MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2012 - Asia Research Institute, NUS · Ateneo de Manila University, ......

The ‘Diaspora Strategies’ of Migrant-Sending Countries: Migration-As-Development Reinvented? Singapore, 5 - 6 November 2012

Organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

to be held at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road

MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2012 09:45 – 10:15 BREAKFAST AND REGISTRATION

10:00 – 10:15 WELCOME ADDRESS

ASSOC PROF TAN SOR HOON

Deputy Director, Asia Research Institute, and Head of Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore

10:15 – 10:30 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

DR ELAINE HO

Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

DR MAUREEN HICKEY

Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

10:30 – 12:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Chairperson: DR ELAINE HO, National University of Singapore

10:30 PROF WENDY LARNER University of Bristol, UK

Globalising Knowledge Networks: Universities, Diaspora Strategies, and Academic Intermediaries

12:00 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

12:30 – 13:30 LUNCH

13:30 – 15:30 SESSION 1: CULTIVATING ‘DIASPORA’ FOR DEVELOPMENT?

Chairperson: DR ZHANG JUAN, National University of Singapore

13:30 DR DHOOLEKA RAJ Independent Researcher

“The Sun Never Sets on the Indian Diaspora”: State, Nation, Emigration and the Emergence of a Diaspora Strategy

14:00 DR ELAINE HO National University of Singapore

PROF MARK BOYLE National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Migration-As-Development Repackaged? The Globalising Imperative of the Singaporean State’s Diaspora Strategy

14:30 PROF DAVID ZWEIG The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

“Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones”: China’s Flexible Diaspora Strategy


15:30 – 16:00 AFTERNOON TEA




16:00 – 18:00 SESSION 2: MOBILISING ‘DIASPORA’ BUT WHOSE VERSION OF DEVELOPMENT?

Chairperson: DR MAUREEN HICKEY, National University of Singapore

16:00 MS KOH SIN YEE London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK

State-led Talent Project and the Neglected “Malaysian Diaspora”: Whose Diaspora, What Citizenship?

16:30 ASSOC PROF GOLDA MYRA R. ROMA Commission on Filipinos Overseas, Philippines

Pppp: Public, Private and People Partnership in Mobilizing Diaspora for Development?

17:00 MR JUSTIN PEÑAFIEL The University of Sydney, Australia

Nation-Building through Diasporic ‘Temporary’ Emigrants – A Critical Analysis of Filipino Workers on ‘Temporary’ Australian Employer Sponsored Visas


18:00 BUS TRANSFER TO DINNER VENUE

18:30 – 20:00 WORKSHOP DINNER (For Speakers, Chairpersons & Invited Guests)




TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2012 09:45 – 10:00 BREAKFAST AND REGISTRATION

10:00 – 12:00 SESSION 3: INTERPRETING ‘DIASPORA’ AND DEVELOPMENT?

Chairperson: DR LAI AH ENG, National University of Singapore

10:00 ASSOC PROF MAGGI W.H. LEUNG Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Engaging a Temporal-Spatial Stretch: An Inquiry into the Role of the State in Making and Tapping of the Chinese Scientific Diaspora

10:30 MR ALUISIUS HERY PRATONO The University of Surabaya, Indonesia

MR MUHAMAD NOUR TIFA Foundation, Indonesia

Diaspora Strategy and Poverty Alleviation in East Java Indonesia

11:00 DR MAUREEN HICKEY National University of Singapore

Rethinking “Diaspora Strategies” in the Age of MAD: Rights, Skills and Questions of Value


12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH

13:00 – 15:00 SESSION 4: SUSTAINING ‘DIASPORA’ FOR DEVELOPMENT?

Chairperson: DR JOHAN LINDQUIST, National University of Singapore

13: 00 ASSOC PROF JOHAN FISCHER Roskilde University, Germany

‘Forging New Malay Networks’: Economy and Aspirations in the Malaysian Diaspora

13:30 DR JANE H. YAMASHIRO University of Southern California, USA

Migration, Development, and Diaspora Strategies in South Korea and Japan

14:00 DR ANDREA SOCO

Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines

Return and Remittances: Towards a Critique of the Discourse of ‘Reintegration’


15:00 – 15:30 AFTERNOON TEA

15:30 – 16:30 DISCUSSANT ADDRESS

Chairperson: PROF BRENDA YEOH, National University of Singapore

PROF DAVID LEY Social and Cultural Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada

