Labor Migration, Trafficking and Border Controls

Abstract

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.