Politics of Economic Adjustment: The Changing Nature of Women’s Work in Jharkand,India

This paper focuses on the ‘gendered’ politics of economic adjustment exemplified in India’s New Economic Policy (NEP) and interrogates NEP’s tacit appropriation of women’s labour (productive and reproductive) to maintain social reproduction during times of economic insecurity. Through a micro­study of an ‘Oraon’ village in the Jharkand region of Bihar, India, I explore the changing nature of women’s work and gender relations in response to the larger socio­economic transformation initiated by the NEP; and how in turn these changes are mediated through the interacting politics of the gendered ideology of the family and the household, class and ethnicity. Through the analysis of changing gender responsibilities within the household, I critique the ‘unitary model’ approach to household behaviour implicit in the NEP and argue for the need to move beyond it, to address the larger issues of gender equity and empowerment.     

Practices of place‐making: Globalisation and locality in the Philippines

Abstract: Global flows of people and information in the Asia–Pacific region are creating new forms of place that stretch across national boundaries and rural–urban distinctions. These new mobile forms of place link long‐inhabited rural areas to cities, national centres, and to rural frontiers within the nation. Here, we describe new forms of place that are being produced by contemporary migration and economic change, using data from the Philippines and applying Appadurai's theorisation of translocality. Our analysis links these flows of overseas migrants to concomitant processes of economic change, migration and new rural livelihoods. We outline changing practices of place within the Philippines, exploring ways that transnational migration can articulate with apparently ‘local’ development and the flow‐on effects from migration on the spatial patterns of rural livelihoods.     

Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese‐Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore

Abstract: Part of the globalisation phenomenon involves an increasing number of elite transmigrants traversing national boundaries in response to the global demand for skilled labour while maintaining multifaceted social ties astride political, geographic and cultural borders, linking home and host countries together. As transmigrants ‘live’ in several communities simultaneously, their identities, behaviour and values are often not limited by location. Thus, notions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ are also being reviewed given the discrepancies between these concepts and locality. In this context, this paper explores questions of ‘home’ and ‘national identity’ among skilled Chinese‐Malaysians working and residing in Singapore, portraying them as active participants of two (or more) countries. It focuses on their strategies and struggles in negotiating ideologies of ‘home’ and ‘national identities’ across borders in a setting of two neighbouring countries umbilically linked in a volatile political relationship. It further examines their degree of concern in the political affairs of both countries. Between ‘home’ and ‘host’, Chinese‐Malaysians redefine their practices of home(‐making) in relation to their national identity, drawing on the resources and resilience of familial ties, nostalgic memories and other practical lifecourse needs.     

Sites of infrastructure,apprenticeship and possibilities for self: Locating Indonesia's missing women in representative politics

Women are under-represented in Indonesian legislatures, and those women who are elected are disproportionately from ‘elite’ backgrounds. This research sought to understand the conditions for women to succeed in politics in conditions of patriarchy and clientelist politics. Research in North Sumatera, Indonesia, revealed that many women did not make the conscious decision not to enter politics, but rather found that they had not established the required preconditions earlier enough in life. Patriarchal social norms and a transactional political culture frustrate women's ability to acquire these conditions, yet they are also subject to change. Interviews with women elected representatives and women who had never contested an election revealed three sites that are critical to women either acquiring the preconditions to contest elections, or frustrating that pathway: the household, the ‘community’ and religious/ethnic associations. We demonstrate how women's actions in these sites transform the conditions to make them more conducive to women's political participation.     

The geography of Philippine international labour migration fields

International labour migration has increased in scale and scope during the past three decades. Concomitant, a copious body of work has examined the causes and consequences of these migratory systems. Missing, however, have been empirically-grounded studies of migration fields, linking migrant origins within a sending country with destinations. In part, this lack of detailed studies results from the paucity of geographically-sensitive data. Using special tabulations provided for the lead author, this paper is able to overcome these difficulties. Specifically, in this paper we document and empirically analyse, by sex, the spatial and occupation patterns of Philippine international labour migration. Findings suggest that female migrant workers, regardless of regional origin within the Philippines, tend to be more spatially and occupationally channellised than their male counterparts. Moreover, more peripheral locations throughout the Philippines indicate more highly channellised flows, suggesting the importance of both recruitment-related networks as well as social networks among migrants and their families.     

