuggling. It demonstrates that the geopolitics of regional border control is increasingly shaping Malaysian responses to its large migrant population. In particular, the distinction between smuggling and trafficking is becoming an important means for Malaysian authorities to strengthen border protection while, at the same time, paying lip service to international demands to address 'the most heinous of crimes'. In the absence of human rights laws that address the exploitation of migrants, these anti-trafficking and anti-migrant smuggling laws have done little to address the system-wide factors that create and sustain endemic abuse of the labour rights of temporary labour migrants. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16334 The Chinese of Karimun: Citizenship and Belonging at Indonesia's Margins Lyons, Lenore; Ford, Michele We argue that the localized expression of Chinese Indonesian identity in Karimun suggests a need to move beyond a focus on integration versus assimilation to an analysis of how identity and belonging are tied to a sense of place. As this chapter shows, in making sense of their position in Indonesia's periphery, Karimun's Chinese community makes reference to a series of binaries – native-born versus foreign-born; center (Jakarta) versus periphery (Riau islands); islanders versus newcomers; and Indonesian versus Singaporean/Malaysian – that serve to structure their accounts of identity and belonging. These binaries are constantly negotiated through interconnected processes of resistance to assimilation and acculturation to a Karimun "way of life." 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16299 Labor Migration, Trafficking and Border Controls Ford, Michele; Lenore, Lyons The increasing securitization of borders can make the process of border crossing more onerous and expensive for all individuals who seek to cross the border. As a result, borderlanders involved in routinized border crossings are subject to increasing state interest. They may be harassed, subject to a range of "fines," and even arrested as traffickers or people smugglers (Eilenberg in press). Border policing activities also disrupt the livelihoods of smugglers, petty traders, and labor brokers, especially when government officials make them the target of antitrafficking campaigns and initiatives. In contexts where borderlanders lay claim to the unique and special character of their crossborder activities as being "illegal but licit" (Abraham and van Schendel 2005), countertrafficking efforts can threaten to disrupt what many see as a traditional way of life (Ford and Lyons in press-b). Understanding the impact of the antitrafficking movement on all forms of labor migration therefore necessitates attention to the discursive and material practices of bordering that take place not only in the center and "en route," but also in the borderlands themselves. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16293 Employer Anti-Unionism in Democratic Indonesia Ford, Michele Based on data collected from interviews conducted at regular intervals between 1999 and 2012, union surveys and reports and secondary sources, this chapter explores the different kinds of anti-union strategies used by employers in the manufacturing sector in Tangerang, an industrial city just west of Jakarta, which is part of the Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi) conurbation. It begins with an overview of Indonesia’s post-authoritarian industrial relations system, and then turns its attention to different forms of employer anti-union behaviour in the post-Suharto period. The chapter argues that, in the absence of adequate state inspection and prosecution regimes, employers have been able to use strategies of containment, overt union busting and workforce informalisation to limit the capacity of – and in some cases even destroy – independent unions. While they have not entirely stifled the union movement, together these strategies have severely hindered unions’ capacity to effectively represent the interests of their members and of workers in general within Indonesia’s industrial relations system. 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16281 Violent Industrial Protest in Indonesia: Cultural Phenomenon or Legacy of an Authoritarian Past? Ford, Michele Indonesia has a long history of violent industrial conflict involving rioting and wide-scale destruction of property, in addition – and sometimes as an alternative – to more orthodox strike actions. Violent actions taken by wage labourers on the plantations as a form of protest against their employers were recorded in the archipelago since the nineteenth century (Stoler 1985, 1995). Episodes of violent industrial protest continued through the twentieth century, but were particularly common in industrial areas in the late 1980s and 1990s, at a time when independent labour organizing was forbidden under the punitive labour relations regime implemented by Suharto’s authoritarian New Order (1967-1998). Despite dramatic changes to the industrial relations system, including significant improvements in collective bargaining structures and in workers’ access to the freedom to organize, industrial violence continues to have a place in the repertoires of action of waged labour in contemporary Indonesia. Many Indonesian authority figures, and some anthropologists, have described episodes of sudden and unexpected violent protest in cultural terms, drawing on concepts such as to run amok (mengamuk) and spirit possession (kesurupan). But, as the discussion that follows shows, while cultural (and historical) patterns may have a role in determining the contours of contemporary incidences of violent industrial protest, they clearly have roots in economic structure and the disjunctures between the rhetoric and practice of industrial relations. In the first part of the chapter, the cultural and structural arguments about violent industrial protest in Indonesia are mapped out with reference to major incidents of industrial violence in the 1980s and 1990s. In the second part, the chapter provides a detailed description of two very different large-scale incidents of industrial violence in the Batam free trade zone, the first apparently a culturally-motivated protest, the second clearly linked to an industrial dispute over the wage determination process, before going on to demonstrate that these incidents actually have a great deal in common. The chapter concludes by arguing that, despite dramatic changes in the industrial relations landscape since the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998, violent protests are likely to continue to occur as long as more ‘modern’ alternatives (like lawful strikes and collective bargaining) are perceived to be ineffective. 