16:30 – 17:00 CONCLUDING REMARKS

PROF BRENDA YEOH

Asia Research Institute and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

DR ELAINE HO

Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

DR MAUREEN HICKEY

Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

17:00 END OF DAY 2




KEYNOTE ADDRESS

GLOBALISING KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS: UNIVERSITIES, DIASPORA STRATEGIES, AND ACADEMIC INTERMEDIARIES Wendy LARNER School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, UK [email protected]

As diaspora strategies have become an integral aspect of national economic development strategies, so too have academic institutions begun to create more formal links with diasporic scientists, researchers and scholars. The impetus to create these globalising knowledge networks derives from multiple sources including international and national funding bodies who are increasingly focused on research 'grand challenges', the institutional ambitions of universities who are seeking to expand their research remits in increasingly resource constrained environments, and the aspirations of individual researchers for whom global networks are increasingly important to successful careers. This paper will investigate the role of diasporic ‘academic intermediaries’ in these new globalising knowledge networks; focusing on their infrastructure (institutions, imaginaries, technologies, movements, funding), the diverse forms they take, how different research knowledge circulate, and the new connections that are being made. Particular attention will be paid to examples of globalising knowledge networks that make manifest the recent shift from asymmetrical initiatives that use relationships with diasporic academics to access better-resourced institutions and groups, to bi-lateral relationships that challenge conventional academic hierarchies and give rise to more mutually beneficial and reciprocal benefits. In time, it is argued, these shifts may be transformative of academic knowledge and practice as more researchers are exposed to the diverse geographies of new globalising knowledge networks. Wendy Larner is Professor of Human Geography, University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Her research challenges conventional understandings of globalisation as an inevitable ‘new reality’ by showing that it is a contested and contradictory process in the making. Relatedly, she has a long standing research commitment to understanding neo-liberalism and ‘post-welfarist’ governance. Funded projects encompass economic and social development, industry studies, and community based research. Most recently, she was awarded funding for a Bristol-based project with a social enterprise network that examines new models of social innovation. She is also Editor of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, and Associate Editor for Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society.




“THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE INDIAN DIASPORA”: STATE, NATION, EMIGRATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF A DIASPORA STRATEGY Dhooleka RAJ Independent Researcher [email protected]

Focussing on 1947-1999, in this paper, I explore legal, policy and discursive engagements between the Indian state and its emigrants. The Government of India's creation of a body known as the High Level Committee of the Indian Diaspora (2000) marks a significant turning point in the relationship of the Indian state with members of the transnational Indian community. This fond embrace of “the mother country and her children abroad” heralded a policy change for the Ministry of External Affairs, which cascaded into significant reforms, including the establishment of a separate Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs; officially engaging the GOI into an active ‘diaspora strategy’. Prior to the committee's inception, I explore key historical moments highlighting three significant periods, post Independence, 1970s, and post-liberalization periods, to detail the striking lack of interest and concomitant reluctant state and policy responses to the "Indian Diaspora". I then reflect on the rhetoric and legislative changes behind the current seeming love-affair with the Indian state and its emigrant population. I conclude by questioning assumptions informing work on the engagement of the Indian Diaspora with its ‘home’: are all changes in State policies only the result of a development agenda in a post-liberalized Indian economy? In doing so, my aim is to reveal the mechanisms through which ‘diaspora’ is actively created by the nation-state. Rather than assume its a priori existence, I ask how a diaspora can come into being as a result of changes in the 'home' polity and argue for an understanding beyond the migration-as-development discourse. Dhooleka Sarhadi Raj, is author of Where Are You From? Middle Class Migrants in the Modern World (2003, University of California Press), and is currently writing a book on the emergence of diaspora strategies from the Indian Nation-State as it re-positions itself as a homeland for its emigrant population. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Yale, Harvard and Cambridge. Her research and publications explore transnational migration, focussing on South Asia. A key question of her work is to understand globalization as the movement of people, specifically, how ethno-religious minorities involved in transnationalism simultaneously transform families and nation-states. She has conducted fieldwork on migrants (London), partition refugees (Delhi), globalization and the American family (Washington DC) and state responses to bioterrorism (USA). Previously, she was the Associate Chair of South Asian Studies, Yale University. Dr. Raj held a research fellowship at The Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and was the Smuts-Hinduja Research Fellow, University of Cambridge. She has served on the American Anthropological Association Committee of Ethics and The Ethics Task Force. Dr. Raj holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Cambridge.