Constrained agencies: The emergence of Singapore's distinctive temporary staffing industry

This paper presents the first economic geography study of Singapore's temporary staffing industry. Drawing on secondary data and semi‐structured interviews with trade association representatives and senior executives from temporary staffing agencies, it examines the structure and characteristics of Singapore's industry and, more specifically, how its distinctive institutional configuration influences the activities of staffing agencies and the industry's overall trajectory. While temporary staffing in Singapore has experienced steady growth since the turn of the millennium, growth is ultimately constrained by both Singapore's regulatory environment and the inherent nature of its labour market. As such, the temporary staffing industry is still relatively small today, and has become increasingly saturated with strong competition between transnational and domestic agencies. Empirically, analysis of the Singapore case contributes to the wider literature on temporary staffing markets by profiling the nature and growth dynamics of a small and emerging temporary staffing market. Conceptually, the study reveals under‐studied aspects in current work relating to how the market is shaped by intersections with shifting global divisions of labour, the nature of the state's managed immigration regime and elements of national labour‐market culture.     

Migration management and mobility pathways for Filipino migrants to New Zealand

There has been an increasing focus on migration management by academics and policy makers, especially in relation to temporary and transitional forms of mobility. This paper considers the acceleration of Filipino migration to New Zealand in recent years, partly driven by changing policies allowing migrants to transition from student and work visas to permanent residence. It outlines the history of Filipino migration to New Zealand, the roles of the Philippines and New Zealand governments and intermediaries in migration management and the nature of student, temporary work and permanent residence migration. The transitional pathways used by Filipino migrants are analysed in relation to the influence of skills and educational characteristics in creating opportunities for some and vulnerability for others.     

Border crossing of Muslim women in southern‐border provinces of Thailand

In general, the main roles of married Thai Muslim women were as home makers good wives and good mothers. Nevertheless, both married and single women from rural areas have been increasingly obliged to work outside the household, locally and in other countries. People in rural areas are now faced with the difficulty of maintaining their livelihoods if they depended on agricultural production alone. In some instances, female migration might be a response to families not being able to survive on the incomes earned by the male household heads. In response, women in southern Thailand provinces use long‐standing social networks that facilitate their migration for work, because they benefit from the close proximity, language, and religion that they share with the destination area. Commonly, they travel to work in Malaysia by using a border pass, while some travel and work without any documents. The effects of crossing national borders on migrants themselves and on their communities are mixed, generally positive from an economic perspective, but negative from a social viewpoint. Socially negative responses reflect a system of social control in the region based on patriarchy.     

Blue Revolution or Red Herring? Fish Farming and Development Discourse in the Philippines

This paper argues that the discourses of development underpinning aquaculture as a development strategy are flawed because they neglect the impacts of fish farming on the local resource base and those social groups dependent upon it. The Philippine government has promoted aquaculture for over two decades, viewing it as a key component of national economic recovery. But field work in the Batan municipality of the Philippines reveals that the ‘common sense’ behind aquaculture is severely undermined when its effects on the physical environment and people in the vicinity of fishponds are examined.     

Popularising purity: Gender,sexuality and nationalism in HIV/AIDS prevention for South Korean youths

Abstract: This paper examines how HIV/AIDS gains its social meanings at the intersection of discourses about gender, sexuality and nationalism in Korea. It examines how a major Korean NGO reinforces media and government construction of HIV/AIDS as a national threat, and mobilises ‘purity’ as an indigenous value to resist the global onslaught. This Purity Campaign successfully draws on pre‐existing narratives about Korean society and national development, constituting itself as a site for both the negotiation of meanings around HIV/AIDS as well as the impact of globalisation on Korea. The meaning of purity in the Campaign is expanded to connote a state of moral being beyond mere chastity to reinforce the nation's defence against foreign corruption. Changing gender relations and sexual expressions become targets of purification, with women shouldering a disproportionate burden of blame and responsibility. The Campaign relies heavily on universalising family rhetorics and national essence to popularise purity as the Korean way to build an AIDS‐free society. Although purity becomes a symbol of moral order and national health, AIDS serves as a metaphor of foreign contamination and domestic anxieties. The discussion interweaves texts, interviews and ethnography, and draws on anthropological and cultural studies.     

