Transnational flows and permissive polities : ethnographies of human mobilities in Asia / edited by Barak Kalir and Malini Sur.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : mobile practices and regimes of permissiveness / Barak Kalir, Malini Sur and Willem van Schendel -- Illegality rules : Chinese migrant workers caught up in the illegal but licit operations of labour migration regimes / Barak Kalir -- Contesting the state of exception in the Afghan-Pakistani marchlands / Oskar Verkaaik, Sarfraz Khan and Samina Rehman -- "Looking for a life" : Rohingya refugee migration in the post-imperial age / Diana Wong and Tan Pok Suan -- Smuggling cultures in the Indonesia-Singapore boderlands / Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons -- Trade, transnationalism and ethnic infighting : borders of authority in Northeast Borneo / Laurens Bakker and Jay Crain -- Bamboo baskets and barricades : gendered landscapes at the India-Bangladesh border / Malini Sur -- Moving between Kerala and Dubai : women domestic workers, state actors and the misrecognition of problems / Bindhulakshmi Pattadath and Annelies Moors -- Emigration of female domestic workers from Kerala : gender, state policy and the politics of movement / Praveena Kodoth and V.J. Varghese -- Mainland Chinese migrants in Taiwan, 1895-1945 : the drawbacks of being legal / Leo Douw -- "Playing edge ball" : transnational migration brokerage in China / Li Minghuan -- Epilogue : irregular mobilities and disjunctive moralities / Hastings Donnan.

This important study is a collection of ethnographies of transnational migration and border crossings in Asia. Interdisciplinary in scope, it addresses issues of mobility and diaspora from various vantage points. Unique to this volume is an emphasis of studying globalisation from below, privileging the narratives and views of "people on the move"--Or the transnational underclass--and their sense of belonging to places and communities. The collection is further distinguished by its focus on the sources of authority and the social configurations that are created in the intersections between legality and illegality across Asia. Though previous studies on transnational flows have deconstructed the notion of nation-states as having fixed political boundaries, and have engaged in spaces beyond the nation-states, seldom has an entire region, Asia, been privileged in one integrated volume. We emphasize hitherto marginalized debates that have significant policy relevance. Other than a serious academic interest from lecturers and students, we are confident that book will be of significant interest for development practitioners and NGOs -- Publisher's description.

English.

Print version record.

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