Exploring Intersection of Migration and Urban Space in Jakarta

Kilim Park

Abstract


Stories of migration tend to mark monumental moments in people's lives. In Indonesia, the experiences of labour migrants, in particular, female overseas domestic workers (usually referred to as TKW: Tenega Kerja Wanita), continue to make the news and has made its way into the Indonesian popular culture as well. In this conceptual paper, I offer a brief observation on the discussion of labour migration in Indonesia, and propose new ways to explore migration and urban space. In particular, with a focus on intersectionality of the two with respect to migrant women returnee's experience, I propose an approach that considers the details in their everyday lives and reflections upon them intertwined with formal and informal aspects of urban citizenship. Finally, by using Jakarta as a case study of urban space where migrant returnees live in, and influence and change, I suggest a research direction that centralizes migrant women as a storyteller and keyplayer in our understanding of urban, social, and cultural change in Indonesia and broadly, Southeast Asia. 


Keywords


labour migration; Jakarta; women; urban; return migration



DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.19166/verity.v9i17.575

Full Text:

PDF

References


Anggraeni, D. (2006). Dreamseekers: Indonesian women as domestic workers in Asia. Jakarta, Indonesia: Equinox Publishing & ILO.

Appadurai, A. & Holston, J. (1999). Introduction: Cities and citizenship. In J. Holston (Ed.), Cities and citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Appadurai, A. (2002). Deep democracy: urban governmentality and the horizon of politics. Public Culture, 14(1), 21-47. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-14-1-21

Bauder, H. (2008). Citizenship as capital: The distinction of migrant labor. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 33(3), 315–333. https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540803300303

Bochner, A. P. (2001). Narrative’s virtues. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(2), 131–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040100700201

Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies [CafeScribe version]. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from CafeScribe.com.

David, F. (Ed.). (2007). ASEAN and trafficking in persons: Using data as a tool to combat trafficking in persons. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Migration.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1972). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1983). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Efendi, F., Purwaningsih, Qur’aniati, N., Kurniati, A., Singka, E. J., Chen, C-M. (2013). Return migration of Indonesian nurses from Japan: Where should they go? Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 3(8), 154-159. https://doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v3n8p154

Farbenblum, B., Taylor-Nicholson, E., & Paoletti, S. (2013). Migrant workers’ access to justice at home: Indonesia (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2347853). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2347853

Glick Schiller, N., & Caglar, A. (2011). Locating migration: Rescaling cities and migrants. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Hardt, M. & Negiri, A. (2000). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hardt, M. & Negiri, A. (2004). Multitude. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

Human Rights Watch. (2011). “They deceived us at every step”: abuse of Cambodian domestic workers migrating to Malaysia. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/node/102568

Liamputtong, P. (2010). Performing qualitative cross-cultural research. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812705

Kaur, A. (2010). Labour migration in Southeast Asia: Migration policies, labour exploitation and regulation. Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 15(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13547860903488195

Lykes, M. B. & Crosby, A. (2014). Feminist practices of action and community research. In Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.), Feminist research practice: Primer [Kindle DX version] (pp. 145-181). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Naples, N. A. & Gurr, B. (2014). Feminist empiricism and standpoint theory: Approaches to understanding the social world. In Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.), Feminist research practice: Primer [Kindle DX version] (pp. 14-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Ong, A. (1987). Spirits of resistance and capitalist discipline factory women in Malaysia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Ong, A. (2006). Mutations in citizenship. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 499–505. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276406064831

Pratt, G. (1997). From registered nurse to registered nanny: Discursive geographies of Filipina domestic workers in Vancouver, B.C. Economic Geography, 75(3), 215-36.

Prusinski, E. (2014, April-June). Wasted talent. Inside Indonesia, 116. Retrieved from http://www.insideindonesia.org/current-edition/wasted-talent

SBS Radio. (2014, June 1). Indonesian workers. SBS Radio Podcast. Podcast retrieved from http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/indonesian/en/content/indonesian-workers

Scott, J. C. (1976). The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Silvey, R. (2004). Power, difference and mobility: Feminist advances in migration studies. Progress in Human Geography, 28(4), 490–506. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132504ph490oa

Yeoh, B. S. A., & Annadhurai, K. (2008). Civil society action and the creation of “transformative” spaces for migrant domestic workers in singapore. Women’s Studies, 37(5), 548–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497870802165502

Zhang, L. (2002). Spatiality and urban citizenship in late socialist china. Public Culture, 14(2), 311–334. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-14-2-311


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2017 Kilim Park

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

favicon Department of International Relations | Faculty of Political and Social Science | Universitas Pelita Harapan | Indonesia | +62 21 546 0901 |  verity@uph.edu