Migrant Labor and State Power: Vietnamese Workers in Malaysia and Vietnam

Drawing on Foucault’s concepts of biopolitical subject formation and governmentality, this article seeks to understand transnational state power and how Vietnamese migrant workers negotiate within a transnational framework both while working in Malaysia and upon their return to Vietnam. By conducting multi-sited interviews in Vietnam and Malaysia between 2008 and 2015, we contribute to the transnational labor migration literature by focusing on Vietnamese factory and construction workers in Malaysia and their resistance to transnational state power. We argue that these two emerging economies, as part of the neoliberal world, use their systems, media, and technologies to produce and manage citizens (in Vietnam) and non-citizen subjects (migrants in Malaysia) who comply with labor export policy and foreign worker policy, respectively. These two states ensure both government and individual accumulation to sustain their power. Meanwhile, Vietnamese migrant subjects negotiate their roles, resist when necessary, and at times, even benefit from overseas labor migration

The Social Relations Approach, empowerment and women factory workers in Malaysia

This article discusses the empowerment of women factory workers in Malaysia through the lens of Kabeer’s Social Relations Approach. The approach offers an institutional analysis of how gender inequality is produced and calls for the overall terms of exchange and cooperation to be shifted in women’s favour. Its application shows that Malaysian women factory workers face significant challenges, due to the character of institutions, and women’s difficulties in adopting and internalising the notion of ‘empowerment’

Advocacy for women migrant workers in Malaysia through an Intersectionality lens

Analysing labour migration through the lens of intersectionality provides valuable insights into the complex identities of women migrant workers and the multiple discriminations they struggle with. Intersectionality advocates argue that only through adopting such an approach can women’s multiple discriminations be challenged. Drawing on a case study of seven NGOs and one focus group of women migrant workers in a non-western context, Malaysia, we explore how advocacy organisations understand, interpret and adopt an intersectional approach in advancing the rights of its women migrant workers. We show that there are challenges, specific to the local context, which reduces the likelihood of organisations doing so. The Malaysian experience likely has significance for similar advocacy in other Asian countries

Circulating SPINT1 is a biomarker of pregnancies with poor placental function and fetal growth restriction

Funder: RANZCOG Research Foundation (RANZCOG); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001104Funder: The Stillbirth FoundationFunder: Tommy's; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100009324Funder: National Institute Health Research Manchester Academic Health Science CentreFunder: RCUK | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000268Funder: Centre for Trophoblast ResearchAbstract: Placental insufficiency can cause fetal growth restriction and stillbirth. There are no reliable screening tests for placental insufficiency, especially near-term gestation when the risk of stillbirth rises. Here we show a strong association between low circulating plasma serine peptidase inhibitor Kunitz type-1 (SPINT1) concentrations at 36 weeks’ gestation and low birthweight, an indicator of placental insufficiency. We generate a 4-tier risk model based on SPINT1 concentrations, where the highest risk tier has approximately a 2-5 fold risk of birthing neonates with birthweights under the 3rd, 5th, 10th and 20th centiles, whereas the lowest risk tier has a 0-0.3 fold risk. Low SPINT1 is associated with antenatal ultrasound and neonatal anthropomorphic indicators of placental insufficiency. We validate the association between low circulating SPINT1 and placental insufficiency in two other cohorts. Low circulating SPINT1 is a marker of placental insufficiency and may identify pregnancies with an elevated risk of stillbirth