Introduction: Financialisation and Development in Asia under Late Capitalism

Abstract

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused attention on underdeveloped countries in Asia as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as “emerging markets”, these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. For development agencies, this confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the “development gap”, primarily through mobilising techno-managerial modalities designed to reduce barriers to capital entry and other institutional inefficiencies seen as inimical to investment. Thus development agencies now encourage the construction of “enabling environments” to support “market driven development” through processes of “financialisation”. Development, in this sense, is no longer state-led or state-centred, but rather financially driven and privately procured.

As we highlight in this special issue, however, financialised modes of development are highly contested and problematic. Indeed, the diffusion into the underdeveloped world of essentially developed world financialisation agendas that seek to instil a broad-based market rationalism that downloads new costs and risks to populations is of significant concern. This Introduction sets in context and introduces a much needed set of articles that bring clarity to financialisation in developing Asia and its implications for development as a process of substantively improving material conditions.     

Immigration Responses to Global Change in Asia: a Review

There has been a parametric increase in the scale and complexity of global international migration in the last fifteen years. Asia has been prominent in this change with countries in the region being important sources and destinations of migrants. This paper summarises the main developments which are occurring in south‐north migration, student migration, forced migration, north‐north migration and international labour migration. In the transformation of international population movement in the region a most striking feature is the strong pattern of circularity in movement and the networks which are established between origin and destination. It is argued that several global changes have been instrumental in these changes. These include the three ‘Ds’: demography, development and democracy. It is shown that increasing gradients of difference between nations in the pattern of growth (or lack of it), in the workforce, in income and poverty levels and in patterns of governance, have been important drivers of the migration. Moreover they are likely to increase in their impact over the next two decades. In addition, the impact of global environmental change on migration is considered, as are the effects of proliferating social networks and the global migration industry.     

The Transition to History in Southeast Asia: An Introduction

Studies of the transition from prehistory to history in Southeast Asia have traditionally relied primarily on documentary sources, which tend to emphasize foreign influences, rather than on the archaeological record, which suggests a series of indigenous developments. The papers in this journal issue and the next discuss strategies for using both documentary and archaeological evidence to study the transition to history and the emergence of early states in the region. These papers investigate how political units were structured and integrated in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South China, and illustrate how historical and archaeological data can cross-check each other to inform on Southeast Asian sociopolitical and economic developments during the early historic period.     

Teaching Ways of Seeing Development in the Global South: An Introduction

Development Studies, the interdisciplinary octopus, and its geography arm, Geographies of Development, have always faced a challenge when it came to providing students with experiential learning opportunities. While the subject is mostly taught in universities of the Global North, its focus has traditionally been the Global South. This symposium discusses Australian experiences of moving beyond text-based learning and bringing the Global South closer to their students.     

Global Politics of Microfinancing Poverty in Asia: The Case of Bangladesh Unpacked

Abstract

This article offers a critical and systematic political analysis of microfinance schemes linking international, national and local development policy. It substantiates the argument that microfinance schemes are a neoliberal development strategy, primarily advanced to realise a dual purpose: (1) financial sector liberalisation and commercialisation, while extending microfinance as a means to “poverty reduction”, and (2) the dampening and undermining of resistance to neoliberal development policies, by relying on the disciplinary potential of these schemes. I illustrate this argument through an examination of the politics of microfinance and development in Bangladesh, which includes analyses of policies prescribed by the World Bank (and also the CGAP). The analysis also draws out the implications (legal and institutional) for many NGOs who have been required to change their status to Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Microfinance schemes are exemplary of (new) efforts to build markets in Asia in accordance with neoliberal visions of development, and in ways that advance and capitalise on the contradictions of neoliberal development. But they also challenge us to reflect more deeply on the limits of “market society”.     

Global Agendas,Local Norms: Mobilizing around Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in Asia

This article explores the articulation and framing of unpaid care work and the mobilization around it at two spatial scales, the global and national. For the latter it focuses on three of the largest and most diverse countries in Asia — India, China and Indonesia. While the concept of unpaid care work has received considerable attention in international development discourse, it is rarely found in feminist mobilization and advocacy across these countries. The article asks why this issue remains largely excluded from women's political agendas. It also explores how it is framed when it is included. While most organizations recognize women's double burden and the importance of domestic labour, they do not consider ‘unpaid care work’ as a legitimate political issue around which to mobilize. Rather, it is framed, if at all, as part of other political agendas, such as the rights of the elderly (in China), the rights to social protection, especially childcare and maternity entitlements (in India), or the right to equal opportunities within marriage (in Indonesia). The study analyses the differences in framing, the conceptualization of gender equality embedded therein, and the implications for policy.