The Cost of Legality: Navigating Labour Mobility and Exploitation in Malaysia

Through examining the experiences of Burmese migrant workers in Malaysia this paper analyses the complicated relationship between legal status and protection from violence and abuse. While legal status has often been promoted as a means to protect migrants, we suggest that legal status is actually pursued only at particular moments and on the basis of particular cost/benefit calculations made by migrants. Even as legal status offers some protection from state authorities, the linkage between legal status and employer sponsorship means that it also binds migrants to specific employers. Crucial to these calculations too is the cost of legal status for both migrants and employers, imbuing the relationship with financial risk on both sides and turning legal status into an expensive "commodity". Therefore, while migrant labour is often constructed as being "cheap", our study reveals that a key factor in the exploitation of migrants is that they are in fact so expensive to hire. Thus, as we argue here, it is important to look beyond a narrow focus on legal status and consider the basis on which such status is extended - especially as such status is increasingly predicated on a sponsoring employer and significant financial investments

The Migration Industry in Managed Migration: Authority, Control and Guestworkers in the United States

This thesis is an investigation into the private migration actors, also known as the migration industry, that have become ubiquitous within managed migration programs in the United States. From employers and visa agents to recruiters and law firms, a tremendous number of private actors have become embedded within modern migration programs. While generally not employed by state authorities, these private actors nonetheless play important roles throughout the state-sanctioned migration programs examined here. Therefore, based on an analysis of their particular roles and relationships, the aim of this study is to examine how the involvement of private actors within guestworker programs functions in practice and how it alters the ways in which sovereign prerogatives of control and authority over migrants are exercised. In doing so, it focuses in particular on the assemblages of authority and control over migration created through the complex interactions of public and private actors. Empirically, this project examines the H-2 visa, a temporary working visa in the United States as well as an attempt to create a similar ‘guestworker’ program in the state of Utah. Drawing on fieldwork as well as government documents and data, this project traces the roles and relationships of public and private actors. In doing so, it looks to see how certain functions of authority and control are exercised. Overall, this thesis develops a deeper understanding of the ways in which the migration industry functions in the context of managed migration programs. It concludes that the migration industry does not operate merely as a passive performer of or ancillary to state functions. Rather, the migration industry is deeply enmeshed within sovereign prerogatives over migration. Thus, what emerges is not a system in which processes are clearly public or private, but rather complex assemblages of authority and control over these managed migration programs that blur public/private distinctions

Redrawing the Boundaries of Membership: Labor Migrants in the UN Convention on Migrant Workers, NAFTA, and the European Union

Labor migrants occupy an indeterminate place in the rights regimes of nation-states. Even when engaged in documented movements, labor migrants enjoy a set of rights more limited than those of citizens. This dissertation reviews three international legal agreements, the UN Convention on Migrant Workers, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the European Union (EU) in order to understand how they influence where this boundary between sets of rights is drawn. In examining this issue, this dissertation will draw on existing theory about the boundary, nature, and obligations of citizenship rights. From there, it will explore the influences of these three international agreements using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. While recognizing the continuing importance of the nation-state, new spaces of participation and action will also be examined, in particular looking at the rise of global cities in the context of NAFTA, and the emergence of supranational structures in the case of the EU. Ultimately, the research suggests that while labor migrants are afforded some rights, the provision of ‘negative rights,’ focusing on the protection from harm are dominant. Social, political, and economic rights remain more complicated, while rights related to direct economic support are generally the most contested. New spaces of inclusion and participation can help individuals enact certain aspects of citizenship, however these protections remain less robust than formal citizenship. Finally, decisions about how to draw the boundaries of citizenship as form of “social closure” (Brubaker 1992), remain unclear as states struggle to define who is included and who is not

Social Movements and Democracy in Latin America: A Comparative Look at the Indigenous Rights Movement in Ecuador and the Piqueteros in Argentina

Drawing upon two important Latin American cases, this paper examines how social\ud movements that have arisen in response to neoliberal economic reforms and the growing\ud disconnect between increasingly marginalized citizens and their governments can impact the\ud growth and development of democracy within a nation. The indigenous rights movement in\ud Ecuador and the piquetero movement in Argentina share a common background in the impetus\ud for their development, but have differed in their ability to promote democracy.\ud Of the two cases, the indigenous movement in Ecuador has been more successful in\ud promoting democracy because it has managed to institutionalize structures of interest mediation\ud and representation that have allowed it to consistently promote indigenous viewpoints on a\ud national as well as on a local scale. By comparison, the failure of piqueteros to organize\ud nationally has meant that the movement has remained fractured and susceptible to cooptation.\ud However, both movements have been successful in promoting democracy through their\ud action as civil society movements. The cases suggest that social movements are effective in\ud holding the state accountable, opening up space for political participation, and incorporating new\ud political actors. These advances, normally associated with the role of civil society on democracy,\ud help to place these social movements in the larger discourse of the impacts of civil society on\ud democracy