A(nother) geography of fear: Burmese labour migrants in George Town, Malaysia

Abstract

While scholarship around urban fear has brought forward important insights around the relationship between fear, mobility and social exclusion, questions relating to legal exclusion have largely been left outside the scope of inquiry. In cities around the world there are, however, a growing number of people who are not only de facto excluded from rights to/within the city (based on their gender, class, age etc.) -but de jure excluded based on their non-citizen or 'illegal' status in the host country. Drawing upon field work conducted in the Malaysian city George Town this study examines how both regular and irregular Burmese migrants perceive safety and danger in the city and how this, in turn, influences how they navigate urban space. The results of the study reveal how the migrants in George Town navigate the city as a 'borderscape' -producing a(nother) geography of fear which does not primarily reflect a fear of crime but rather a fear of state institutional practices, such as police controls, road blocks and raids. This shows, the paper argues, the need to pay attention towards both social and legal exclusions when examining how people in cities around the world are able to access and take possession of urban space.

Corrupt(ing) Borders: Navigating Urban Immigration Policing in Malaysia

“…The stories told by the residents in this Jelutong apartment capture the way that migrants' relationship to urban space is mediated through their immigration status (Franck 2016). Whereas the disciplinary effects of 'illegality' and 'deportability' in migrants' everyday lives (and perhaps especially in the labour market) have been discussed elsewhere (de Genova 2002), this study highlights how legal exclusions also produce particular/distinct everyday geographies (Franck 2016;Holgersson 2011;Willen 2007).…”

“…The stories told by the residents in this Jelutong apartment capture the way that migrants' relationship to urban space is mediated through their immigration status (Franck 2016). Whereas the disciplinary effects of 'illegality' and 'deportability' in migrants' everyday lives (and perhaps especially in the labour market) have been discussed elsewhere (de Genova 2002), this study highlights how legal exclusions also produce particular/distinct everyday geographies (Franck 2016;Holgersson 2011;Willen 2007). Navigating urban space much like a borderscape, the migrants in George Town described how the reoccurring and constantly displaced police controls mediated their ability to takes possession of urban space, and thus preconditioned many aspects of their everyday lives (Franck 2016).…”

Managing labour migration in Malaysia: foreign workers and the challenges of ‘control’ beyond liberal democracies

“…The rules for foreign workers in Malaysia are narrowly defined and are designed to give workers relatively little room for manoeuvre while also trying to ensure that their stay is temporary (Nah 2012;Franck 2016). The Malaysian government specifies which industries an individual may work in depending on their nationality and gender (Immigration Department of Malaysia 2018).…”

“…Similar allegations have been made related to Malaysia's labour agreement with Bangladesh, with high levels of bribery and the channelling of lucrative contracts to well-connected individuals (The Star 2018a; Zsombor 2019). Within Malaysia, police officers frequently perform document checks, but these can be evaded through the paying of bribes (Franck 2016).…”

Risk entrepreneurship and the construction of healthcare deservingness for ‘desirable’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘disposable’ migrants in Malaysia

“…Barriers to health care constitute just one facet of the health challenges facing 'disposable' migrants. Difficulties with access to justice make migrants with irregular status easy targets for exploitation, extortion, forced labour and trafficking (Azis 2014;Franck 2016). In a study of more than one thousand asylum seekers and refugees from Burma (Myanmar), the non-governmental organisation Health Equity Initiatives (2011) found that around one-third had experienced forced labour.…”