MIGRATION-AS-DEVELOPMENT REPACKAGED? THE GLOBALISING IMPERATIVE OF THE SINGAPOREAN STATE’S DIASPORA STRATEGY Elaine Lynn-Ee HO Department of Geography, National University of Singapore [email protected] Mark BOYLE Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth [email protected]

The purpose of this paper is to take stock of and to comment critically on the Migration and Development (MAD) agenda with specific reference to Singapore’s emerging diaspora strategy. Migration is traditionally associated with development agendas in ‘developing’ countries where migrants’ remittances, investments and philanthropic contributions go towards reducing poverty and securing better living conditions for their families and co-nationals. This paper argues that the diaspora strategies promoted by wealthier countries in order to pursue global business opportunities and scientific and technological progress in knowledge-based economies are premised on similar logics although framed differently. To date, literature on diaspora strategising in the global north has tended to focus upon the examples of Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and Israel. Drawing on the case of Singapore, the paper demonstrates the development logics underpinning the city-state’s initiatives to connect with overseas Singaporeans who are seen to embody globally marketable skills, knowledge and networks. Recognising the emergence of a number of important critiques on diaspora strategies, the paper goes further to question the logics, efficacy and sustainability of the Singaporean diaspora strategy. A framework consisting of five lines of critique is proposed and applied. Elaine Ho is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore (NUS). She is a geographer with interdisciplinary interests in the way that citizenship, as a concept and in practice, is undergoing change as a result of transnational migration. Prior to joining NUS, she worked at the University of Leeds and was also a postdoctoral fellow previously at the University of British Columbia and Royal Holloway, University of London. She has conducted research on Mainland Chinese immigration to Canada and their ‘return’ migration to China, and also on ‘highly skilled’ Singaporean transnational migration. Her latest project focuses on the resettlement experiences of Southeast Asian-Chinese refugees who ‘returned’ to China from 1949-1979 and their contemporary processes of intergenerational change. Mark Boyle is a Professor of Geography, Chair in Geography, and Head of the Department of Geography (2007-present) at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Prior to that he served as a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the department. Amongst other research agendas, his work on ‘diaspora and development’ now constitutes his core research interest. He has conducted specially commissioned consultation research for Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania, Armenia and Canada. In January 2012, he was appointed to the Project Board of the Gathering 2013. This will be Ireland’s flagship diaspora policy in 2013 and is designed to foster a new era of diaspora tourism. He previously worked at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow) where he was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society President’s Medal for ‘outstanding research contributions to Geography in Scotland’.




“CROSSING THE RIVER BY FEELING THE STONES”: CHINA’S FLEXIBLE DIASPORA STRATEGY David ZWEIG Center on Environment, Energy and Resource Policy The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [email protected]

While many outside observers believe that China’s leadership and policy making process is highly centralized and well-coordinated, a survey of the CCP’s policy towards its new diaspora, composed of overseas students who chose to stay abroad, demonstrates a much more “ad hoc” policy making process. Nevertheless, China’s leaders have overall been quite responsive, often taking into consideration the interests of those living abroad, and through flexible policies have been able to attract many people to return. No doubt, due to aspects of the social, educational and political system, as well as the process by which research funds are allocated, China—all of which are quite difficult to change in the short term, China, to date, has been unable to attract the most talented to return full time. Nevertheless, once again relying on flexibility and responsiveness, China has been able to entice many highly talented and award-winning scholars living abroad to return for several months a year to work in China and thereby promote science and technology. This paper will draw on several policy initiatives that demonstrate that the leadership was often unprepared for the response of the Overseas Students and while initially may have responded with more hard line policies, in each case the leadership developed new policies that have led to some important policy successes. David Zweig is Chair Professor, Division of Social Science, Director, Center on Environment, Energy and Resource Policy and Associate Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is an Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan. In 1984-85, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. His Ph.D. is from The University of Michigan (Political Science, 1983). He is the author of four books, including Internationalizing China: domestic interests and global linkages (Cornell Univ. Press, 2002), which will be out in Chinese from Renmin University Press in April 2012. He has edited five books in English and Chinese and special issues of both the Journal of International Migration and Integration and Pacific Affairs, focusing on the migration of Chinese around the Asia-Pacific Region. He is currently writing a book on Mainlanders who studied overseas and returned to China and several reports about Hongkongers who lived in the Chinese Mainland on behalf of the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong government.




