The slow violence of life without cash: borders,state restrictions,and exclusion in the U.K. and Australia

In the U.K., refused asylum seekers who are considered destitute are provided with subsistence‐level financial support through the Azure card, a cashless technology similar to a debit card. In Australia, identical technology is used to quarantine fifty percent of the welfare benefits of mainly Aboriginal residents of the Northern Territory. In this paper, I explore the underlying state logics driving such punitive financial policies directed at these populations, arguing that cashless technologies represent a form of slow violence that employs financial tactics to undermine the provision of care for populations with precarious citizenship status. Financial tactics enact new forms of border securitization, slowly but permanently excluding people with precarious claims to citizenship from participation in the nation     

Singled Out: Scaling Violence and Social Groups as Legal Borderwork in U.S. Asylum Law

Through legal interpretation of immigration categories, such as the refugee definition, signatories to the UN Refugee Convention restrict access to political asylum. This paper examines how scalar logics are used in legal interpretation to filter out particular people from national space and control the number legally entitled to enter and remain in the U.S. Scalar logics shape access by requiring asylum seekers to prove they have been ‘singled out’ for persecution and by steering the meaning of the ‘particular social group’ provision of the refugee definition. The restrictive effects of these scalar logics are analyzed in relation to case law involving Central American asylum seekers fleeing gang‐related violence. These cases are often rejected on the basis that the asylum seekers possess identities and experiences exceeding the limited protection offered by asylum. Through analysis of these scalar logics, the paper highlights how interpretations of the refugee definition are an ongoing site of struggle over the scope of asylum protection.     

Distancing Asylum Seekers from the State: Australia's evolving political geography of immigration and border control

Australia's border enforcement strategies and immigration control policies operate in distant geographies, concealed from human rights groups, media and the public. From offshore detention to militarised maritime defence operations, Australia's exclusion of asylum seekers is increasingly dependent upon geographical processes that ensure asylum seekers do not have access to the state's systems of protection. This article explores a critically overlooked geopolitical strategy of mobility regulation that relies on processes simultaneously expanding geographies of control, while contracting spaces of rights. The outcome of these rapidly evolving bordering practices is the exaggeration of the distance separating asylum seekers from the state, suspending them within a space devoid of an operational system of rights, and emphasising a new and restructured maritime legal geography.     

Welcome to Woodside: Inverbrackie Alternative Place of Detention and performances of belonging in Woodside,South Australia,and Australia

Alternative Places of Detention (APODs) are a new way of detaining asylum seekers in Australia. The establishment of APODs creates a new formal structure of belonging in Australia which challenges everyday practices of belonging and senses of belonging at the local and national scale. This paper examines practices of belonging which emerged following the establishment of the Inverbrackie APOD in Woodside, South Australia. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, informed by the insights of theories of performativity, this research explores the competing stories of two broadly defined groups (opponents and supporters of Inverbrackie) engaged in a dialogue about asylum seekers, refugees, immigration detention and belonging. While opposition to the APOD was vocal and frequent in the lead-up to the establishment of the detention centre, once the Inverbrackie APOD became operational opponents’ voices began to fade. On the other hand, supporters continued to say things—and more importantly continued to do things—to nurture belonging for asylum seekers in Inverbrackie, Woodside, and Australia.     

Hyper‐planning Jakarta: The Great Garuda and planning the global spectacle

After a major flood in Jakarta in 2007, the government of Indonesia partnered with a consortium of Dutch engineers and designers to produce a solution. In 2013, this consortium proposed a plan for the Great Garuda, a megaproject that combined a deep seawall and private real estate, both in an archipelago of reclaimed islands that would be shaped like the mythical garuda eagle, Indonesia's national symbol. Despite a range of infeasibilities and opposition, the Great Garuda became the most prominent vision for the city's future. This article argues that the promotion of the Great Garuda was a process of ‘hyper‐planning’, which projected the city as a national triumph and a global spectacle. The plan served the political objective of creating the mere possibility of a ‘new Jakarta’ apart from the perceived chaos of the current capital. Further, the plan functioned as a performative object through its iconic imagery and its circulations. The process of hyper‐planning simultaneously projected a future of urban success, but also displaced the contingencies of the future to the private sector, beyond the purview of the state.     

