Merchants of Migrant Domestic Labour : Recruitment Agencies and Neoliberal Migration Governance in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This open access book discusses the market logic of recruitment agencies who deploy migrant domestic workers in Southeast Asia. Agencies are involved in all stages of worker migration trajectory – from their selection, to their training, and their management at the destination. The book describes how and why these private actors play such an outsized role in this kind of worker mobility, and examines their relations with employers, workers and state apparatuses. It focuses on agents operating in the largest migrant sending countries (the Philippines and Indonesia) and receiving countries (Malaysia and Singapore) in Southeast Asia. These pioneering migration industries in the region have established practices and norms that have and continue to diffuse to other world regions. This book is of interest to policymakers, practitioners, students and researchers in migration studies, global governance, gender and migration, globalization and development, Southeast Asian studies, and area studies in political science.