STATE-LED TALENT PROJECT AND THE NEGLECTED “MALAYSIAN DIASPORA”: WHOSE DIASPORA, WHAT CITIZENSHIP? KOH Sin Yee London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK [email protected]

This paper offers an empirical contribution responding to Ho’s (2011) call for geographers to examine “neglected emigrants” excluded from diaspora strategies. Using the Malaysian case, I question the assumptions of “diaspora”, “citizenship” and “development” underlying diaspora strategies. First, I examine how the “Malaysian diaspora” is discursively used in Malaysia’s state-led talent project. Second, I describe reactions of overseas Malaysians, particularly those who are arguably qualified, but nevertheless excluded from the state’s talent project. Third, I consider Malaysian citizen/diasporas’ campaigns for electoral reforms, particularly for overseas voting rights. Through both top-down and bottom-up analysis, I raise two interrelated questions: (1) Whose diaspora are invoked and why?; and (2) What citizenship are claimed and enacted? I conclude by discussing implications of the Malaysian case for diaspora strategies literature. Koh Sin Yee (www.sinyeekoh.wordpress.com) is a PhD candidate in Human Geography and Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her thesis examines citizenship and mobility trajectories of tertiary-educated Malaysian-born professionals in London, Singapore and “returnees” to Kuala Lumpur (www.movingmalaysians.wordpress.com). With prior professional working experience in architecture and urban development in Singapore, her research interests are in migration, citizenship, urbanization and social change in East and Southeast Asia. She is currently running a collaborative visual-blog project, Urban Vignettes (www.urbanvignettes.com) with funding secured from urban@LSE. She is also Graduate Teaching Assistant for GY302 Urban Development: Politics, Policy and Planning.




PPPP: PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND PEOPLE PARTNERSHIP IN MOBILIZING DIASPORA FOR DEVELOPMENT? Golda Myra R. ROMA Commission on Filipinos Overseas, Manila, Philippines [email protected], [email protected]

Given that the Philippine international migration phenomena has been existing for a century informally and for four decades formally, the government policies, structure, programs and services have grown leaps, diverse and at times, conflicting over the years. With the increasing number and the continuing diversity of profiles and status of Filipino migrants, the government has tapped various private/business and civil society or non-government organizations in performing some of its functions, particularly in addressing needs of migrants for investment and entrepreneurship, and in responding to the needs of migrants’ families left behind. This paper will present and examine the following:

1. The relationship among the public (both national and local governments), private (from banks to real estate to service providers) and people (the migrants and their families, and the civil society and trade union groups that represent them). What is the structure and inter-play? Roles, responsibilities and rights? Balancing state policy with migrant needs? Balancing migrant protection with private sector interests?

2. Prove the symbiotic and beneficial relations among the 3Ps (public, private, people) as embodied in the projects Overseas Filipinos-Remittances for Development (OF-RED), Remittance for Development Council (ReDC) and Diaspora-to-Development (D2D). Formula for migration to/and development?

3. How government initiates and mobilizes diaspora multiple affiliations and belonging among citizens-in-

migrancy as exemplified in the Global Filipino Diaspora Council, Worldwide Filipino Alliance and National Federation of Filipino Americans? Are there political and development agenda? What is the impact of diaspora affiliations in host and origin countries to the policy and practice of integration, assimilation and reintegration?

Atty. Golda Myra R. Roma is currently the Director for the Policy, Planning and Research Division of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. From 2007-2010, she also headed the Secretariat for the Presidential Task Force Against Human Trafficking and the Task Force NCLEX. Her unit is responsible for the preparation and implementation of programs and activities, as well as drafting of bills and policy papers relevant to overseas Filipinos and Philippine migration for submission to the executive and legislative branch of government. She is also the Associate Editor of Filipino Ties and other CFO publications. She has represented the Philippine government in various national and international conferences on migration and trafficking. Prior to working in government, she was an Associate Professor at Saint Louis University in Baguio City where she also finished her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Bachelor of Laws degree. She also worked as an Instructor on Consular and Diplomatic Affairs at the De La Salle College of St. Benilde.




