Success, Failure, Doomed Beyond Measure: The Troubled Life of the Bangladesh-Malaysia Labor Migration Relation

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Asia has emerged as the region with the highest density of bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) or memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between governments seeking to manage transnational labor migration and the conditions under which migrants work. This paper takes a sociocultural approach to the study of BLAs and MOUs, conceptualizing them to be a transnational assemblage that extends before and after their announcement, shaped by diverse actors, social and political economic factors, and with wide-ranging and contingent effects. Bangladesh alone is party to around 18 such BLAs and MOUs. This paper analyses the tumultuous relationship between Bangladesh and Malaysia – large-scale recruitment drives have alternated with abrupt bans, and repeated re-negotiations of MoUs since the first one was signed in 2003. What discourses around success, failure, fairness, and reform have shaped the understanding of the series of MOUs in this case? Who are the actors involved in shaping an emergent transnational public sphere in addition to government actors, what are the social effects of MOUs and BLAs beyond their stated aims, and what kinds of relations across local, national, and regional scales shape contemporary labor regimes? The paper will draw on ongoing research focused on the Bangladesh-Malaysia case as a window into these questions, to shift discussions from purely economistic or legalistic focus.