Overcoming barriers: Myanmar's recent elections and women's political participation

Myanmar's 2015 elections have been credited with bringing about a myriad of changes within the country. Much has been written about the changing political climate within Myanmar. One topic which has not yet been discussed adequately, however, is the role of Burmese women in these recent elections. This paper seeks to examine women's political participation in Myanmar's recent move towards democratisation. Using rates of female candidacies in Burmese elections, comparing these figures with rates of female participation in other Southeast Asian countries, and ethnographic research with the Burmese voting public, this paper will contribute to the sparse scholarship regarding the role of women in new democracies and regime transitions. This paper finds that beliefs about traditional gender roles, rooted in traditional Buddhism, still shape the way both men and women in Myanmar view women's political participation. While women are better represented in Myanmar's government than they were in the past, this paper suggests that measures such as quotas or reserved seats based on gender may be the best way to increase Burmese women's political representation in the future.     

Politics and Gender: Negotiating Conceptions of the Ideal Woman in Present Day Cambodia

This paper briefly describes a Khmer politician’s references to four women made during a 1993 campaign speech. It then reviews notions of the ideal woman from Khmer literature, and from life stories and ethnographic accounts. The politician manipulated gender symbolism, playing on multiple ambiguous notions of femaleness to prove his own powerful status and to comment on the current state of the Khmer social and moral order. In the face of the drastic changes of the last twenty years, he linked his own power and that of other men to their control over women’s sexuality. While he was willing to allow for, indeed participate in playing on, the ambiguity inherent in gender conceptions to create new ideal types of strong women, he simultaneously used appeals to tradition to maintain male authority over women.     

Transnational state entrepreneurship? Assessing Singapore's Suzhou Industrial Park project (1994–2004)

Abstract: This paper examines an exemplary case of ‘transnational state entrepreneurship’, which was the Singapore government's Suzhou Industrial Park project. Between 1994 and 2001, the Singapore government was directly involved in the development and management of the project, hoping to generate an income that could eventually supplement Singapore's domestic economy. The strategy involved servicing the industrial needs of multinational corporations seeking to locate operations in China. This paper finds that transnational state entrepreneurship was less than successful, as the Singapore government's objectives were only partially achieved. The project's biggest problems were its lack of profitability and, ironically, the state's presence. This led to the Singapore government disengaging from the project in 2001. The paper concludes that it would be very difficult for a state, which is essentially a political entity, to be as efficient as a business entity, especially in an international environment.     

Pacific flows: The fluidity of remittances in the Cook Islands

Abstract: This paper contributes political and cultural‐economy perspectives to the critique of the MIRAB model 20 years on. In it, we celebrate the politically grounded reading by MIRAB analysts of development in the small island nations of the Pacific and their attention to both the empirical and the structural in their treatment of the economies of these countries. We address aspects, however, of one of the common critiques of MIRAB analyses: their failure to capture accurately the nature of small island socio‐cultural economies. We focus on the workings of remittance systems on two of the Cook Islands, Mauke and Manihiki, as the basis for a more thorough critique. We argue that rather than living economically and nationally determined lives, Cook Islanders live in rich networks of flows of goods, people, labour and meaning that the MIRAB model does not fully capture. The microeconomics of the transnational kin or household unit and the remittance decision are deeply embedded in such networks. These networks generate their own, temporary constellations of responsibility, economy and decision‐making, which may or may not materialise at any point as household economy. We consider some of the consequences of a network view for MIRAB analyses and for development in small island nations.     