NATION-BUILDING THROUGH DIASPORIC ‘TEMPORARY’ EMIGRANTS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FILIPINO WORKERS ON ‘TEMPORARY’ AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYER SPONSORED VISAS Justin PEÑAFIEL The University of Sydney, Australia [email protected]

Instead of merely engaging its diaspora, the Philippine state has actively promoted its creation through migration-led development strategies, and more specifically the self-‘exportation’ of its excess and under-utilised labour power to overseas countries with ostensible labour shortages. The Philippines’ highly regulated model has been upheld as both an ideal economic strategy for countries of the South, and also a model through which states can exert control some control over the globalisation of the movement and employment of its nationals. However, more theoretical efforts are required to articulate the contradictions in the attempts by ever-so fragile post-colonial states in Southeast Asia (such as the Philippines) to negotiate the conditions of the overseas employment of its nationals and thus harness the collective economic potential of their individual overseas, even though their emigration is just as much a statement and reaction against the shortcomings of the very state that seeks the value of their private toils. Such contradictions problematise attempts to harness the diaspora’s economic potential in the name of the Philippines’ national interests. This paper illustrates the contradictions of temporary labour migration as they occur in context through the Philippines’ promotion of labour migration, and Australia’s temporary worker visa schemes. Recent reforms to ease the transition from ‘temporary’ to permanent work visas in Australia will be considered, which better provide formal, legal opportunities to act upon subjective intentions to stay rather than return home. This poses significant challenges to the promotion of temporary labour migration driven by the migration-as-development (MAD) discourse. The contradictions that arise will also pose a challenge to extra-territorial assertions of sovereignty over emigrants that occur through strategies to engage or even control so-called diasporas. On a more methodological basis, the paper will also consider debates on the prevailing significance of governance by the state amidst globalization. What will ensue is an examination of formal policies and structures that both delimit but also substantiate the exercise of migrant subjectivities Justin Peñafiel is a based in Sydney, Australia and is in the final stage of his law degree (Juris Doctor) at the University of Sydney. He previously completed a Bachelor of Economic and Social Sciences (Honours) at the University of Sydney in Asian Studies and Political Economy, and has worked as a research assistant at the University of Sydney on a collaborative project between government, sociology and law on domestic treaty implementation, focussing on the World Heritage Convention, Convention against Corruption and the Refugee Convention. In 2011 Justin produced a paper as an external consultant to the International Organisation for Migration’s Seoul-based Migration and Research Training Centre in relation their ‘Global Migration Trends’ investigation of ‘National Policies on Overseas Compatriots’, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region and a view to enhancing South Korea’s own policies and strategies with their diaspora. He has interests in international labour migration and comparative labour law.




ENGAGING A TEMPORAL-SPATIAL STRETCH: AN INQUIRY INTO THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN MAKING AND TAPPING OF THE CHINESE SCIENTIFIC DIASPORA Maggi W.H. LEUNG International Development Studies and Department of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht University, the Netherlands [email protected]

This paper examines the role of the state in producing and tapping the Chinese knowledge diaspora for development. Drawing upon a review of policy documents, secondary data and fieldwork findings from a qualitative research project that studies the developmental impact of academic mobility among Chinese scholars active in the Chinese-German academic space, the paper illustrates the long-standing and dynamic engagement of the state in producing and regulating the knowledge diaspora. For a more comprehensive understanding of the workings of the state in this mobility field, this paper calls for a temporal-spatial stretch in conceptualising the state. The spatial stretch broadens the usual analysis of the state in this research area to go beyond the sending nations. A critical analysis of relevant policies and programmes illustrate how the Chinese state at various geographical levels (national, provincial, local) and localities (in China and overseas), as well as states in other countries (specifically the German state at national, federal state and city-levels in our case in point) are engaged, sometimes in alliance while other times in competition, in making and claiming the Chinese scientific diaspora and steering its members’ visions of development. The temporal stretch engages an extension of our optic, surpassing the focus on how the state claims the diaspora ‘out there’ to recognising the role of the state in the strategic and selective production of the diaspora. In the case of the Chinese knowledge diaspora, various states are involved in identifying individuals of particular backgrounds, nurturing their mobility (and other forms of) capital and framing them into agents for development. Maggi Leung is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography and Planning at Utrecht University. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she received her B.A. from Dartmouth College (USA), M.A. from the University of Minnesota (USA) and doctorate from the University of Bremen (Germany). She has worked at various universities in Hong Kong, Germany and the Netherlands. Currently affiliated with the International Development Studies section, her teaching focuses on globalisation, mobilities and development. She has been engaged in research covering diverse themes in social, cultural and development geography, including mobilities, diaspora and transnationalism, identities and belonging, concepts of development, cultural heritage, tourism and migrant entrepreneurship. At present, her research centres on mobilities and development, the Chinese diaspora, academic mobility, internationalisation of education, highly-skilled mobilities and associated knowledge production and transfer. She has published on these topics in a range of geography and social science journals. She is author of Chinese Migration in Germany: Making Home in Transnational Space (Frankfurt: IKO, 2004).




