Petra Dannecker

Transnational migration and the transformation of gender relations: the case of Bangladeshi labour migrants.

The article discusses the transformations of gender relations due to transnational migration between Bangladesh and Malaysia. It is shown that the uneven economic development in Asia during the last decades has not only initiated new migration movements and patterns but has also led to a feminization of migration, which has resulted in transformations of gender relations. It is argued that the increased migration of Bangladeshi women as temporary labour migrants to Malaysia and the transnational discourses and practices these movements have initiated are leading to renegotiations and transformations of the existing gender order. Networks and transnational activities of Bangladeshi male migrants are analysed in order to show, first, that transnational spaces are gendered and, second, how transnational influences are changing power and gender relations. The successful exploitation of global markets by female migrants has not only resulted in new migration patterns and new gendered labour markets but has become an important agent for transformations of gender relations.

Collective action, organisation building, and leadership: women workers in the garment sector in Bangladesh

A very noticeable feature of economic development in many Asian countries has been the growing employment of young women in industry. Whereas much has been written about the exploitation of the workers, and this is often related to the wider debates about the links between gender relations and globalisation, there has been relatively little analysis of the ways in which women resist exploitation through collective action, creating organisations, and networking. All these strategies enable women workers to cope with ongoing change, and sometimes to reshape gender power relations. This article analyses collective action, organisation-building, and womens leadership in the garment sector in Bangladesh, where women have rapidly entered a highly visible form of employment.

Managing Migration with Stories? The IOM “i am a migrant” Campaign

This article offers an analysis of the aim, audience, form and content of the “i am a migrant” campaign of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). We suggest that the campaign directs public opinion in Western ‘host countries’. We furthermore propose that the campaign’s website as a platform for migrants’ voices is not antithetical to the mission of the IOM to manage migration according to a logic of productivity and rationality, but rather a logical extension of it. We show that the migrant narratives presented not only confirm, but also disrupt the assumed naturalness of migrants’ strong ties with their countries of origin, frequently underpinning established policy on the migration-development nexus.

The Thai-Burmese borderland: mobilities, regimes, actors and changing political contexts

For decades people from Myanmar have fled or migrated to Thailand. Civil conflicts, political repression, poverty and a lack of work opportunities are just some of the reasons why people have left Myanmar. Through these movements and the way they have been governed, a borderland has been constituted. In recent decades especially, the border itself has been strategically manipulated by state authorities to preserve a border area used as an industrial node for export-oriented industries dependent on cheap (i.e. migrant) labor. This article discusses the processes establishing the systemic categories of “refugee” and “labor migrant.” On the basis of fieldwork conducted from 2012 on, the article also analyzes the influence on the borderland of recent political and economic changes in Thailand and Myanmar.

Connecting and confronting transnationalism: bridging concepts and moving critique

ABSTRACT This article traces the trajectory of transnationalism as a perspective and field of study and suggests that new impetus can be given to its development by establishing a dialogue between transnationalism and other key concepts. While the research agenda of the early stages was characterised by a need to distinguish transnationalism from related terms, such as globalisation, we argue that the field could now regain momentum by exploring synergies with other concepts. In this special issue we stage confrontations between transnationalism and, respectively, the (perspectives opened up by the) concepts of ‘borders’, ‘translocality’, ‘precarity’, ‘queer’, ‘moralities’, ‘the state’, and ‘brokerage’. Conceptually, this allows us to go beyond an internal critique that exposes the shortcomings of a transnational perspective, by suggesting novel frameworks and toolkits. Substantively, this issue’s articles demonstrate the need to refocus transnational studies’ attention to the unevenness, instability and inequality of transnational space.