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16262 Narratives of Agency: Sex Work in Indonesia’s Borderlands Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore Lia’s and Ani’s narratives raise questions about how we can theorize the “constrained choice to become a sex worker, without moralisingly declaring all sex work to be exploitation or violence against women” (Schotten 2005: 230). The latter view is espoused by those writers who, writing from an abolitionist stance, argue that prostitution is the ultimate expression of male dominance and thus the cornerstone of all sexual exploitation (cf. Barry 1996). According to this argument, there is no place for sex workers to claim that their work is not harmful or alienating. Such a totalizing perspective provides little space for alternative accounts of the intersection between structure and agency and overlooks the ways in which women themselves understand and explain their life histories. The stories that Lia and Ani, two women who became labor migrants, then sex workers, and finally the wives of ex-clients, tell about their lives demonstrate these complexities and challenge commonsense understandings about women’s agency. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16258 After Nunukan: The Regulation of Indonesian Migration to Malaysia Ford, Michele Labour migration from Indonesia to Malaysia is a complex phenomenon. Migrants enter Malaysia via a range of formal, semi-formal and informal channels, primarily through Sumatra and Kalimantan. Although Indonesian authorities make little effort to stop semi-formal and informal migration flows, the Malaysian government constantly adjusts its policies towards both documented and undocumented labour migrants according to the condition of its labour market. Periodically these adjustments have involved the mass arrest and deportation of undocumented workers, for example when hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers were expelled from Eastern Malaysia to the tiny town Nunukan in East Kalimantan in mid-2002. Both the Indonesian and Malaysian governments have failed to recognise the impact of the Malaysian government’s policies on transit zones such as Riau and East Kalimantan, and that more serious efforts at bilateral cooperation must be made in order to lessen the social costs of labour migration in these zones. 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16250 A Challenge for Business? Developments in Indonesian Trade Unionism after Soeharto Ford, Michele This chapter discusses debates on unionism and business from a labour movement perspective. It begins by briefly outlining developments in unionism in New Order Indonesia and sketching changes in the regulatory environment and union activity in the first five years after the fall of Soeharto, before turning to the central question regarding the extent to which ‘militant’ unionism has been a challenge to business. It argues that, while the new industrial relations climate does indeed present challenges for employers, those challenges lie in developing effective mechanisms through which they can work with unions rather than in the spectre of a strong and militant labour movement bent on the destruction of business. 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16247 Who are the Orang Riau? Negotiating Identity across Geographic and Ethnic Divides Ford, Michele Debates about identity have multiplied across Indonesia in the wake of the implementation of regional autonomy. In the ethnically heterogeneous province of Riau, identity is prominent in the public debate and pivotal to struggles over the distribution of resources and questions of political allegiance. This chapter examines the extent to which these public discourses of identity are reflected at the grassroots level, drawing from my own experiences as an intermittent member of a non-Malay Riau household, and on data from semi-structured interviews conducted in June 2002 with community leaders and 40 other people from a range of social and ethnic backgrounds. 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16145 International Networks and Human Rights in Indonesia Ford, Michele Following Risse and Sikkink, I privilege the point of interaction between local and international campaigns for better access to human rights in my analysis of the socialisation of human rights norms and the establishment of human rights institutions, but in a way that contextualises those interactions within the political context of Indonesia. I begin my attempt to do so with an overview of the shifts in the political terrain in the decades immediately before and after the fall of Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime in May 1998, with a view to charting the impact of those shifts on the observance of human rights. I then turn my attention to three particular sectors within human rights advocacy- namely labour rights, women's rights and the right to political self-determination - in order to describe their quite different trajectories, before returning to the broader implications of this analysis for our understanding both of human rights in Indonesia and of human rights change itself. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16146 Indonesia as an Archipelago: Managing Islands, Managing the Seas Cribb, Robert; Ford, Michele Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state. By the latest official count, the archipelago consists of 18,108 islands, which lie scattered between the mountainous island of Breueh in the west and tiny Sibir Island in Humboldt Bay (Teluk Yos Sudarso) in the east, and between Miangas in the north and Dana in the south. Indonesia's islands range in size from New Guinea, Borneo and Sumatra, respectively the second, third and sixth largest islands in the world, to tiny islets with only local names. Situated between longitude 97°E and 141°E and between latitude 6°N and 11°5, Indonesia comprises 2.8 million square kilometres of water (including 92,877 square kilometres of inland waters) and 1,826,440 square kilometres of land. If Indonesia's exclusive eco­ nomic zone (EEZ), stretching beyond the archipelago, is included, Indo­ nesia's area of sea expands to 7.9 million square kilometres. Indonesia's archipelagic character creates two distinct but intertwined problems of governance. First, by separating Indonesia's landmass into islands, the sea creates special challenges of communication, coordination and even identity. Governing the land is made more difficult by the intervening presence of the sea. Second, the seas that lie between and around these islands need to be governed. These seas represent a major strategic, economic and cultural resource for Indonesia; they cannot be ignored, yet governing the maritime zone poses enormous practical difficulties. 