In Singapore's borderlands, Lindquist sets himself the ambitious task of presenting an ethnography that will offer a new way to theorise globalisation. The challenge he has undertaken is to portray the phenomenon in terms of relationships that bind people together over large distances. His critique of prevailing theories is that they merely comprehend globalisation as movement due to push and pull factors locked in a series of impersonal economic transactions. What he claims is amiss here is the neglect of the ‘emotional economy’ — that is, ‘migrants’ emotional debt to home' (p. 8) that keeps them on the move and from returning home if they fail. Lindquist also calls for alternative modes of analysing mobility within an open system unhampered by spatial and temporal constraints.
Choosing to locate his study ethnographically among the circulating migrant populations in Batam, Lindquist presents their experiences as they pursue their dreams of globalisation. A quick description of the history of Batam at the start of the book is aimed at scene-setting: how an obscure fishing village lying at the periphery of the Indonesian nation-state has suddenly been encompassed in an economic Growth Triangle plan between Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. This has led to great hopes that Batam will be dramatically transformed into a booming frontier town. In reality, though, a gloomy sense of temporality surrounds the island's development. Batam as a place and life in it are both characterised by ‘the belum’, ‘not yet’ (p. 7), where ubiquitous unfinished and deferred building projects and never-ending personal dreams of globalisation are part and parcel of what constitutes a perpetual state of liminality for one and all.
Lindquist focuses on three Indonesian concepts — merantau (circular migration), malu (shame) and liar (wild/unregulated/undomesticated) — that are entangled in this state of liminality. Together they form the basis of the emotional economy that marks the landscape of mobility throughout the region. These concepts, which do not overlap but underscore the problem of belonging, are the analytical tools or anchors for Lindquist's provocative call for a new theorisation of globalisation. Many important questions are raised which illustrate the need to consider the cultural and emotional logic of globalisation.
No less interesting are the depictions of the lives of migrant factory workers, prostitutes, pimps, taxi drivers, job seekers, squatters, drug users and tourists who all converge in Batam. Their stories are absorbing and deeply moving. Analyses of these stories in relation to overarching sociopolitical, economic and religious systems provide deep insights into the anxieties of mobility. Written in a style that is easy to read, this book is accessible to a wide audience.
While Lindquist uses Batam as an example to accentuate issues of mobility, identity and emotions to challenge current debates on globalisation, he presents a curious and unfortunate absence of engagement with the writings of other researchers working on Riau with similar interests. Studies, for example, by Carole Faucher, Michele Ford, Lenore Lyons and Tim Bunnell have not been addressed adequately to show how Singapore's borderlands is positioned in this wider body of scholarship to provide a new way to theorise globalisation. The author highlights the shift in perspective in his analysis of Batam's development: that is, from the vantage point of understanding the Indonesian imaginary and not as an effect of changes in Singapore. Why then is this book titled Singapore's borderlands? The title unfortunately traps Lindquist in at least two ways. First, it diminishes the impact of the book's aim to shift from the conventional Singapore-based approach to a more nuanced Indonesian migrant perspective. Second, it overwhelms Lindquist's reasons for not conducting field studies in Singapore in all of the nine years that he has been travelling to and from this region to collect field data for his book.
It is a pity too that only a cursory overview is given to Batam's history as part of the Malay world. Batam has not always been a sleepy fishing village; it was in an area that formed one of the most important sites for the movement and expansion of the Malay world. This historical background would certainly have yielded much to bolster the discussion of the island as an important and relevant site for studying globalisation.
The few infelicities above, however, do not mar the fact that Lindquist has produced an inspiring ethnography that challenges all those who study globalisation to rethink some of their most basic assumptions. Beyond a doubt, this book reopens debates on globalisation, movement and belonging.
