Childhood in the migrant city: Statelessness, exclusion and modes of belonging amongst children of irregular migrants and refugees in East Malaysia

本研究探讨了马来西亚东部沙巴州首府哥打京那巴鲁（KK）无证移民和难民子女的日常生活。在KK，每四个人中就有一个被认为是移民，其中大多数是菲律宾或印度尼西亚裔。此外，尽管沙巴的经济依赖移徙工人，但公众和政治上对他们的存在持相当大的反对意见，工人在定期镇压期间遭到拘留和驱逐出境。这项研究的重点是那些由于父母的无证身份或他们自己的未登记出生而面临无国籍风险的儿童。通过以儿童为重点的民族志实地工作，它将调查这些儿童中无国籍的普遍情况，以及这种状况对儿童的城市生活、工作和教育经历的影响。马来西亚是研究这些问题的一个特别有趣的地方，因为它是世界上无证工人比例最高的国家之一，然而这些工人及其家人的日常生活在文献中几乎没有被研究过。此外，沙巴长期以来一直与区域贸易和移民路线联系在一起，移民和当地人之间有许多异族通婚。这项研究将比较印度尼西亚和菲律宾移民的孩子，以探索他们与父母原籍地的实际和情感联系的程度。它将调查儿童在该地区的活动方式，并将探讨儿童在听到家庭成员被拘留或驱逐出境的故事时的反应。本研究关注儿童，不仅是为了填补以成人为中心的移民文献的空白，也是为了阐明当代移民研究的核心问题，包括围绕移民权利的问题。它将探讨哥打京那巴鲁不同家庭和社区经历非法身份的具体方式，调查日常活动中潜在的非法经历。它将研究儿童对他们被排除在学校或医疗保健之外的反思，并将探索儿童在日常生活中如何体验马来西亚边境。它还将分析移民儿童的方式，尽管在反移民情绪的背景下长大，并被排除在马来西亚社会之外，在目前寻求和从事有意义的活动。这项研究将包括12个月的实地考察，以及14个月的分析和撰写。实地工作将涉及参与性观察和非结构化访谈的传统人类学技术，以及以儿童为中心的创新方法。这将包括让孩子们作为共同研究人员，要求他们画画、拍照或写关于他们生活中重要的地方和活动。一小群孩子还将获得摄像机，记录他们生活的视频日记或纪录片。在分析和撰写阶段，将组织三个学术活动，以促进对以儿童为中心的方法，东南亚无证工人和拒绝儿童公民身份的比较分析。这项研究将产生关于无国籍儿童日常城市生活的详细定性数据，并为理解儿童经历无国籍状态的方式提供一个新的理论框架。这样一个框架将与从事儿童和移徙工作的人类学家以及政治学家、法律学者和发展专家的研究有关。这项研究还将帮助关注移民和儿童权利的马来西亚和国际非政府组织更有针对性地向移民工人提供帮助。它将有助于在倡导团体和公众之间重新组织关于儿童和公民身份的辩论。

This research explores the everyday lives of the children of undocumented migrants and refugees in the city of Kota Kinabalu (KK), the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sabah. In KK, one in every four people is thought to be a migrant, mostly of Filipino or Indonesian origin. Moreover, despite Sabah's economic reliance on migrant workers, there is considerable public and political opposition to their presence, and workers are subject to detention and deportation during periodic crackdowns. This research focuses on children who, because of their parents' undocumented status or their own unregistered births, are at risk of statelessness. Through child-focused ethnographic fieldwork, it will investigate the prevalence of statelessness amongst such children, and the implications of this status for children's experiences of city life, work and education.Malaysia is a particularly interesting place to study these issues, because it has one of the highest rates of undocumented workers in the world, and yet the everyday lives of these workers and their families are virtually unexamined in the literature. Moreover, Sabah has long been connected to regional trade and migration routes, and there are many mixed marriages between migrants and locals. The research will compare the children of Indonesian and Filipino migrants, in order to explore the extent of their practical and emotional connections with their parents' place of origin. It will investigate the ways in which children move around the region, and will explore how children respond to hearing stories of the detention or deportation of family members. The research focuses on children not only to fill a gap in the adult-focused migration literature, but also to shed light on central questions in contemporary migration studies including issues surrounding immigrant rights. It will explore the specific ways in which illegal status is experienced amongst different families and communities in Kota Kinabalu, investigating the potentially illicit experience of everyday activities. It will examine children's reflections on their exclusions from schooling or healthcare, and will explore how children experience the Malaysian border in their daily lives. It will also analyse the ways in which migrant children, despite growing up in a context of anti-migrant sentiment and being excluded from Malaysian society, seek and engage in meaningful activities in the present.The research will consist of 12 months fieldwork in KK, and 14 months of analysis and writing-up. The fieldwork will involve both traditional anthropological techniques of participant observation and unstructured interviews, as well as innovative, child-focused methods. These will include involving children as co-researchers by asking them to draw, take photographs or write about significant places and activities in their lives. A small group of children will also be given camcorders to record video diaries or documentaries of their lives. During the analysis and writing-up stage, three academic events will be organised to stimulate comparative analysis of child-focused methodologies, undocumented workers in Southeast Asia and the denial of citizenship to children.The research will generate detailed qualitative data on the everyday, urban lives of undocumented children, and a new theoretical framework for understanding the ways in which children experience statelessness. Such a framework will be of relevance to anthropologists working on children and migration, as well as to research by political scientists, legal scholars and development experts. This research will also help Malaysian and International NGOs focused on migrant and child rights to more specifically target the help they provide to migrant workers. It will help to reframe debates about children and citizenship, both amongst advocacy groups and the general public.