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16147 Fluid Boundaries: Modernity, Nation and Identity in the Riau Islands Ford, Michele; Lyons, Lenore While there is growing scholarly interest in the everyday meanings and practices of nation building in Indonesia, there has been little consideration of the role the sea plays in drawing the nation together or in the ways that it pulls it apart. Even less attention has been given to the ways in which the communities that live along Indonesia's maritime borders experience and understand the border in their daily lives. By focusing on the communities that live along the outer edges of the Indonesian nation-state, this chapter offers a means to explore the everyday salience of water for the process of constructing the wawasan nusantara. We argue that although Indonesia's maritime borders are a constant signifier of national identity and belonging for Riau Islanders, at the same time islanders have a strong sense of regional identity and belonging built on a dense web of transnational flows across the straits. Our research reveals that, for many Riau Islanders, it is the border that unites them with other Indonesians, but it is the waters of the straits that draw them to their northern neighbours. 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16137 Southern Sites of Female Agency: Informal Regimes and Female Migrant Labour Resistance in East and Southeast Asia Ford, Michele; Piper, Nicola This chapter focuses on FDWs’ collective activism and middle-class campaigns in sending and receiving countries in East and Southeast Asia around foreign domestic worker issues. The chapter begins with a brief overview of female labour migration in East and Southeast Asia followed by a discussion of the formal regimes that seek to regulate it. It then proceeds to discuss the informal regimes that have emerged both within and across national borders since the 1980s, using examples from several countries in the region. The final section focuses on the implications of interactions between the formal and informal regimes associated with foreign domestic labour. The chapter concludes that although serious obstacles continue to hinder migrant worker groups’ and migrant labour NGOs’ campaigns, these groups are engaged in an increasingly important form of transnational collective action that enables defiance and provides a mechanism through which to attempt to influence the formal regimes that regulate the personal and working lives of FDWs. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16135 Emerging Labour Movements and the Accountability Dilemma: The Case of Indonesia Ford, Michele This chapter begins by examining the arguments most often made about the differences between labor unions and labor NGOs and the effects those differences have on the nature and extent of their accountability to workers. It then explains the context in which NGOs came to dominate the Indonesian labor movement in the early 1990s and the web of accountability in which Indonesian labor NGOs and unions find themselves today. The chapter concludes by outlining the implications of the "accountability dilemma" faced by unions and labor NGOs. It argues that - despite their formally democratic accountability structures - Indonesian unions are not necessarily always more accountable to workers than their undemocratic labor NGO counterparts. This suggests that a multidimensional model of accountability is required that recognizes the impact that pressures associated with a particular environment have on labor movement organizations' ability to be accountable to workers. 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16140 Developing Societies - Asia Ford, Michele 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/2123/16132 Singaporean First: Challenging the Concept of Transnational Malay Masculinity Lyons, Lenore; Ford, Michele This chapter calls into question ideas about the existence of a transnational Malay-Muslim identity by examining the ways in which Malay men understand and perform their masculinity vis-a-vis men in the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. It starts from the premise that issues of ethnic (and religious) 'loyalty' are questions that rest on primordial notions of 'self and 'other' attributed to ethnicity and religion. We argue that, in the context of Singapore, concepts of ethnic and national identity are shaped by two significant forces: the presence of the Chinese majority population, and the PAP's stance on Singapore's location in a Malay/Muslim archipelago (Brown 1994; Hill and Lian 1995). The Chinese majority population and the Chinese dominated parliament and bureaucracy play a critical role in shaping Malay identity not through a process of hybridisation that arises through direct contact and interaction, but through a state-led policy of comparison that requires the Malay community to constantly position itself in relation to the majority (Li 1989: 136). At the same time, given the heterogeneity of the Malay community (a fact eluded to in public statements about 'Malay loyalty'), any investigation into the meaning of a shared Malay identity also needs to consider to what extent 'Malayness' is constituted as 'a Singaporean experience, and to what extent this experience has itself been conditioned by geographical proximity to Malaysia and cultural affinities with other related communities in Malaysia, the Riau archipelago, and Indonesia' (Lian and Rajah 2002: 232). By examining how Singaporean Malay men negotiate and construct their identities, this paper both problematises the notion of a homogenous Malay identity in Singapore and seeks to subvert commonly held understandings about the presence of a transnational Malay masculinity in the region. 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z