Labour Migration in Malaysia and Spain: Markets, Citizenship and Rights

258 Pages·2012·2.783 MB·English

by  Blanca Garces-Mascarenas

BURUH MIGRASI
IMISCOE
MMIIGGRRAACCIIŌŌNN LLAABBOORRAALL
State regulation of labour migration is confronted with a double paradox. First, G RESEARCH
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while markets require a policy of open borders to fulfi l demands for migrant workers, r
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the boundaries of citizenship impose some degree of closure to the outside. Second, é
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while the exclusivity of citizenship requires closed membership, civil and human M
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rights undermine the state’s capacity to exclude foreigners once they are in the country. s
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By considering how Malaysia and Spain have responded to the demand for foreign ar Labour Migration MIGRACIŌN LABORAL
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labour, this book analyses what may be identifi ed as the trilemma between markets, ñ
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citizenship and rights. For though their markets are similar, the two countries have s MIGRACIŌN LABORAL
in Malaysia and Spain
diff erent approaches to citizenship and rights. We must thus ask: how do such
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divergences aff ect state responses to market demands? How, in turn, do state regulations a BURUH MIGRASI
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impact labour migration fl ows? And what does this mean for contemporary migration u
overall? r M Markets, Citizenship and Rights LABOUR MIGRATION
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Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas is a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher with the a
t BURUH MIGRASI
i Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas
Interdisciplinary Research Group in Immigration (GRITIM) at Pompeu Fabra o
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University in Barcelona. in MIGRACIŌN LABORAL

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“What does it mean to control immigration? Th at is the fundamental question posed in this intriguing comparative y
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study, which breaks new theoretical ground. Th e Spanish and Malaysian states are caught on the horns of a familiar ia

dilemma: how to satisfy the needs of the marketplace without compromising the social contract. Anyone concerned a
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with the dilemmas of immigration control must read this book.” d LABOUR MIGRATION

James F. Hollifi eld, Director, Tower Center of Political Studies, Southern Methodist University S
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“Th is truly comparative book will become a standard work in the fi eld. It opens new research venues, with major in
implications for a state migration control theory that has too long been Atlanto-centred.”
Leo Lucassen, Professor of Social History, Leiden University LLAABBOOUURR MMIIGGRRAATTIIOONN
“An admirable – and convention-challenging – command of the empirical complexities that went into the making
of immigration policies and practices in two very divergent states faced with a similar demand for foreign labour.” BURUH MIGRASI
Diana Wong, Visiting Professor, Universiti Sains Malaysia
LABOUR MIGRATION
MIGRACIŌN LABORAL
BURUH MIGRASI
MMIIGGRRAACCIIŌŌNN LLAABBOORRAALL
     
MIGRACIŌN LABORAL
BURUH MIGRASI
.. Amsterdam Universit y Press
BURUH MIGRASI
Labour Migration in Malaysia and Spain
IMISCOE
International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe
The IMISCOE Research Network unites researchers from, at present, 28 institutes
specialising in studies of international migration, integration and social cohesion in
Europe. What began in 2004 as a Network of Excellence sponsored by the Sixth
Framework Programme of the European Commission has become, as of April 2009,
an independent self-funding endeavour. From the start, IMISCOE has promoted
integrated, multidisciplinary and globally comparative research led by scholars from
various branches of the economic and social sciences, the humanities and law. The
Network furthers existing studies and pioneers new scholarship on migration and
migrant integration. Encouraging innovative lines of inquiry key to European
policymaking and governance is also a priority.
The IMISCOE-Amsterdam University Press Series makes the Network’s findings and
results available to researchers, policymakers and practitioners, the media and other
interested stakeholders. High-quality manuscripts authored by Network members and
cooperating partners are evaluated by external peer reviews and the IMISCOE Editorial
Committee. The Committee comprises the following members:
Tiziana Caponio, Department of Political Studies, University of Turin / Forum for
International and European Research on Immigration (FIERI), Turin, Italy
Michael Collyer, Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR), University of
Sussex, United Kingdom
Rosita Fibbi, Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM), University
of Neuchâtel / Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Agata Górny, Centre of Migration Research (CMR) / Faculty of Economic Sciences,
University of Warsaw, Poland
Albert Kraler, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD),
Vienna, Austria
Leo Lucassen, Institute of History, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Jorge Malheiros, Centre of Geographical Studies (CEG), University of Lisbon,
Portugal
Marco Martiniello, National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), Brussels / Center
for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM), University of Liège, Belgium
Patrick Simon, National Demographic Institute (INED), Paris, France
Miri Song, School of Social Policy and Sociology, University of Kent, United Kingdom
More information and how to join the Network can be found at www.imiscoe.org.
Labour Migration in
Malaysia and Spain
Markets, Citizenship and Rights
Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas
IMISCOE Research
Cover design: Studio Jan de Boer BNO, Amsterdam
Automated lay-out: Philos®
ISBN 978 90 8964 286 8
e-ISBN 978 90 4851 362 8
NUR 741 / 763
© Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas / Amsterdam University Press,
Amsterdam 2012
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without
the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the
book.
C’est l’Etat qui se pense lui-même
en pensant l’immigration,
qui se pense selon la ‘pensée d’Etat’
(Sayad 1994: 164)