The Asymmetric Border: The United States’ Place in the World and the Refugee Panic of 2018

The year 2018 saw a moral panic in the United States in the media and among many citizens over the treatment of refugees/asylees at the U.S. southern border, particularly the separation and detention of children apart from their parents. This happened in the context of a period in U.S. political history in which “immigration,” without much discernment about different types of immigration, was central to political discourse. In fact, in terms of numbers, there was no immigration crisis at the border. Undocumented migration from Mexico across the southern border of the United States has been in decline for many years, and the irregular movement of people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras is currently small by historical standards. The only crisis, to which the U.S. panic was a response, has been a human rights crisis. Families and children seeking asylum from horrendous civil‐rights conditions in their countries of origin were criminalized and denied their right to asylum hearings. The panic points both to the extreme politicization of immigration in the United States, particularly since Donald Trump's entry into national politics in 2015, and to popular confusion over categorizing different types of immigrants. But it also raises questions about the nature of the U.S. southern border in relation to the United States’ place in the world. Rather than thinking about the United States as simply the rich destination country of unfortunate people coming from poor origin countries, the refugee panic of 2018 brings into the focus the fact that the United States itself is complicit in the conditions in those countries that produce so many refugees in the first place.     

Decolonization and the Making of Middle Indonesia

Indonesia contains about 200 provincial cities with populations between 50,000 and one million, yet they have attracted far less scholarly attention than the country's few million-plus cities. Recent democratization and decentralization have brought to light patterns of communal and local mobilization in these cities, centered on elections and other political events, that have not been seen in Indonesia since the 1950s and early 1960s. Provincial cities have talked back to the central state in ways that belie their supposed passivity as expressed in the term "urban involution." This study attempts to build a synthetic and historical explanation for those patterns by examining the social embeddedness of the state in the provincial city. Most of Indonesia's towns and cities, particularly beyond Java, became urban only through the formation of the modern colonial state from the mid- to late 19th century onward. After decolonization began in 1945, the expanding but chronically underfunded bureaucracy became an arena for contestation among the emerging middle classes in these urban centers, which lacked manufacturing. The new provincial classes were politically significant because of their numbers and their mobilizing skills rather than their wealth. They successfully seized the state at the local level. The central state, anxious to establish political stability, appeased them with substantial political transfer rents, particularly during the oil boom years of the early to middle New Order.     

Managing migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion: Regulation,extra‐legal relation and extortion

One major aim of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) integration programme, supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is to foster regional ‘community’ for sharing resources, people and financial flows. This ‘community’ is the target of both economic growth and poverty reduction. The emphasis on ‘community’ in the ADB's mushrooming quantity of documents raises important questions about what kinds of people are included, in what roles and with what kinds of support and protection. This paper explores these questions in relation to the political economy of regulating ethnic migrants from Myanmar working in Thailand. This paper argues that extra‐legal relations between migrants and state/para‐state agents constitute a crucial part of regulation. In transferring the regulation of migration to the national scale, the ADB inadvertently reinforces national differences between Thais and cross‐border people. Additionally, the complicated and fluctuating implementation of national regulations in both countries leaves migrants subject to violence and extortion from state and quasi‐state agents in Thailand. This paper shows that the dynamics of global capitalism require ‘deportable labour’ supplied by ethnic migrants who are included in the GMS community as the most invisible, vulnerable and exploited members.     

