Spectres of Affinity
The Social Life of Comparison at a Southeast Asian Border
Seiten
2026
University of Toronto Press (Verlag)
978-1-4875-6582-4 (ISBN)
University of Toronto Press (Verlag)
978-1-4875-6582-4 (ISBN)
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Spectres of Affinity explores a Southeast Asian borderland where so-called “illegal immigrants” are widely assumed to look, talk, and otherwise act like locals.
Undocumented immigrants are generally assumed to exhibit clear signs of their so-called outsider status. In the absence of such signs, however, how is the “illegal immigrant” made legible or policed? How might migrants negotiate their statuses as objects of state surveillance by exploiting their similarities or affinities with those who seek them out? Spectres of Affinity explores these issues in the east Malaysian state of Sabah, a scene of some of the largest clandestine cross-border flows in the world, and a place where migrants are widely assumed to look, talk, and otherwise behave like locals.
In Sabah, the ability of outsiders to pass as insiders has long animated public anxieties about the boundaries of citizenship, ethnicity, race, religion, labour, and language. Against this backdrop of social indeterminacy and political uncertainty, migrants and Malaysians are now jointly evaluating and adjudicating the ways they are sama, tapi berbeza – “the same, but different” – to sometimes devastating effect. In exploring the social life of comparison in the shadow of a notoriously porous Southeast Asian border, Spectres of Affinity calls for renewed attention to comparison not merely as a rarefied social scientific method or mode of inquiry, but as part of people’s everyday equipment for living in increasingly uncertain and unsettling times.
Undocumented immigrants are generally assumed to exhibit clear signs of their so-called outsider status. In the absence of such signs, however, how is the “illegal immigrant” made legible or policed? How might migrants negotiate their statuses as objects of state surveillance by exploiting their similarities or affinities with those who seek them out? Spectres of Affinity explores these issues in the east Malaysian state of Sabah, a scene of some of the largest clandestine cross-border flows in the world, and a place where migrants are widely assumed to look, talk, and otherwise behave like locals.
In Sabah, the ability of outsiders to pass as insiders has long animated public anxieties about the boundaries of citizenship, ethnicity, race, religion, labour, and language. Against this backdrop of social indeterminacy and political uncertainty, migrants and Malaysians are now jointly evaluating and adjudicating the ways they are sama, tapi berbeza – “the same, but different” – to sometimes devastating effect. In exploring the social life of comparison in the shadow of a notoriously porous Southeast Asian border, Spectres of Affinity calls for renewed attention to comparison not merely as a rarefied social scientific method or mode of inquiry, but as part of people’s everyday equipment for living in increasingly uncertain and unsettling times.
Andrew M. Carruthers is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface: On “Will-O’-the Wisps” and the Problem of BA(HA)SA
Introduction: Spectres of Affinity
Chapter 1: Wanderers beyond the Water’s Edge
Chapter 2: Migrant Mobilities and the Value of “Moreness”
Chapter 3: Discipline and (Dis)orderliness in the Domain of the Plantation
Chapter 4: Passing, Policing, and the Problem of Excess
Conclusion: Cosmographies of Comparison in an Archipelagic World
Appendix: Linguistic Resources in Malay and Bugis
Literature Cited
Endnotes
Index
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 23.6.2026 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign, and Social Life |
| Zusatzinfo | 35 illustrations |
| Verlagsort | Toronto |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 1 g |
| Themenwelt | Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-4875-6582-8 / 1487565828 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-4875-6582-4 / 9781487565824 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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