CHAIRPERSON
Dr Michelle Miller, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
ABSTRACT
This talk will deal with the ongoing transformation of Indonesian unskilled transnational migration since the 1997 Asian economic crisis, particularly to Asia and the Middle East. It will describe the gendered and religious differences in the process of labor recruitment, transport, and debt, and the work of government and recruitment agencies in structuring this process. In particular, the talk will consider this relationship between state and market through the figure of the informal labor recruiter, or “field agent” (petugas lapangan), who transcends these boundaries, thus raising questions about neoliberalism and neopatrimonialism in contemporary Indonesia and in a transnational context.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Johan Lindquist is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University in Sweden. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from Stockholm University and BA in Cultural Anthropology from Uppsala University. He is the author of The Anxieties of Mobility: Development and Migration in the Indonesian Borderlands(University of Hawai’i Press, 2009) and his documentary film B.A.T.A.M. is available from Documentary Educational Resources.
REGISTRATION
Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg
