Abstract
Times have been tough for the concept of the nation-state: the early literature on globalization predicted its impending decline, giving way to ‘a new transnational political geography’ (Sassen 1998, p. xxi) or ‘deterritorialization’ (Scholte 2000, p. 3), as research on transnational phenomena took off during the 1990s across the social sciences (Jönsson 2010). Likewise, the emerging subfield of transnationalism within migration studies found the nation-state to have become ‘unbound’ and ‘deterritorialized’ (Basch et al. 1993). The literature on ‘transnational spaces’, however, disagrees with the latter point but still observes a ‘growing uncoupling of social space and geographical space’ (Pries 2001). But when summing up the debate on transnational migration in 2003, a special issue of the International Migration Review arrived at the conclusion that ‘the state is here to stay’ (Levitt et al. 2003, p. 568). Similarly, social movement scholarship has pointed to the continuing importance of the role of the state as primary target of political action (Tarrow 2006).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ally, Shireen (2005): ‘Caring about Care Workers: Organizing in the Female Shadow of Globalization’. Travail, capital et society, 38: 185–207.
Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller and Ceistina Szanton Blanc (eds.) (1993): Nations Unbound. Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States. London: Routledge.
Basok, Tanya and Nicola Piper (forthcoming): ‘Regulation versus Rights: Migration of Women and Global Governance Organizations in Latin American and the Caribbean’. Feminist Economics, 18(2), April 2012.
Bronfenbrenner, Kate (ed.) (2007): Global Unions — Challenging Transnational Capital through Cross-Border Campaigns. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Brown, Sany and Christy Getz (2007): ‘Privatizing Farm Worker Justice: Regulating Labor through Voluntary Certification and Labelling’. Geoforum, 39: 1184–96.
Della Porta, Donatella, Hanspeter Kriesi and Dieter Rucht (eds.) (2009): Social Movements in a Globalizing World (second expanded edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dicken, Peter and Philip F. Kelly et al. (2001): ‘Chains and Networks, Territories and Scales: Towards a Relational Framework of Analysing the Global Economy’. Global Networks, 1: 89–112.
Elias, Juanita (2008): ‘Struggles Over the Rights of Foreign Domestic Workers in Malaysia: The Possibilities and Limitations of ‘Rights Talk’. Economy and Society, 37 (2): 282–303.
Falk, Richard A. (1999): Predatory Globalization — a Critique. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ford, Michele and Nicola Piper (2007): ‘Southernsites of Female Agency: Informal Regimes and Female Migrant Labor Resistance in East and Southeast Asia’. Everyday International Political Economy (ed. by John Dobson and Leonard Seabrooke). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 63–80.
Fraser, Nancy (2009): ‘Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunningof History’. New Left Review, 56. Available at: (www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2772, accessed June 2009).
Garwood, Shae (2009): ‘Networks, NGOs and World Civic Politics: Transnational Advocacy and the Global Garment Industry’. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Western Australia, Department of International Relations and Political Science.
Grugel, Jean B. and Nicola Piper (2009): ‘Do rights promote development?’ Global Social Policy, 9 (1): 79–98.
ILO (International Labor Organization) (2004): Towards a Fair Deal for Migrant Workers in the Global Economy. Geneva: ILO.
IOM (International Organization for Migration) (2010): World Migration Report. Geneva: IOM.
Harrod, Jeffrey and Robert O’Brian (eds.) (2002): Global Unions? Theory and Strategies of Organized Labor in the Global Political Economy. London: Routledge.
Herod, Andrew (2007): ‘The Agency of Labor in Global Change: Reimagining the Spaces and Scales of Trade Union Praxis within a Global Economy’. Everyday Politics of the World Economy (ed. by John Hobson and Leonard Seabrooke). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 27–44.
Hsia, Hsiao-Chuan (2009): ‘The Making of a Transnational Grassroots Migrant Movement: a Case Study of Hong Kong’s Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body’. Critical Asian Studies, 41: 113–41.
Human Rights Watch (2006): ‘Swept under the Rugs: Abuses against Domestic Workers around the World’. HRW Report 18, 7.(C). Available at: (www.hrw.org/reports/2006/wrd0706).
