Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in Hong Kong in 2015 and 2016, this talk explores the meaning of new forms of migratory surveillance and their impact on the lives of Southeast Asian migrant workers. Professor Constable asks how particular forms of surveillance—such as the minutia of the new electronic passport system introduced by the Indonesian Consulate in Hong Kong in 2015—are linked to the state’s commitment to modernize, rationalize, and create what James Scott calls “legibility” of its citizens, on the one hand. Yet they also reveal an array of fundamental social tensions, cultural misunderstandings, and the precarity, as well as the profound and strategic agency, of migrant workers, on the other hand.
Hosted by: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies

In conjunction with: Center for Global Studies, College of Law, Department of Anthropology, Department of Geography, Department of History, Department of Sociology, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, School of Labor and Employment Relations, School of Social Work, Spurlock Museum, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

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