Smuggling Cultures in the Indonesia-Singapore Borderlands

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine the unauthorised movement of goods across the border to and from Indonesia's Riau Islands from the perspective of the individuals who smuggle and consume them, and from the perspective of local agents of the state - individuals whose stories demonstrate the multiple meanings associated with cross-border flows across the straits and, in doing so, shed light on how state practices intersect with competing ideas about legality and licitness. The first part of the chapter examines this nexus between the historical formation of the border and cross-border flows of goods in the colonial and post-colonial periods. Here we show that although many individuals who live in the Riau Islands experience the border as a boundary and as the imposition of state rule, it also represents a resource that can be exploited. The second part of the chapter demonstrates how the often contradictory processes of bordering have shaped not only the ways that Riau Islanders imagine the border but also the state's changing definitions of, and responses to, smuggling. ln particular, our study of the Riau Islands reveals that local state involvement in 'illegal' acts (such as corruption that supports smuggling) can be seen as a legitimate response to local needs and the perceived failures of the national government and legal system- a fact that points to the need to explore local ecologies of licitness (and illegality) not just in terms of community perceptions but also in terms of different levels of the state.