Another political ecology of civil society reflexiveness against urban industrial risks for environmental justice: The case of the Bisasar landfill,Durban, South Africa

The concerns of political ecology since its beginnings as a field have been predominantly set in rural areas with limited focus on urban industrial risks. Further, debates on the global South (often from Anglo‐American perspectives) have not fully appreciated the divergent and differentiated perceptions of urban risks and, therefore, everyday forms of resistance within civil society. Instead, work has mainly focused on civil society power relations against the state and industry that are driven by coherent populist political agendas. Against this setting, this paper's contribution aims to better contextualize ‘other’ third world localities in political ecology through a case study of urban industrial risks in the upper/middle income (as opposed to rural, low/lower middle income) country, South Africa. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the derelict aspect of civil society contestation, especially along class and ethnic lines, over urban landfill infrastructure as a livelihood resource or a health hazard. The paper draws upon frameworks of self‐reflexivity and reflexive localism as complementary to the mainstream political ecology to illuminate differentiated civil society reflexiveness and therefore, aims to advance the discussion of other political ecologies. The case study of the largest formal landfill site in Africa, the Bisasar landfill situated in Durban, highlights differences underlying power relations and constraints within civil society (in leadership, social networking, resources and mistrust) that have implications for mainstream political ecology notions of civil society coherence.     

Economic diversification and second‐tier political conflict: Assessing bitumen political ecologies in southwest Nigeria

Since its emergence as a research field in the 1980s, political ecology has provided a useful tool to explicate violent environments, notably as hallmarks of natural resource‐dependent economies. Practitioners regularly address what might be called ‘charismatic’ natural resources such as oil and other precious minerals to describe contestation over access and control of natural resources. Yet, where this focus exists, the political ecology of less economically valuable or ‘noncharismatic’ resources is thereby obscured. Thus, Nigeria's dependency on oil production has generated much scholarly attention with its unstable political economy described as a rentier state. In contrast, this paper draws on extensive field experience and knowledge about the country to assess in a preliminary manner some of the dimensions and ramifications of a less well known second‐tier natural resource commodity that is gaining attention as part of a possible national economic diversification strategy. Using the case of bitumen, a viscous hydrocarbon mainly used in road surfacing and roofing work, I assess the trajectory of this relatively overlooked resource, thereby opening a window onto the political ecology of a noncharismatic resource. In contrast to the ubiquitous violence in the oil‐based Niger Delta, I suggest that bitumen political ecologies, while also provoking political conflict and debate, nonetheless seem to being marked by new power dynamics that might augur a less violence prone path in terms of Nigeria's political economy of natural resource production.     

Globalisation and Border Dynamics: impacts on the urban development of Darwin,Australia

National boundaries and border cities have been transformed globally. This is partly due to neoliberal globalisation, the continuous formation of a ‘borderless world’ and partly to the global ‘war on terror’. Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory (NT), is on the northern coast of Australia, bordering its overseas Asian neighbours. Far away from the main Australian population centres in the south, the city grows slowly, relying mainly on Australian government investments, infrastructure, and the incorporation of defence programs in the north. The rise of Asia, as well as Australia's increasing economic reliance on Asia, has created new opportunities for Darwin's growth. The development of Asian economies has resulted in growing global investment in resource extraction in NT. Asia, though, has been seen as a key threat in the modern history of Australia. This national sensitivity is underpinned by the global ‘war on terror’ in which Australia is deeply involved. Australia has tight border control regimes and a growing military presence on the northern border area. This paper examines how these co-existing but contradictory dynamics have reshaped the urban development of Darwin City. The consequential social and spatial patterns are identified and discussed.     

