Abstract

Abstract:

The concepts of mobility and optics have become important tropes for our understanding of how human movement across borders and within countries is increasingly shaped by bordering techniques. Focusing on three ethnographic case studies, I argue that refugees in Malaysia have their mobility arrested through a range of optics acting upon them. Depending on socio-economic background, ethnicity and religion, they find varying self-protection methods to make life in the present bearable and the future imaginable and viable. Refugees face an array of bordering techniques in Malaysia, such as surveillance by the state, in some cases by their home country, by their own refugee community and self-surveillance.

pdf

Share