Iredale, Robin, Nicola Piper and Amelia Ancog (2005): ‘Impact of Ratifying the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Family: Case Studies of the Philippines and Sri Lanka’, prepared for UNESCO, APMRN Working Paper No. 15, Australian National University.
Jönsson, Christer (2010): ‘Capturing the Transnational: A Conceptual History’. Transnational Actors in Global Governance (ed. by Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 22–44.
Keck, Margaret and Kathryn Sikkink (1998): Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Khagram, Sanjeev, James V. Riker and Kathryn Sikkink (2002): Restructuring World Politics. Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Lan, Pei-Chia (2003): ‘Political and Social Geography of Marginal Insiders: Migration Domestic workers in Taiwan’. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 12 (1–2): 99–126.
Latour Bruno (1996): ‘On Actor-Network Theory: A Few Clarifications’. Soziale Welt, 47: 369–81.
Law Lisa (2002): ‘Sites of Transnational Activism - Filipino Non-Governmental Organizations In Hong Kong’. Gender Politics in the Asia Pacific Region (ed. by Brenda Yeoh, Peggy Teo and Shirlena Huang). London: Routledge: 71–99.
Levitt, Peggy, Josh De Wind and Stephan Vertovec (2003): ‘International Perspectives on Transnational Migration: An Introduction’. International Migration Review, 37 (3): 565–75.
Lyons, Lenore (2005): ‘Transient Workers Count Too? The Intersection of Citizenship and Gender in Singapore’s Civil Society’. Sojourn, 20 (2): 208–48.
McNevin Anne (2007): ‘Irregular Migrants, Neoliberal Geographies and Spatial Frontiers of the Political’. Review of International Studies, 33: 655–74.
Piper, Nicola (2006): ‘Migrant Worker Activism in Singapore and Malaysia - Freedom of Association and the Role of the State’. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 14 (9): 359–80.
Piper, Nicola (2008): ‘Political Participation and Empowerment of Foreign Workers - Gendered Advocacy and Migrant Labor Organizing in Southeast and East Asia’. New Perspectives on Gender and Migration - Rights, Entitlements and Livelihoods (ed. by Nicola Piper). New York: Routledge: 249–75.
Piper, Nicola (2009): ‘Temporary Migration and Political Remittances: The Role of Advocacy Networks in the Transnationalisation of Human Rights’. European Journal of Asian Studies, Special Issue on Migration and Democracy, 8 (2): 215–43.
Piper, Nicola (2010): ‘All Quiet on the Eastern Front? - Temporary Contract Migration in Asia Revisited from a Development Perspective’. Policy and Society, 90: 1–13.
Piper, Nicola (2011): ‘Towards a Gendered Political Economy of Migration: The ‘Feminizations’ of Migration, Work and Poverty’. The International Political Economy of Migration (ed. by Nicola Phillips). Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner Publishers: pp. 61–82.
Piper, Nicola and Anders Uhlin (2002): ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Issue of Trafficking and Labor Migration in East and Southeast Asia. A Gendered Analysis of Opportunities and Obstacles’. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 11 (2): 171–95.
Piper, Nicola and Anders Uhlin (eds.) (2004): Transnational Activism in Asia - Problems of Power and Democracy. London: Routledge.
Piper, Nicola and Robyn Iredale (2003): ‘Identification of the Obstacles to the Signing and Ratification of the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers 1990 - The Asia Pacific Perspective’ prepared for UNESCO, APMRN Working Paper no. 14, University of Wollongong.
Powell, Walter W. and Laurel Smith-Doerr (1994): ‘Networks and Economic Life’. The Handbook of Economic Sociology (ed. by Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 368–402.
Pries, Ludger (2001): ‘The Approach of Transnational Social Spaces. Responding to New Configurations of the Social and the Spatial’. New Transnational Social Spaces. International Migration and Transnational Companies in the Early Twenty-First Century (ed. by Ludger Pries). London and New York: Routledge: 3–33.
Rother, Stefan (2009a): ‘Inside-Outside’ or ‘Outsiders by choice’? Civil society strategies towards the 2nd Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in Manila ASIEN - The German Journal on Contemporary Asia, 111: 95–107. Available at: (http://www.asienkunde.de/content/zeitschrift_asien/archiv/pdf/111_rother.pdf).