DIASPORA STRATEGY AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN EAST JAVA INDONESIA Aluisius Hery PRATONO Faculty of Economics, the University of Surabaya, Indonesia [email protected] Muhamad NOUR Poverty Reduction through Safety in Migration, TIFA Foundation, Indonesia [email protected]

The paper aims to contribute to the scholarly interest in the diaspora strategy to interrogate the assumption underlying the Migration-as-Development (MAD) discourse. Then the specific research question is about the possibility of the poor seizes the opportunity to work as migrant worker. Before offering tentative assumption for diaspora theory, the paper explores the premise of diaspora theory and the context of diaspora implementation in Indonesia, which also constitutes policy review and stakeholder analysis. The policy review offers supporting evident of the unfinished agenda of diaspora policy. The stakeholder analysis indicates that the diaspora strategy has been hampered by conflict of interest among the local government, migrant worker organizations and the recruitment agencies. A series of stakeholders meeting during local development planning has offered contrasting conceptualizations to the idea of MAD. The advocacies also raised competition among the local nongovernment organizations for funding, while the migrant workers still struggle to deal with huge risk of migration and rely on their family to manage the remittances. Turning to the challenging issue of diaspora assumption, this paper indicates that initiative to go abroad is almost impossible for the poor if he or she notice a high possibility for the employer to cheat those who work in domestic jobs, like nanny, driver, or baby sitter. Unless protection from both house and home countries is available, the diaspora strategy is not a better option for the worker. Then the tentative hypothesis about the assumption of diaspora strategy comes to perfect-competition market, which calls for perfect information, fair competition, and perfect structural industry. Otherwise, the strong government intervention needs overcome the market failure.

Aluisius Hery Pratono is a lecturer at Faculty of Business and Economics, the University of Surabaya Indonesia. He graduated master degree from Asia Institute of Management the Philippines and B.A. in economics from Gadjah Mada University Indonesia. Muhamad Nour is working for Migrant Worker Division at TIFA Foundation Jakarta. His undergraduate and postgraduate education background is from Padjadjaran University Bandung Indonesia.




RETHINKING "DIASPORA STRATEGIES" IN THE AGE OF MAD: RIGHTS, SKILLS AND QUESTIONS OF VALUE Maureen Helen HICKEY Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore [email protected]

Over the past decade there has been a surge of academic research and policy interest in the actual and potential contributions of transnational migrants in furthering national development objectives in their homelands. These approaches tend to be bifurcated into two distinct categories. First, there are Diaspora Strategies (DS), in which sending states create initiatives that target the participation in national development objectives of sought-after, elite, and high-skilled migrants who often emigrate permanently or for extended periods of time. Second, there are Migration as Development (MAD) strategies, which are embedded within broader supranational development agendas and focus on facilitating and channeling the economic and social remittances of non-elite, low-skilled migrants who increasingly migrate within a framework of proliferating temporary and short-term guest worker programs. These broad categorizations have never been entirely adequate to capture the complexity of international migration flows in the region (and in the world), and in many ways the division between them is becoming increasingly blurred. Nevertheless, this division has very real consequences for state policies and for migrants across the socio-economic spectrum. In this paper, I explore the separation between “Diaspora Strategies” and “Migration and Development” through a focus on two interrelated discourses: rights and skills. I argue that the common thread between them is the question of value; how the relative value of different groups of workers is determined and acted on in migration policy and practice. I conclude that while Diaspora Strategies and Migration and Development research cannot simply be folded together, the academic separation between them should be challenged and more in-depth theoretical engagement between scholars who work on Diaspora Strategies and those who work on Migration and Development issues should be encouraged. I further suggest that migration policymakers sending states should strive to critically evaluate their migration policies and programs across the Diaspora Strategies and Migration and Development spectrum in order to create more cohesive policies that acknowledge the increasingly complexities of contemporary migration and to produce stronger "win-win" scenarios for both sending states and for migrants. Maureen Helen Hickey is a Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore where she works with the Asian Migration Research Cluster. She completed her doctorate in geography at the University of Washington in 2010 and is currently preparing a manuscript based on her dissertation and follow-up research entitled, “Driving Globalization: Bangkok Taxi Drivers and the Restructuring of Work and Masculinity in Thailand”. Her postdoctoral research investigates the relationship between the production of socio-economic class and the emergence of political conflict in Thailand. She is also a core member of the research team for a new multi-country initiative entitled “Comparative Crises: How Do Middle Classes Engage Poverty?” Her research interests include globalization and political economy, labor migration, class relations, gender and masculinity studies, and critical development studies.