跨境经济合作区建设的“尺度困境”——以中老磨憨-磨丁经济合作区为例

20世纪70年代以来,随着经济全球化和区域经济一体化的快速发展,跨境经济合作区作为次区域经济合作的一种组织模式开始不断发展并得到学术界的重视。“一带一路”倡议提出后,边境地区越来越成为对外开放的前沿,而跨境经济合作区成为促进中国与沿线国家经贸合作的重要载体。由于涉及国家主权让渡及各种要素跨越国界流动,跨境经济合作区具有高度的复杂性和不确定性,其建设进展相对较慢。通过中老磨憨-磨丁经济合作区的案例分析,深入探讨跨境经济合作区的建设难题、形成机制及突破路径。研究认为,跨境经济合作区建设面临典型的“尺度困境”,其困境大小主要取决于区域经济一体化程度,国内多尺度治理协调程度及边境双边治理结构匹配程度等3个维度。跨境经济合作区作为多尺度汇聚的边境地区,区域经济一体化是降低跨境合作边界屏蔽效应的关键,而其治理需要从国家到地方多尺度的紧密合作以及边境双边的制度对接。打破跨境经济合作区的“尺度困境”需要边境双边协同治理,国家尺度较完善的制度安排,或给予地方较大的自主权限,同时要加强跨境基础设施建设。     

The experimental governing of mobility and trade on the China‐Laos frontier: The Tai Lue case

This paper discusses the governing of subjects and objects' mobility in the context of trans‐border rice and corn trade on the China‐Laos frontier. It traces the attempts by a group of ethnic Tai Lue traders from China to assert themselves as ‘flexible subjects’ and economically triumphant actors on the Upper Mekong market in the era of economic regionalization. It illustrates how, between 2005 and mid‐2006, the traders' economic success relied on a variety of ‘border strategies’. ‘Border strategies’ include a gender‐balanced organization of trade, the instrumental deployment of trans‐border ethnicity, the appropriation of a Han style of business, the opportunistic reliance on the Chinese administration's ‘regime of graduated mobility’, and the enactment of a ‘war‐machine’ against Lao state agents. Yet, in late 2006, a new wave of state authoritarianism, enmeshed in corporate accumulation processes, inhibited the traders' success. The paper suggests that, unlike what some defenders of globalization and transnational theories maintain, in the age of economic regionalization, the alleged flexibility and increased mobility of subjects and objects across the borders of the Greater Mekong Subregion remain conditional on an unpredictable mechanism of loosening and tightening. This is part of a long‐applied governing pattern of ‘experimentation under hierarchy’ on the Sino‐Lao frontier.     

Implementing a national environmental policy: Understanding the ‘success’ of the 1989–1999 integrated pest management programme in Indonesia

The fact that most environmental degradation occurs in developing countries suggests the difficulties in implementing and sustaining environmental policies. In the current era of heightened environmental awareness and publicity for the impacts of climate change, where all countries are expected to take action, cases of ‘successful’ implementations of environmental policy in a developing country are instructive. This paper provides an overview of why and how the 1989–1999 national integrated pest management programme worked in Indonesia – before being terminated in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. It is seen that environmental programmes cannot be sustained without strong national political endorsement, focussed local research linked to international support, appropriate policy implementation mechanisms and demonstrated and direct benefits for local participants and communities.     

Explaining State‐Environmental NGO Relations in the Philippines and Indonesia

This paper explains how the notion of “critical engagement” has been a popular basis for NGO‐state relations in the Philippines and Indonesia. It has been used, moreover, in both liberal democratic (post‐1985 Philippines) and authoritarian (late 1960s to late 1990s Indonesia) political regimes. For both states and reform‐minded NGOs, critical engagement has represented a flexible means by which to pursue assorted political, economic and social ends. In a context of regional political and economic upheaval, it is likely to remain popular with both states and many NGOs for the foreseeable future.     

The green governmentality in an Indonesian metropolis

The current interest in the ‘clean and green’ that has become part of urban governmentality in Indonesia's metropolis is illustrative of the practice of becoming a citizen of Jakarta today. The ongoing demand to reclaim and produce green space, however, entails the displacement of those who are considered to be blocking the success of urban green initiatives. This paper points to ways in which contemporary forms of power are built on the premise that a green environment requires individuals to reconfigure themselves to gain social legitimacy. It shows how the greening of Jakarta can be understood as part of the evolving technology of governance associated with postauthoritarian Indonesia.     

