Malaysia Migrant Worker Policy and the Dual Logic of Nation-State: Developmentalism and Nationalism
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Cheong, Wey-Jin
Abstract
This thesis mainly focuses on how the dual logic of Malaysia--developmentalism and nationalism-- influences Malaysia labor migration policy in different contexts. The rationality in policy is also analyzed by examining the role of nation-state. Both the ideologies have significantly shaped the political-economy of Malaysia. As a strong developmental state, Malaysia’s nation-state plays its important role in directing the capitalist development by serving the international division of labor. In the mean time, though the state has presented itself as a multiethnic society, it has never abandoned its effort in building a Malay Muslim dominated political entity.
Migrant workers have contributed 25% of total labor force in Malaysia and this reflects cheap labor is taken as a crucial mechanism in this developmental state. By addressing its reliance on cheap labor, this thesis traces and describes the few puzzles emerged from the development of and changes in Malaysia transnational labor movement since 1970s. In order to rationalize the recruitment of migrant workers, the author argues that the state has constructed discourses of ‘labor crisis’ and ‘temporary measure’ in the name of national development.
Paradoxically, local workers’ strikes and complaints have spread. An exploitative and harsh guest-worker policy, as a mean of controlling irregular migration and of restoring government legitimacy, has been gradually established. The stop-go characteristic of migrant worker policy, best serves host country’s need, has however turned the migrant workers into ‘legal servitude’.
From the nationalism perspective, account nearly 60%-80% of Malaysia transnational labor market, the large proportion of Indonesian workers, who share common characteristics of Malay ethnic culture, proves the existence of the state’s selectivity which is related to and consistent with its basic features of nationalism that emphasize on the superiority of ??Malayness’ and Islamization. I proposed the concept of ‘ethnicization’ to capture the state selectivity where it is prone to integrate Indonesian migrant workers, to some extent, into the construction of ummah—the world wide Islamic community—rather than exclude them.
It can be expected that migrant worker policy with preference challenges the multiethnic nation identity and raises question such as ‘Who are we?’ Depending on circumstances, Indonesian migrant workers have been experiencing the process of stratified Otherization in the sense that they have been treated as inferior other when different social actors, includes the state, try to draw boundaries. This is especially true when the Malaysian government adopted ‘Indonesia Hire Last’ policy and immediately determined to diversify its source countries from 4 to 17 in 2002. These changes triggers the contradiction of developmentalism and nationalism. Comparing to the early stage policy, I argue that the recent migrant worker policy shows that the state borderline no longer opens to Indonesian Muslim workers since they failed to fit into the new concept of ‘New Malay Muslim Model’ and thus a newly ‘bounded Islamic community’ is established.
To sum up, I reexamine the different combinations of relationships of the dual logic—developmentalism and nationalism, which is reflected on the formation of Malaysia labor migration.
Subjects
Labor migration
migrant worker
nation-state
Otherization
developmentalism
nationalism
racialisation
enthnicization
Malaysia
Indonesia
SDGs
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