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Politics of (in)visibility: Governance-resistance and the constitution of refugee subjectivities in Malaysia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2016

Leonie Ansems de Vries
Leonie Ansems de Vries*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in International Relations, King’s College London
*
*Correspondence to: Dr Leonie Ansems de Vries, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS. Author’s email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the relationality of governance and resistance in the context of the constitution of refugee subjectivities in Malaysia. Whilst recognising their precarity, the article moves away from conceiving of refugees merely as victims subjected to violence and control, and to contribute to an emerging body of literature on migrant resistance. Its contribution lies in examining practices of resistance, and the specific context in which they emerge, without conceptualising power-resistance as a binary, and without conceiving of refugees as preconstituted subjects. Rather, drawing on the thought of Michel Foucault, the article examines how refugee subjectivities come into being through a play of governance-resistance, of practices and strategies that may be simultaneously affirmative, subversive, exclusionary, and oppressive. The relationality and mobility of this play is illustrated through an examination of practices surrounding UNHCR identity cards, community organisations, and education. Secondly, governance-resistance is conceptualised as a play of visibility and invisibility, understood both visually and in terms of knowledge production. What I refer to as the politics of (in)visibility indicates that refugee subjectivities are both constituted and become other than ‘the refugee’ through a continuous play of coming into being, becoming governable, claiming a presence, blending in and remaining invisible.

Keywords

RefugeesResistance(In)visibilityGovernancePoliticsSubjectivity
Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , December 2016 , pp. 876 - 894
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2016 

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References

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7 The article is based on fieldwork undertaken in Kuala Lumpur between 2012–13. I lived in Malaysia from 2011–13, during which time I worked at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. During the last six months of this period, I volunteered for the UNHCR, as an English teacher in a (Chin) refugee learning centre.

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10 Refugee camps did exist in Malaysia at the time of the so-called Vietnamese boat people refugee crisis. Most of these refugees were resettled in the West. The last refugee camp closed in 2001.

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15 See McNevin, ‘Ambivalence and citizenship’, pp. 194–5, for a critique of this particular point. See fn. 4 for a more general body of literature.

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17 Quoted in Mydans, Seth, ‘A growing source of fear for migrants in Malaysia’, The New York Times (10 December 2007)Google Scholar.

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22 Whilst a number of publications discuss both governance and resistance, their relationship is often not explored. See, for example, McNevin, ‘Ambivalence and citizenship’; Moulin and Nyers, ‘Country of UNHCR’; Puumula, ‘Political life’; Scheel and Ratfisch, ‘Refugee protection’; Squire, ‘Contested politics’; Walters, ‘Foucault and frontiers’; Tazzioli and Walters, ‘Sight of migration’.

23 Foucault, ‘Truth and power’, p. 97.

24 In fact, most states in the region have not signed the UN Refugee Convention, including Bangladesh, Brunei, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

25 Cf. Moulin and Nyers, ‘Country of UNHCR’.

26 Crisp et al., Our Turn, p. 17.

27 Compare William Walters’ article on humanitarian borders, in which he refers to Foucaultian scholarship that shows that knowledges, techniques, and strategies were invented across a great variety of institutional sites and for multiple ends. He suggests approaching humanitarianism ‘as a field which exists in a permanent state of co-option, infiltration but also provocation with the state (but also with other supranational and international entities as well).’ See Walters, ‘Foucault and frontiers’, pp. 148–9.

28 See, for example, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR Factsheet: Refugees in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: UNHCR). According to the Factsheet, ‘[u]nlike migrants, refugees do not choose to leave their countries … The key difference between economic migrants and refugees is that economic migrants enjoy the protection of their home countries; refugees do not.’

29 Nah, ‘Struggling with (il)legality’, p. 55.

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31 Cf. Scheel and Ratfisch, ‘Refugee protection’, p. 928.

32 Ibid., p. 926.

33 See Moulin and Nyers, ‘Country of UNHCR’, for a different account of the contestation of the UNHCR’s monopoly of knowledge production, whereby refugees reappropriate the category of the refugee direct resistance to the UNHCR.

34 On ‘reversibility’, see Tazzioli and Walters, ‘Sight of migration’; on ‘reinscription’, see McNevin ‘Ambivalence and citizenship’.

35 Puumula, ‘Political life’, pp. 955–6; see also Darby, Phillip, ‘Pursuing the political: a postcolonial rethinking of relations international’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 33:1 (2004), pp. 1–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 McNevin, ‘Ambivalence and citizenship’, p. 193. On ‘agency’, see, for example, Moulin and Nyers, ‘Country of UNHCR’; Nyers, ‘Abject cosmopolitanism’; Rygiel, ‘Bordering solidarities’; on ‘autonomy’, see, for example, Mezzadra and Neilson, ‘Né qui’; Mezzadra, Sandro, ‘The gaze of autonomy: Capitalism, migration and social struggles’, in Vicky Squire (ed.), The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity (New York: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar; Papadopolous et al., Escape Routes.

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42 Ibid., pp. 156–7. See also Hoffstaedter, Gerhard, ‘Place-making: Chin refugees, citizenship and the state in Malaysia’, Citizenship Studies, 18:8 (2014), p. 878 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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44 Moulin and Nyers, ‘Country of UNHCR’, p. 363.

45 See UNHCR Malaysia, ‘About Project Self Help’, available at: {http://www.unhcr.org.my/Project_Self_Help-@-About_Project_Self_Help.aspx} accessed 13 January 2016.

46 Crisp et al., Our Turn, p. 22.

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48 See, for example, Crisp et al., Our Turn, p. 23.

49 Smith, Search of Survival, p. 37.

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58 Nah, ‘Seeking refuge’, p. 149.

59 Ibid., pp. 157–8.

60 Scheel and Squire, ‘Forced migrants’.

61 Obama, Barack, ‘Remarks by President Obama at the Dignity for Children Foundation’, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, available at: {https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/21/remarks-president-obama-dignity-children-foundation}Google Scholar accessed 13 January 2016. It is worthwhile to note that this account was not challenged during a press conference the next day. See ‘Press Conference by President Obama’, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, available at: {https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/22/remarks-president-obama-press-conference} accessed 13 January 2016.

62 The White House, ‘Remarks by President Obama at the Dignity for Children Foundation’. See also ‘President Obama met with young Muslim refugees and it was absolutely heartwarming’, Huffington Post, available at: {http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-muslim-refugees_564ff9c9e4b0d4093a57f652} accessed at 13 January 2016.

63 Mayberry, Kate, ‘First-class refugees: Malaysia’s two-tier system’, Aljazeera, available at: {http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/12/class-refugees-malaysia-tier-system-151221061627431.html}Google Scholar accessed at 13 January 2016; Arfud, Intan Zulaika, ‘Malaysia is in no state to accept more refugees – NGOs highlight their concerns’, Malaysian Digest, available at: {http://www.malaysiandigest.com/news/581592-malaysia-is-in-no-state-to-accept-more-refugees-ngos-highlight-their-concerns.html}Google Scholar accessed 13 January 2016.

64 Mayberry, ‘First-class refugees’.

65 Parameswaran, Prashanth, ‘Malaysia begins receiving 3,000 Syrian migrants’, The Diplomat, available at: {http://thediplomat.com/2015/12/malaysia-begins-receiving-3000-syrian-migrants/}Google Scholar accessed 13 January 2016.

66 Tazzioli and Walters, ‘Sight of migration’.

67 Ibid.