‘FORGING NEW MALAY NETWORKS’: ECONOMY AND ASPIRATIONS IN THE MALAYSIAN DIASPORA Johan FISCHER Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Germany [email protected]

The quotation that forms part of this paper’s title is from a young Malay(sian) Muslim woman, Jeti, who is currently involved in promoting halal (literally, ‘lawful or ‘permitted) in Britain for the Malaysian state through her private consultancy company. She is an example of a Malay middle-class entrepreneur with a global orientation, and represents a modern type of Malay diasporic group privileged by the Malaysian state. Jeti also reflects the ways in which networking between state, entrepreneurs and markets are involved in Malaysian halal. A central question is the Malaysian state’s efforts to develop and dominate a global market in halal commodities through networking entrepreneurs and how these entrepreneurs in London respond to and are affected by this effort. I show that the proliferation of halal among middle-class Malays in London sits uneasily between two essential characteristics or dimensions of modern diasporas: an economic dimension linked to investment and trade and a future aspect to a large extent nourished by diasporic aspirations. All these issues also evoke the way in which diaspora is ambivalently idealized and contested within the political field in Malaysia and beyond: while entrepreneurs such as Jeti rely on Malaysian state support to promote halal in the UK they simultaneously critique the lack of political leadership and slow bureaucratic workings in Malaysia. Hence, the social formation of diaspora often is best understood as composed of those who passionately share the conflicts that divide it about the nature of their local, national, and diasporic commitments and identities. Among the political elite in Malaysia, there exists a fascination with discovering or even inventing a ‘Malay diaspora’. The particularity of this ‘diaspora-envy’ is a sign of modern Malay aspirations towards cosmopolitanism and ‘global reach’. These issues are part of two research projects that explore Malaysia’s role in the global market for halal products and services. This paper is based on ethnographic material from fieldwork among Malay Muslim migrants and organizations in Kuala Lumpur and London, that is, participant observation and interviewing, as well as powerful Malaysian sentiments on diaspora found in political discourses. An important question is how Malaysian halal is promoted at halal network events in the diaspora. I show how diaspora evokes a range of sensibilities, attitudes, assumptions, and behaviour that may support or undermine aspirations of the Malaysian state. Johan Fischer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Society and Globalization, Roskilde University, Denmark. His work focuses on modern Islam and consumer culture in Southeast Asia and Europe. More specifically, Johan explores the interfaces between class, consumption, market relations, Islam, and the state in a globalized world. A central focus in this research is the theoretical and empirical focus on the proliferation of halal commodities on a global scale. He is the author of Proper Islamic Consumption: Shopping among the Malays in Modern Malaysia (NIAS Press 2008) and The Halal Frontier: Muslim Consumers in a Globalized Market (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) as well as numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes. Currently, I am working on a book with the provisional title Global Halal Zones: Islam, States and Markets.




MIGRATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND DIASPORA STRATEGIES IN SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN Jane H. YAMASHIRO University of Southern California, USA [email protected]

