Travelling the Aspal Route: Grey Labour Migration through an Indonesian Border Town

Abstract

This chapter explores the state's role in semi-legal migration flows through Tanjung Pinang, the capital city of the province of Kepulauan Riau (the Riau Islands) in the borderlands between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. In the Riau Islands, local officials play a pivotal role in facilitating the flow of temporary labour migrants across the border. They collaborate with a range of other actors involved in the labour migration process, including official and unofficial labour recruitment agents; local brokers who act as middlemen between agents, officials and prospective migrants; and numerous other private entrepreneurs who provide specialized services, such as those running 'passport bureaus'. While some of these actors are involved in legal businesses, others operate illegally but with local government sanction. Together they are part of an alternative labour migration system that sits alongside the official process, and which has both legal and illegal aspects to its operation.