Abstract
This chapter discusses the role that identities and subject formation play in aiding the Chin and Acehnese with their cross-border political activities. Migrants often have several identities and indeed utilise these multi-levelled and overlapping identities as a means of survival and as a way to gain access to certain privileges and benefits that come with membership, with either state or non-state entities as this chapter shows through various case studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Introduced in 2004 and managed by the Ministry of Tourism, the programme offers ten-year renewable visas that come with certain provisos attached, for example, a minimum investment of RM300,000 in the country.
- 2.
Further on in this chapter we shall see how the Acehnese were able to gain permanent residence status with relative ease in the 1980s. But this was not the case in the 2000s. The sheer magnitude of the arrivals in the wake of the tsunami, plus a changed electoral landscape as compared to the 1980s, would have made the notion of presenting all the Acehnese fleeing the disaster with permanent membership status untenable for the Malaysian state.
- 3.
With the benefit of hindsight, Crouch was not far wrong in his projections. In a population census undertaken in 2007, the Bumiputra population had swelled to 66.4 per cent far outnumbering the second largest ethnic group the Chinese at 24.9 per cent and the Indians at 7.5 per cent with those falling into “others” amounting to 1.3 per cent.
- 4.
As Crouch (1996: 173–174) suggests, many of the undocumented Indonesians who were granted permanent residence status would have gone on to become full-fledged citizens, thereby enabling them to vote in elections, presumably for the party most aligned, culturally and religiously speaking. In the case of the GAM operatives I spoke with, however, I did not encounter any who had made this transition to full citizenship, probably because they had little interest in doing so.
- 5.
It is difficult to know exactly how many, without doing a comprehensive quantitative-based study which this researcher has not conducted.
- 6.
This account is based on my own personal observation having spent time at the ACR office observing the practice of issuing ACR identity cards over a period of several weekends in November 2009. The process is very similar to that of the CRC office which also issues their own card to members. The name mentioned is a pseudonym.
- 7.
Much of the equipment used by CRC and ACR in their offices are in fact donated by NGOs, churches and even embassies.
- 8.
My observation of the counselling process was carried out over a number of days in January 2010. But this particular account is derived from my observations on January 20, 2010. All those involved asked that their real names not be included, hence pseudonyms are used.
- 9.
This account should not be read as an indictment of such practices. Rather it should be understood in terms of the various hurdles that people, who are often desperate and looking for a way to leave a failed state and a bleak future, must overcome in order to conform to subject formation practices constructed by the state and international agencies, if they are to get a new lease of life in a third country.
- 10.
A pseudonym has been given to protect her privacy.
- 11.
In this case, the CRC counsellor was an interpreter who worked at UNHCR. UNHCR often hires interpreters who are themselves asylum seekers. Having sat in on these assessment interviews, the counsellor would know how UNHCR approaches the interviews and the kinds of questions that are normally asked by the interviewers.
- 12.
Emily is a pseudonym to protect the respondent’s identity.
- 13.
The person I interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity, hence a pseudonym has been used.
- 14.
This is usually when some of the details provided by the asylum seeker are viewed as requiring further scrutiny and questioning.
Bibliography
Al-Ali, N., R. Black, and K. Koser. 2001. “The Limits to ‘Transnationalism’: Bosnian and Eritrean Refugees in Europe as Emerging Transnational Communities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(4) July: 578–600.
Bakker, Matt, and Michael Smith. 2003. “El Rey del Tomate: Migrant Political Transnationalism and Democratization in Mexico.” Migraciones Internacioneles 2(1): 59–83.
Bakker, Matt, and Michael Smith. 2008. Citizenship Across Borders: The Political Transnationalism of the El Migrante. United States of America: Cornell University Press.
Chin, Joseph Y.L. 2005. The Politics of Indonesia-Malaysia Relations. New York: Routledge.
Crouch, Harold. 1999. Government and Society in Malaysia. New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.
Delanty, Gerard. 2006. “The Idea of Citizenship: Republican Roots, Cosmopolitan Challenges.” In European Citizenship: Theories, Arenas, Levels, eds. S. Piattoni and R. Scartezzini. United Kingdom: Elgar Publishers.
Faist, Thomas. 2000. “Transnationalization in International Migration: Implications for the Study of Citizenship and Culture.” Ethics and Racial Studies 23(2): 189–222.
Fox, Jonathan A. 2005. Unpacking “Transnational Citizenship”. UC Santa Cruz: Center for Global, International and Regional Studies. Retrieved from http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4703m6bf.
Sadiq, Kamal. 2005. “When States Prefer Non-Citizens Over Citizens: Conflict Over Illegal Immigration into Malaysia.” International Studies Quarterly (2005) 49: 101–122.
Sassen, Saskia. 2006. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sharma, Aradhana, and Akhil Gupta. 2006. “Introduction: Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age of Globalization.” In The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, eds. A. Sharma and G. Akhil. Maldon: Blackwell Publishing.
Soysal, Yasemin. 2007. “Postnational Citizenship: Reconfiguring the Familiar Terrain.” In The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, eds. Kate Nash and Alan Scott. Oxford: Blackwell.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2000. The State of the World’s Refugees: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action. Oxford: UNHCR and Oxford University Press.
US Committee for Refugees and Immigration (USCRI). 2010. World Refugee Survey 1997–2009 Country Reports Malaysia. http://www.refugees.org/countryreports.aspx%3Fsubm=%26ssm=%26cid=2008.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Murugasu, S. (2017). Identity and Membership: Deriving Legitimacy and Political Agency through State, Community and Transnational Identities. In: The State and the Transnational Politics of Migrants: A Study of the Chins and the Acehnese in Malaysia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37061-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37061-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-37060-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-37061-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)