Labour Circulation and Socio-economic Transformation
The case of East Java
Prior to the economic crisis in Asia and the political changes in Indonesia, the province of East Java was experiencing rapid socio-economic development, a process that saw an increase in labour mobility within the province and nation, and internationally. In this book, Ernst Spaan presents a finely detailed analysis of labour migration in East Java focusing on its diversity, determinants, and consequences at the levels of individuals, households, and communities.
* By REED L. WADLEY
Spaan characterizes this study as 'comparative and multi-faceted,' and that is certainly what it is. He looks at the different layers of determinants, processes, and consequences of labour mobility in East Java - the 'micro' (individual, household, and community perspectives) and the 'macro' (regional, national, and international socio-economic development). Five broad questions form the aim of the study: What are the changes in rates, types, and patterns of labour mobility? How are these changes related to socio-economic change at various levels of society? What are the individual and household decisions that go into labour mobility? What are the systemic features of and constraints to labour migration, and how do these change? What are the consequences of labour migration for households in terms of their economic strategies and conditions?
The rich detail provided in the book goes a long way towards answering many of these questions. The first five chapters provide the background to the study and cover the various theoretical approaches to labour migration, the research methods and techniques used, population and socio-economic change in East Java, and Indonesian governmental policy toward labour mobility. The 'meat' of the study is found in Chapters Six to Ten, which describe the three research communities, patterns of population mobility, household resources and strategies involving labour circulation, and the economic consequences of out-migration for households and communities.
Through this research, Spaan shows quite convincingly that rural labour mobility in East Java is highly diverse, something that advances considerably our knowledge on the subject. For instance, labour migration varies with local ecology and economic development, and local non-farm employment opportunities tend to reduce rural out-migration. Labour circulation is also becoming increasingly 'feminized', a fact that has been shown in other work. Households adopt a diversity of strategies to meet their needs, with labour migration being one among several options. Yet decisions to migrate are themselves structured by a number of factors including socio-economic status and household structure. Additionally, social networks among rural migrants, entrepreneurs, and brokers form important strategic links and have become commodities in themselves.
The range of information presented and the level of its detail are distinct assets of this book, and I particularly liked the mix of statistical analysis and qualitative information. The latter are presented in short case studies that range from domestic servants and bakso soup hawkers within East Java to illegal construction workers in Malaysia and maids in Saudi Arabia. Given my own work on circular labour migration in West Kalimantan (which is almost exclusively international, to Malaysia and Brunei), I was particularly interested in the East Javanese international migration with its reliance on brokers in finding legal and illegal employment overseas. In addition, Spaan does a good job of integrating the micro- and macro-perspectives, thus giving us a fuller picture of labour circulation.
I was pleased to see, in the conclusion, a short section on 'shortcomings' (although I would be more inclined to call it 'suggestions for future research'). These include an inability to quantify all aspects of labour circulation given time and resources, a question of how representative the three study sites are for East Java (but this is always a problem), and the lack of information on socio-psychological effects of migration. As Spaan notes, future research must also take into account the effects of the Asian economic crisis, the fall of the New Order regime, and the continuing political and economic uncertainties within Indonesia. This book will surely provide an excellent 'base-line' and source of comparison for future studies in East Java and elsewhere in Indonesia. *
- Spaan, Ernst, Labour Circulation and Socioeconomic Transformation: The Case of East Java, Indonesia, NIDI Report No. 56, The Hague: Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, (1999). ISBN 90-70990-76-8, maps and tables.
Dr
Reed Wadley is an anthropologist currently completing an ethnohistory
of the Iban of West Kalimantan. He was a research fellow at the IIAS,
Leiden, the Netherlands from August 1998 to August 2001, whereafter he
will be assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri,
Columbia, USA.
E-mail: rlwadley@excite.com