Rother, Stefan (2009b): ‘Arbeitsmigration zwischen Nationalstaat und Global Migration Governance: Das Beispiel des Entsendelandes Philippinen’. Good Governance in der Sackgasse? (ed. by Weiland Heribert, Ingrid Wehr and Matthias Seifert). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft: 217–40.
Rother, Stefan (2009c): ‘Graswurzel Global: Der Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body (AMCB) in Hongkong’. Globalizierung bringt Bewegung. Lokale Kämpfe und transnationale Vernetzungen. lokale Kämpfe und transnationale Vernetzung in Asien (ed. by Uwe Hoering, Oliver Pye and Wolfram Schaffar et al.). Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot: 136–51.
Rother, Stefan (2009d): ‘Transnational Political Spaces: Political Activism of Philippine Labor Migrants In Hong Kong’. Changing Dynamics in Filipino Overseas Migration: Nationalism, Transnationalism, Regionalism and the State (ed. by Tigno Jorge V.). Quezon City: Philippine Migration Research Network and Philippine Social Science Council Publishing: 109–40.
Rother, Stefan (2010a): ‘The GFMD from Manila to Athens: One Step Forward, One Step Back?’ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 19 (1): 157–73.
Rother, Stefan (2010b): ‘Indonesia (case study)’. Analysis of Mobility Management Systems in Technical Cooperation Partner Countries. Project Study Of GTZ (ed. by GTZ). Eschborn: 27–34.
Routledge, Paul and Andrew Cumbers (2009): Global Justice Networks — Geographies of Transnational Solidarity. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Sassen, Saskia (1998): Globalization and its Discontents. New York: The New Press.
Scholte, Jan A. (2000): Globalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Schwenken, Helen (2006): Rechtlos, abernichtohne Stimme. Politische Mobilisierungen um irreguläre Migration in die Europäische Union. Bielefeld: transcript.
Sim, Amy (2009): ‘Women Versus the State: Organizing Resistance and Contesting Exploitation in Indonesian Labor Migration to Hong Kong’. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 18 (1): 47–75.
Tarrow, Sidney G. (2006): ‘Confessions of a Recovering Structuralist’. European Political Science, 5: 7–20.
Teo, Youyenn and Nicola Piper (2009): ‘Foreigners in our Homes: Linking Migration and Family Policies in Singapore’. Population, Space and Place, 15 (2): 147–59.
UN DESA (2009): World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, United Nations Population Division. New York. Available at: (http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=2).
Verité (2005): Protecting Overseas Workers — Research Findings and Strategic Perspectives on Labor Protections for Foreign Contract Workers in Asia and the Middle East. Unpublished Research Paper. Amherst: Vérité.
Wee, Vivienne and Amy Sim(2005): ‘Hong Kong as a Destination for Migrant Domestic Workers’. Asian Women as Transnational Domestic Workers (ed. by Shirlena Huang, Brenda Yeoh and Noor Abdul Rahman). Singapore: Marshall Cavendish: 53–77.
Weiß, Anja (2005): ‘The Transnationalization of Social Inequality: Conceptualizing Social Positions on a World Scale’. Current Sociology, 53: 707–28.
Wickramasekara, Piyasiri (2006): ‘Transnational Activism by Malaysian: Foci, Tradeoffs and Implications’. Workshop on International Migration and Labor Markets in Asia. Tokyo, February 17, 2006.
Yamanaka, Keiko and Nicola Piper (2006): ‘Feminised Migration in East and Southeast Asia: Policies, Actions and Empowerment’. UNRISD Occasional Paper no. 11, Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development.
Yazid, Sylvia (2010): The Role of Indonesian NGOs in policy making visà vis Indonesian overseas domestic workers. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Monash University, Australia.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2011 Nicola Piper and Stefan Rother
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Piper, N., Rother, S. (2011). Transnational Inequalities, Transnational Responses: The Politicization of Migrant Rights in Asia. In: Rehbein, B. (eds) Globalization and Inequality in Emerging Societies. Frontiers of Globalization Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230354531_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230354531_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-33532-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-35453-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)