Shifting Geographies of Migration in Southeast Asia: Continuity and Change in Proletarian and Gendered Migrations

Asian labour migrations to Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries correlated with the growth of world trade, European territorial expansion in Asia, and the development of global commercial and trading networks. Imperial managerial structures also enmeshed colonial territories within Empire and facilitated an empire-wide sourcing of labour. Faster and more efficient shipping and colonial trade policies further enhanced trans-regional connections and generated migration. The labour migrations comprised mostly Chinese and Indian male migrants who were recruited for mining and plantation enterprises and public works construction in the colonies. Few Asian women migrated of their own accord, although sugar planters in Malaya hired a number of Indian women in the late nineteenth century. Indian women's participation in the Malayan economy increased after the development of the rubber industry, largely due to the gendering of tasks on rubber plantations, the need for a settled proletariat and the activities of Indian nationalists. The Second World War and decolonization processes in Southeast Asia and the emergence of independent nation states afterward foreshadowed the ending of open immigration policies.