KITA Discourse Series 9/2018: Spectres of Affinity: Ethnicity, Language, and Illegality in Contemporary Sabah, 2 August 2018
On 2 August 2018 (Thursday), KITA Discourse Series No. 9/2018 was held with the following particulars:
Title: Spectres of Affinity: Ethnicity, Language, and Illegality in Contemporary Sabah
Speaker: Dr. Andrew M. Carruthers, University of Pennsylvania
Venue: KITA Meeting Room
Abstract: A spectre is haunting the East Malaysian state of Sabah β the spectre of so-called βillegal immigrantsβ from Indonesia and the southern Philippines. An alliance of state forces and concerned citizens has coalesced to exorcise this spectre, launching integrated operations to βcleanse Sabah of illegal immigrantsβ (membersihkan Sabah daripada pendatang asing tanpa izin) (Borneo Today, 21 December 2016). However, and much like the spectre that haunted Marxβs and Engelsβs Europe, the one haunting Sabah is omnipresent, constantly felt, yet frustratingly elusive. The elusiveness of this spectre stems from a practical challenge: as Malay-speaking Muslim members of the greater βMalay race,β Bugis immigrants from Indonesia and Suluk immigrants from the Philippines are difficult to distinguish from their co-ethnic counterparts in contemporary Sabah.
Drawing upon ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork conducted between Indonesia and Sabah, I focus on the Bugis dimension of these ongoing developments, evaluating how qualitative similarities between Bugis Indonesians and Bugis Malaysians stymie the Malaysian stateβs efforts to police the former. I show how state agents and concerned citizens seek to police βillegal Indonesiansβ by attending to wrinkles of difference which distinguish these groupsβ habits of talk and comportment. So, too, I examine how β amidst intensifying state crackdowns on βillegal immigrantsβ β Bugis Indonesians and Bugis Malaysians are jointly reevaluating the qualities they are assumed to share in common, and are reckoning the various ways in which they are βthe same, but differentβ (sama tapi berbeza).
About the Speaker: Andrew M. Carruthers is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. A linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist specializing in Malay-speaking maritime Southeast Asia, he studies the relation between language, mobilities, and infrastructures as a source of insight into the ways people navigate shifting and potentially hazardous terrains in their everyday lives. His ethnographic fieldwork has centered on the Bugis β a mobile, seafaring people who have long irregularly migrated from Indonesia to nearby Malaysia βin search of moreness.β His current book manuscript evaluates the meaning and materiality of βmorenessβ for this people in motion, foregrounding βintensityβ as a mediating concept and object of analysis for ethnographic inquiry.