Spatiality,belonging and citizenship in the age of migration in contemporary China

While internal migration in contemporary China ascribes a great change to urban China's demographic composition, social structures and economic development trajectories, it is yet to restructure the formal definitions of urban identity and belonging, which are still dominated by the household registration system (hukou). The paper suggests that as a result of changes in the political, economic, demographic and social contexts within which China's internal migration develops, there emerge a crucial need to re‐examine the crude forms of determining identity and belonging, questioning the addressing of spatiality within the existing mechanisms (such as hukou system or the shiminhua discourse). To do so, the paper argues that the existing de‐territorialisation of the migration experience has to be replaced with a more nuanced understanding of how spatial practices and conceptualisations shape migrants’ experiences, as it is becoming imperative to develop a new framework that is more sensitive to migrants’ lived process of identification and belonging, especially as these traverse multiple geographies and spatial scales. This close engagement with migrants’ spatiality can then be used as a base from which to engage with a more complex view of migrants’ spatial and social relatedness, as well as the development of their urban belonging and identity.     

Women

In New Zealand while women dominate leadership positions in constitutional, political and business areas, gender inequality remains entrenched. Despite significant gains in rights (employment, pay equity, property), as a group women earn less and perform more family care and unpaid work than men. In part these disparities result from the economic restructuring of the last 15 years which saw a loss in unskilled manufacturing jobs, less social support and greater rewards to business and public sector elites. Maori and Pacific Island women are the most disadvantaged groups. Labour/Alliance government initiatives to reduce poverty particularly among Maori and Pacific Island peoples by strengthening access to health and education services and supporting and replicating successful community initiatives are also likely to benefit other low income women.     

(Re)negotiating Gender Hierarchy in the New Order: A South Sumatran Field Study

Central to the organisation of gender roles and hierarchical structures in the traditional societies of South Sumatra (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia) is the concept/emotion of malu, which can be translated as shame, embarrassment or shyness. Malu is regarded as providing the foundation for the development of moral consciousness. It supports the hierarchical power structure of society by signalling behaviour that does not demonstrate the respect due to a superior. It also signals behaviour which is gender inappropriate. This paper, based on in­depth interviews with students and faculty at the University of Sriwijaya and the Raden Fateh IAIN, the state­supported Islamic university in Palembang, is aimed at understanding why students in South Sumatra have chosen a form of Islam that emphasises the authority of men over women and greater restraint for women, as compared to men. I argue that the New Order government and the Dakwah movement have mobilised anxiety over social change by defining women’s freedom as dangerous, thereby evoking in women the deeply rooted emotional and ethical response of malu. Thus, women in Indonesia become more important economically, they continue to accept the authority of men over women, and men’s control over the family and society is maintained.     

Women in community-involved tourism enterprises: Experiences in the Philippines

The tourism industry has long been recognised for supporting women in achieving economic empowerment and social freedom through entrepreneurial and employment opportunities. Widely recognised as a women-dominated sector, tourism is deemed to be a facilitator of women's development following the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the existing literature suggests, women's involvement in tourism activities supports local economic growth and development, while facilitating social transformation that enables them to create their own identities. Despite these achievements, several studies noted the persisting issues women face in participating in tourism. With the goal of contributing to existing discourses, this paper aims to analyse their experiences in community entrepreneurship by examining several community-involved tourism enterprises in the Philippines. The findings of this study reveal that women have been largely involved in tourism activities in that country, yet their experiences working in these enterprises vary. The opportunities and challenges identified in this study can serve as a springboard for further analysis of the experience of women working in the Philippine tourism industry.     

The Changing Organisation of Work in Malaysia’s Electronics Industry

The early growth phase of Malaysia’s electronics industry coincided in the 1970s with high unemployment and accelerated rural­urban migration and a willingness to make considerable concessions to foreign transnationals seeking suitable cheap and passive labour sites. The result was a very rigid exploitation of the labour force. Interviews with a variety of contemporary electronics firms show how this changed in the I 980s and I 990s. Demand for labour increased and unemployment declined, automation removed much of the labour intensity and raised the need for skill and cooperation and commitment of those hired to work in an increasingly sophisticated sector. Wages rose and management practices changed, together with the introduction of flexible production techniques, preventative maintenance and quality control, each of which required considerable employee participation. Despite these changes, both firms and government have resisted attempts nationwide unionisation of the industry.