apr 24, 2018 - Reassembling Indonesian Migration: Biometric Technology and the Licensing of Informal Labour Brokers

Description:

This article takes as its starting point the Indonesian government’s attempt to license informal brokers – field agents, or petugas lapangan – who recruit migrant workers that are sent to destinations across Asia and the Middle East. The licensing programme utilises biometric fingerprint technology in order to reinforce the boundaries of the Indonesian migration assemblage through the rearticulation of the category of the broker. The article argues that this programme and the attempt to license informal brokers through technology should be conceptualised not strictly in relation to the securitisation of migration, nor as a response to fragmentation in the wake of neoliberalisation, but more broadly in relation to concerns with regulating brokers that lead back to the Dutch colonial era.

Volume 83, 2018