PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the factors which motivate women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative analysis employed in this paper is based upon empirical findings from field work conducted in the state of Penang on the north‐western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. In total, 39 hawkers (petty traders) were interviewed using an interview guide which contained open‐ended questions regarding work‐life history, labor market choices and conditions of work. The paper presents two selected case stories, as well as the general findings across the whole sample.FindingsIn contrast to the view that women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship is motivated only by “involuntary exclusion from the labor market” or “poverty”, this paper has found that women's micro‐entrepreneurship can be motivated by a wide range of factors including: to earn an income; interest in doing business; increased flexibility and autonomy; possibility to combine with family obligations; and re‐negotiating spatial practices. Conclusive with previous studies it also argues that necessity and choice may be “co‐present” in the motives to enter into entrepreneurship.Research limitations/implicationsThe limited sample of this study has implications for the generalizability of results. Further studies into the women's micro‐entrepreneurial activities in Malaysia are therefore encouraged.Social implicationsWomen's micro‐entrepreneurship is increasingly being promoted as a way to create growth and development (particularly through micro‐credit schemes). Increasing knowledge around motivational factors, performance and conditions of work for women informal micro‐entrepreneurs is therefore important when trying to establish appropriate policies.Originality/valueThere are very few studies in the Malaysian context which focus upon women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in general and hawking in particular. This study therefore presents new knowledge around women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

It is well established in the literature that migration has become increasingly securitized. In this article, we examine the racialized and gendered grids of intelligibility that make securitizing moves possible in the migration context. Specifically, we argue that the securitization of migration during the so-called EU refugee crisis comes into being through intertwined and mutually dependent representations of racialized, masculinized threat and racialized, feminized vulnerability, which are woven into the scaffolding of colonial modernity. We construct our argument through an analysis of relevant newspaper articles published in British newspapers between September 2015 and March 2016. Accordingly, our discussion advances understandings of the dominant narratives through which the 'refugee crisis' has been understood. In addition, in highlighting the naturalized inequalities that underpin securitizing speech acts, the article also contributes to literature that seeks to add an improved understanding of power to securitization theory.

While scholarship around urban fear has brought forward important insights around the relationship between fear, mobility and social exclusion, questions relating to legal exclusion have largely been left outside the scope of inquiry. In cities around the world there are, however, a growing number of people who are not only de facto excluded from rights to/within the city (based on their gender, class, age etc.) -but de jure excluded based on their non-citizen or 'illegal' status in the host country. Drawing upon field work conducted in the Malaysian city George Town this study examines how both regular and irregular Burmese migrants perceive safety and danger in the city and how this, in turn, influences how they navigate urban space. The results of the study reveal how the migrants in George Town navigate the city as a 'borderscape' -producing a(nother) geography of fear which does not primarily reflect a fear of crime but rather a fear of state institutional practices, such as police controls, road blocks and raids. This shows, the paper argues, the need to pay attention towards both social and legal exclusions when examining how people in cities around the world are able to access and take possession of urban space.

Critical border studies have shown that it is no longer very useful to think of borders as fixed demarcations at the edge of the nation state. Instead, such scholarship has illustrated how contemporary borders are enacted both beyond and within state territory-as well as how borders derive their meaning from the various bordering practices that determine who is (not) welcome on the 'inside'. In this study the role of corruption in such bordering practices take center stage. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in the Malaysian city of George Town, the study investigates migrants' experiences of corruption in the context of (internal) border enforcement as it is performed through everyday immigration policing. The results show how corruption forms an integral feature of immigration policing in Malaysia, and how migrants tactically use bribery as a means to avoid arrests and consequent deportation. Beyond illustrating how corrupt arrangements influence migrants' ability to transgress the border (in this case through avoiding expulsion), the study shows how corruption distorts the enforcement logic in ways that influence why, when and where the border is actually controlled. As such, the paper argues, corruption should not merely be read as part of the border performance, but also as performative of the border itself.

No abstract