How does migration-as-development (MAD) discourse shape diaspora strategies? Migration-as-development (MAD) discourse refers to policies and statements that promote the strategic usage of migration to aid in economic development. A diaspora strategy is “an explicit and systematic policy initiative or series of policy initiatives aimed at developing and managing relationships with a diaspora” (Ancien, Boyle, and Kitchin 2009 3). This paper comparatively examines the cases of Korea and Japan to investigate this relationship. After reviewing South Korea’s (hereafter Korea) First Basic Plan for Immigration Policy (2009) and Japan’s Basic Plan for Immigration Control (4th ed., 2010), it finds that in Korea, MAD discourse shapes diaspora strategies but in Japan it does not. Analyzing immigration policies alone suggests that Japan lacks diaspora strategies. However, in Japan connections to overseas populations simply exist in other forms. Non-profit organizations such as the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad and the U.S.-Japan Council build and maintain connections between global Japanese ethnic populations and the Japanese government through different forms of short-term migration. The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program promotes short-term migration to develop affinity networks across the globe. I conclude that comparing immigration policies alone shows how MAD discourse influences diaspora strategies in Korea but not in Japan; looking beyond immigration policy, however, other forms of diaspora strategies and connections to migration are evident in Japan. Rather than explicitly articulate migration as development, the Japanese government seems to promote a national cultural strategy of developing their soft power through the promotion of Japanese language and culture, as well as short-term visits to Japan. Jane H. Yamashiro is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, all in Sociology. Dr. Yamashiro has spent several years conducting research in Japan, funded by the East-West Center and the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship, based at the University of Tokyo and Sophia University. Her work in the areas of race, migration, and transnationalism has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies; AAPI Nexus Journal: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Policy, Practice and Community; Sociology Compass, and Migrations and Identities. Dr. Yamashiro is completing a book entitled Negotiating Global Constructions of Race and Ethnicity: Japanese American Transnational Identity Formation in Tokyo that focuses on the transnational experiences of U.S.-born Japanese Americans who migrate to Japan as adults.




Return and Place-Making: Towards A Critique of the Discourse of ‘Reintegration’ Andrea SOCO Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines [email protected]

As a labor sending state with an economy bolstered by remittances, the Philippines promotes labor migration not only through policies and programs but also through institutional discourses that glorify and make heroes of migrant workers. This ‘diasporic’ strategy is seemingly countered by the notion of reintegration, a discourse promoted by the state to deal with issues of return. Reintegration appears to be a way by which the state encourages the return of labor migrants, providing them with opportunities to better readapt to their communities. However, this paper argues that in expecting migrants to be financial contributors even in return, reintegration remains a policy focused on remittances. It places the burden of ‘integrating’ on the migrant, thereby shaping returnees into a particular mold and forcing them to conform to what is institutionally accepted when they return. Through narrative interviews of return Filipino domestic workers from Singapore and Hong Kong, this paper shows how the discourse of reintegration, and corresponding institutional programs, not only promote continued out-migration and circular migration, but also the narrow view of development as centered on remittances. This paper thus critiques reintegration as a false concept because (i) it does not take into account the structural constraints of place, which is far more significant than simply about migrants knowing what to do with financial remittances or having to adjust to the attitudes of family and community members. While there is indeed a dearth of real sources of stable income in rural areas, reintegration programs such as skills training and the promotion of entrepreneurship not only disregard the skills that returnees already have but also support a cash economy that further forces people to work abroad. The lack of productive options for returnees in the communities, not necessarily financially but in simply having something to do, and new desires to see the world, lead to migration as a life plan. Reintegration is also argued to be an irrelevant discourse because (ii) as an essentially location-specific concept, reintegration or integration ignores place-making - that despite the constraints, return migrants will still create a place for themselves and their families. If they are given the possibility, they will create a place elsewhere. The mere act of place-making then, can actually be a developmental and transformative force in the community. As such, the whole problematique of return should go beyond the question of reintegration or the continued drive to export labor, and should instead be a move to shift discursive practices towards seeing migrants and return migrants as more than just economic individuals. Return migrants have proven to themselves that they can live independently and engage various cultures, an experience that is embedded in their cosmopolitan identities, and as such, they are also capable of making a place for themselves and their families regardless of where they are. Andrea Soco is currently a lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University, and is with the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Development Studies Program. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in the Social Sciences from the Ateneo de Manila University, a Master’s degree in Applied Sociology from the National University of Singapore, and a Ph.D. in Geography from the same university. Andie has done extensive research on urban poverty and the informal sector and has written commentaries for leading newspapers, having been a Research Assistant and a Project Officer of the [John J. Carroll] Institute on Church and Social Issues, a Jesuit-run non-government organization in the Philippines. Andie’s current research interests include transnational identities and new mobilities.

MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2012 - Asia Research Institute, NUS · Ateneo de Manila University, ......

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