Table of contents
Acknowledgements 9
Preface 13
1 Regulating labour migration 17
1.1 The state 17
1.2 Markets 19
1.3 Citizenship 22
1.4 Rights 26
1.5 Migration policies 29
1.6 Law and illegal migration 31
2 Research design and methodology 35
2.1 Research questions 35
2.2 Case selection 37
2.3 Elements of analysis 39
2.4 Methodological approach 41
2.5 Fieldwork in two sites 45
3 Malaysia 49
3.1 Introduction 49
3.2 Exporting goods, importing labour 51
3.3 Towards a guestworker policy 58
3.4 Letting them in... 64
3.5 ... but only as foreigners 74
3.6 Turning illegal migrants into guestworkers 84
3.7 Detaining and deporting ‘illegals’ 93
3.8 Final remarks 101
4 Spain 105
4.1 Introduction 105
4.2 From emigration to immigration 107
4.3 From emigration control to immigration policies 115
4.4 Restricting entry 122
4.5 Between guestworkers and citizens 135
8 labour migration in malaysia and spain
4.6 Regularisation: an entry policy? 143
4.7 Deportation from within and from without 162
4.8 Final remarks 173
5 Comparative perspective 177
5.1 Towards closure 177
5.2 The market response 180
5.3 Rights’ constraints 185
5.4 Regaining control 187
5.5 Final exclusion 190
6 Conclusions 195
6.1 State response to labour demands 195
6.2 Markets, citizenship and rights 198
6.3 The illusion of migration ‘management’ 202
6.4 The state’s production of illegality 205
6.5 Meanings of illegality 208
6.6 Towards a theory of borders and confines 210
References 213
Annex 1: Maps of Malaysia and Spain 230
Annex 2: Acronyms 232
Annex 3: Migration policies 233
Annex 4: List of interviews 239
Annex 5: Graph of immigration trends by nationality in Spain 243
Notes 244
Acknowledgements
People say that writing a book is a long journey, a journey that often begins
long before it is dreamed. They also say that, like other journeys, a book
never happens alone. While the responsibility for what is written is not
shared, the path leading to its being written is shared. Without prior re­
search, without sources, without uncomfortable questions and without
confidantes to share the process of research with – as well as the life that
always goes with it – the result would not be the same. Better said, it would
be much poorer. In the case of this book, both tenets hold true. Hence, I
begin by naming places and people.
Looking back, I’d say that it all began with my mother’s thesis, which
was also about migration. Hers concerned Catalan emigration to Puerto
Rico in the nineteenth century. Her father, my grandfather, was part of
that emigration, although he went to Puerto Rico half a century later,
during the early years of Franco’s dictatorship. Like so many other emi­
grants, my grandfather went alone, worked, sent letters and money, and
never returned. Years later, my mother retraced his footsteps with her
study. My sister and I traced her trajectory from Barcelona, hearing her
stories and, on her return, helping organise all the information she had
gathered about emigrants, origins and destinations.
It is thus no accident that I studied history. During my student years,
I reaffirmed an interest in Latin America and deepened my knowledge of
this part of the world. I also came upon two new realms: anthropology and
Africa. The former was something I discovered with Sandra, Jaume, Joan,
Ana and Marc. The latter, with Jordi, Joan, Carme, Albert and Jordi. With
them, I learned and took pleasure in learning and, I am happy to say, still
do. Without them and everything we shared, I would never have reached
this point.
The difficulty of choosing from among these worlds – those experienced
at home and those discovered at university – took me to Brazil, which I
thought would be the perfect place for me. It was halfway between
America and Africa and had a significant anthropological tradition.
Destiny intervened and I had to return home. But in Brazil I met Wouter –
with him I would emigrate to the Netherlands years later. Without him,
and thus without my Brazilian sojourn, Amsterdam would never have
appeared on my map of possibilities.