In May 2015, Acehnese fishermen rescued over 1,800 displaced Rohingya who were stranded in the Andaman Sea. They did so in the face of a regional governmental stand-off that threatened to leave the Rohingya to drown. What compelled the fishermen and the villages from which they came to respond in this way? How might this example be instructive for an international refugee regime that failed in this case, as in others, to offer even the most basic form of protection to some of the world’s most egregiously displaced? In this article, we respond to these questions, drawing on fieldwork based in Aceh and Jakarta alongside the insights of Jacques Derrida on the subject of hospitality. We show how the Acehnese example speaks to a general paradox of hospitality that all potential hosts confront, including those states currently denying entrée to asylum seekers. We identify three specific ways in which the Acehnese example can be drawn on as a source of both critique and inspiration. These concern the limits of refugee law as a ‘solution’ to the current ‘refugee crisis’, the ways in which capacity to provide hospitality is measured and the value of contingency in generating pathways oriented towards more hospitable responses to displacement.

Southeast Asia has the weakest normative frameworks for refugee protection of any region in the world apart from the Middle East. Only two out of ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have signed the 1951 International Refugee Convention. Nevertheless, the 2012 ASEAN Human Rights Declaration explicitly mentions the right to seek and receive asylum ‘in accordance with the laws of such State and applicable international agreements’ (ASEAN 2012). One of the litmus tests for this right has been the regional treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Myanmar that faces forced displacement, discrimination, and large-scale state violence. Based on media content analysis and a scientific literature review, this paper sheds light on how ASEAN’s most prominent Muslim member countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, advocate on behalf of the forcibly displaced Rohingya. In particular, this paper focuses on competing forms of political interventions and shifting notions of Muslim solidarity. While Indonesia and Malaysia have been very vocal in bilateral, regional, and international forums to criticise the Myanmar government for their violation of basic human rights, both countries remain highly reluctant to offer sanctuary to Rohingya refugees, of which several thousand have attempted to reach Indonesia and Malaysia. This research finds that the notion of Muslim solidarity remains a symbolic rhetoric primarily directed at domestic audiences and the failure to render effective protection to refugees has rather increased over the last five years.

The multi-directional nature of labour migration flows has resulted in an increasing number of countries having become both senders and receivers of regular and irregular migrants. However, some countries continue to see themselves primarily as senders and so ignore their role as a receiving country, which can have negative implications for the rights of migrants in their territory. Using the example of Indonesia, which is State Party to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, this article demonstrates that irregular migrant workers in this country have the legal right to protection against labour exploitation even when they work despite the government’s prohibition on employment. The article discusses the ‘right to work’ and how international human rights law has translated it into the ‘right to protection from labour exploitation’ for irregular migrants in Indonesia. By way of two case studies about the Indonesian government’s handling of irregular migrants, it shows how it prioritises enforcement of the employment immigration law over labour and employment laws much like countries that have not ratified the ICRMW. It also draws attention to legal protection gaps that emerge for asylum seekers when they are recognised to be genuine refugees.

This article examines an Australian-funded counter-smuggling campaign delivered in Indonesia from 2009 to 2014 as an example of the global regulatory regime known as Migration Management. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Indonesia among the fishing communities targeted by the campaign, we problematize the campaign’s purported success. The appearance of success, we argue, is linked to four interrelated rationalities of governance—security, humanitarianism, managerialism, and colonialism—that shape the terms of reference through which the campaign was conceived, designed, and evaluated. These rationalities “make sense” of a campaign that can otherwise be read as indicative of circular and misdirected strategies of border security. In a second move, we show how the techniques deployed in the campaign give rise to challenges to technocratic control. We argue, by extension, that Migration Management is subject to subtle disruptions and subversions that emanate from the very rationalities through which it is sustained. Our argument exposes the politics at stake in a regulatory regime that is represented as neutral and of benefit to all. It also shows what stands in the way of template reproduction of the Management agenda.

Considérée comme le dernier tremplin vers l’Australie, l’Indonésie joue un rôle important pour bloquer les mouvements secondaires des demandeurs d’asile et des réfugiés en Asie du Sud-Est. Tandis que les études sur la migration se sont beaucoup focalisées sur la la détention des immigrants et les conditions de vie déplorables dans les les centres de détention des immigrants (CDI), cet article explore des alternatives à la détention (AD) à deux endroits d’Indonésie: la ville de Makassar et la province d’Aceh. À des fins plus générales de contribution critique sur les CDI, il étudie la liberté individuelle, la mobilité, les mécanismes de soins et les dispositions d’aides, la protection des droits, l’autodétermination, et les questions de sécurité personnelle. Il illustre enfin les limites persistantes et le manque de droits auxquels font toujours face, en Indonésie, les demandeurs d’asile et les réfugiés à l’extérieur des CDI. Du fait qu’on les empêche de s’intégrer aux sociétés hôtes locales et que leur mobilité sociale et économique est extrêmement limitée, on ne leur offre pas de solution durable sous la forme d’une intégration. En dépit d’une certaine mobilité physique dans le cadre des AD, les demandeurs d’asile et les réfugiés restent confinés à l’intérieur de l’Indonésie du fait qu’on les décourage également d’aller de l’avant.