Fluid Asia through two blockages: Labor unfreedom and geothermal justice

The theme of this year’s Center for Asian Studies symposium – Fluid Asia – invites critical engagement with the social and physical fluidities that are shaping life and landscapes in the region. As the symposium approaches, I am thinking about various fluid dynamics of capitalist development in Southeast Asia – the movement of dispossessed rural people into cities where they work, which is commonly described in terms of flooding, the proliferation of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong, agricultural transitions from water-intensive subsistence crops to water-saving commercial crops in the Himalayas, to name a few. Water and its properties are a compelling vantage point for studying changes in capitalism; however, I am especially interested in the generative tension between fluidity and its foil: blockage.

My own research is concerned with two instances of fluidity and blockage in Southeast Asia. First, the quandary of “free-flowing” migrant labor: the movement of workers drives capitalist development all over Asia (and beyond), but they are simultaneously subjected to conditions of labor unfreedom that block their ability to maneuver in labor markets. Second, the fluid properties and politics of geothermal energy development in Indonesia’s Ring of Fire: proposed projects aim to harness steam that is produced as cool water meets molten Earth, but indigenous women in target communities have organized to oppose the construction of well heads that would block social reproduction, erode livelihoods, and defile living space.

The lived experiences of Burmese workers in Southeast Asia and the United States demonstrate that capitalist development – specifically urban development – is predicated on the forced flow of labor and the simultaneous blockage of labor rights. As Stephen Campbell (2022) shows in his recent book, Along the Integral Margin, people dispossessed by disaster and failed promises of rural development in Myanmar are compelled to move to urban centers but are confined to varying types of non-normative work and even enslavement. But why are people who “flow” locked into shitty jobs? Asking this question in the context of the Burmese diaspora, I found that state immigration regimes articulate with racialized labor discipline to direct displaced people into meatpacking and manufacturing work and block their ability to work in other sectors or organize for better working conditions. This blockage is what enables capitalists to dam “flows” of migrant and refugee labor, making migrant labor especially profitable to exploit. In Kuala Lumpur, for example, Malaysian produce and poultry bosses perceive an “inundation” of Rohingya asylum-seekers as an oversupply of dangerous interlopers who have no option but to work for low wages, but this racist narrative of human flooding combines with a lack of legal documentation that actively devalues Rohingya labor and prevents access to jobs in higher-wage sectors[1]. In other words, conditions of labor unfreedom. In Denver, affixing refugee-ness to Burmese workers enables employers to separate people who were resettled as refugees from other minoritized employees and reframe exploitation as justice and a humanitarian gift[2]. The fluidity of migrant labor – like the freedom of wage labor itself – is always so-called.

Second, the fluid properties and politics of green energy development contain contradictions that erode local livelihoods and provoke collective resistance. As the Indonesian government rolls out the “10 New Balis” plan, or the development of mass tourism destinations throughout Indonesia, there is concurrently increased demand for green energy and friction between communities and energy developers. Indonesia has the world’s second largest geothermal energy capacity, making steam-powered geothermal electricity the focus of low-carbon energy development. However, geothermal energy production also involves extensive drilling, risk of gas explosions, and incessant noise. In Flores, Indonesia, scholar-activists Cypri Dale (UW Madison) and Greg Afioma (CSU) have been organizing for years alongside indigenous communities who oppose the placement of geothermal wells in indigenous territory. Indigenous Manggarai women have emerged as leaders in the anti-geothermal movement and have advanced a new form of indigenous politics based on the concept of “living space,” wherein gardens, playgrounds, forests, cemeteries, ritual sites, and water sources are gendered indigenous territories and sites of production and reproduction. In contradistinction to techno-scientific spatial imaginaries that envision the smooth flow of steam energy from subterranean bore holes to newly constructed hotels, the indigenous conception of living space draws attention to the ways in which proposed plans block indigenous livelihoods and lifeways. This tension is the topic of a new collaborative project with Cyrpi Dale, Greg Afioma, and Emily Yeh (CU Boulder). We are studying the political economy and gendered politics of geothermal development at four sites across Flores with the aim of supporting just energy transitions – but is there even a such thing as just geothermal development? What would it look like?

In last year’s CAS briefing, Denise Fernandes interrogated the concept of climate justice, asking what it means and who controls the narrative. Her writing is especially informative for thinking about struggles over material and narrative fluidities – where, when, and for whom flows and blockages are advantageous. What kinds of blockages enable “free” flows of capital, energy, and people? How are narratives of “flow” used, and with what effects? Brought together in the multiplicity of Fluid Asia, we can examine these questions and others related to water, migration, labor, climate change, energy transitions, uneven development, landscape transformation, and protest movements through place-based engagement and by reimagining the significance of fluidity itself as a social, political, economic, and material process.

Works Cited

Campbell, Stephen. (2022). Along the integral margin: Uneven development in a Myanmar squatter settlement.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press.