Aid,trade and the ‘new realism’: Australia's links with East and South‐East Asia

Nearly all Australia's Asian neighbours are developing countries. Some, like South Korea and Singapore are now industrialising rapidly, while others such as China, Thailand and Indonesia have economies that have shown strong growth. Their significance as trading partners for Australia has expanded accordingly. Six of Australia's 11 most important export markets, and five of the top 13 sources of imports are in East and South‐east Asia. Increased recognition of this economic relationship has been termed the ‘new realism’ of Australia's international relations. Australia's overseas development assistance program has also given increased emphasis to East and South‐east Asia, not least because of perceived trade benefits. Yet while the growth of the new realist perspective is to be welcomed, it needs to be recognised that most of the countries within the region are still poor, and not likely to catch up to Australian standards of living for many decades, if ever. Future relations between Australia and the developing countries to its north, therefore, will be best served by a development assistance program that stresses the developmental and humanitarian purposes of aid, and confines trade related concerns to the countries and situations where it is relevant.     

After the 1997 financial crisis in Bangkok: The behaviour and implications of a new cohort of street vendors

After the 1997 financial crisis, many retrenched workers preferred not to return to provincial homes but remained in Bangkok to establish informal retail businesses in branded and other consumer products. In contrast to traditional street vendors, who specialized in food items primarily catering for low‐income customers, and focused on high volume, these ‘new generation’ street vendors also adopted more formal business practices. Given their greater sophistication and better education, we hypothesized that they would be more organized advocates of vendors' rights and thus more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Based on interviews, however, we found that new generation vendors are adaptive to location and business strategy, and prefer a low profile in dealing with officialdom. By contrast, traditional vendors remained more tied to particular spaces, are more likely to stand up for their rights to use public space and, because they expect more from government, are more prone to conflicts with municipal authorities. Our findings relate to ongoing discussion on the rights and needs of street vendors to access urban public space and the responsibilities of authorities to meet and provide for these informal sector livelihoods that make up a significant share of the national economy in Thailand, as elsewhere in the global South.     

Local Bordering Practices,Refugees, and Civil Society: The Case of Berlin

Using the case of Berlin, this article examines civil society actors in relation to local bordering practices following the large number of refugee arrivals in 2015. Combining critical border, migration, and urban studies and adopting a Foucauldian lens, the article aims to illustrate to what extent civil society actors have challenged and transformed local bordering practices vis‐à‐vis refugees within a specific urban space. The analysis illustrates that civil society actors have created new spaces of inclusion for refugees and brought new political and normative challenges to the established notions of belonging. On the other hand, they have also reproduced bordering practices either by their integration into formal state structures or by reinforcing hierarchical categorizations and unequal power relations embedded in the notion of humanitarianism. Finally, the article argues that these de/re‐bordering practices of civil society actors should be understood in line with the constraints that established bordering processes and the existing political and structural dynamics placed on them.     

“21世纪海上丝绸之路”沿线东盟国家与中国地缘关系判识研究

基于GDELT事件数据,采用语气指数、事件频率、事件记忆性、语气均衡度、核密度估计等方法,定量分析 2013―2019 年东盟关于中国事件的态度,探讨冲突事件空间演化特征,追踪事件并构建事件关系网络。结论：东盟关于中国的报道以合作事件为主;东盟冲突事件语气均衡度相对离散,半月周期内合作、冲突事件对同类事件发生有正向影响,季度内冲突事件会得到改善;东盟风险格局由大事件主导、局部事件补充形成,演化趋向简洁化;合作事件以领导人会谈为主,司法交流、基建合作、国际援助等多类型合作并存,冲突事件以南海争端为主,边境安全、境外犯罪、恐怖袭击等亦有重要影响;菲律宾、缅甸是关键国家节点,东盟对中国主要作用途径有：菲、老、印、柬领导人会谈,菲、越、印领土主权问题,缅甸边境风险等。中国应重视长期布局与东盟的合作关系,加强政府间合作框架设计与战略对接,强化次区域合作,推动南海合作新机制发展,针对性防范各国突出风险。