Triangulating the borderless world: geographies of power in the Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore Growth Triangle

Abstract

This paper argues that the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle makes manifest the complex geographies of power that subvert efforts to read cross-border regionalization as a straightforward geographical corollary of 'globalization'. As such, the region needs to be examined not simply as a complementary transborder assemblage of land, labour and capital, but rather as a palimpsest in which the imagined geographies of cross-border development and the economic geographies of their uneven spatial fixing on the ground are mediated by complex cultural and political geographies. We seek to unpack these by triangulating how the geographies of capital (including its uneven development and its links to the geo-economics of intra-regional competition), land (including post-colonial relations across the region, the geopolitics of land reclamation and the enclaved landscapes of tourism) and labour (including the divergent itineraries of migrant workers) overlay and complicate one another in the region. By charting these complex triangulations of space and place, we seek to problematize narratives of the Growth Triangle as an exemplary embodiment of the 'borderless world'. key words Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle borders geoeconomics globalization uneven development

Sea Reclamation Status of Countries around the South China Sea from 1975 to 2010

“…Sea reclamation in the northeast coast of Singapore resulted in a narrowing of the Johor Channel between the two countries, impacting upon ships' entry to Johor's eastern port at Pasir Gudang. Additionally, it caused disputes of territorial sovereignty between Singapore and Malaysia [38].…”

The borders within: Mobility and enclosure in the Riau Islands1

“…Arguing that nation-states continue to play powerful roles in territorialising global order, they point to the significant role of 'bordering practices' in shaping the experiences of different groups of national subjects as they seek to move across geopolitical boundaries (Van Houtum and Van Naerssen 2002;Cunningham 2004). In studies of the Singapore-Indonesian component of the IMS-GT which centres on the Riau Islands of Batam and Bintan, this attention to the unevenness of transnational flows has focused primarily on the ease with which Singaporeans, along with Singaporean capital, flow freely into Indonesian territory, and the difficulties that Riau Islanders face when attempting to move in the opposite direction (Peachey et al 1998;Lindquist 2002: 18;Sparke et al 2004). These accounts take as the object of their analysis the material and symbolic practices of (b)ordering and control exercised by Singaporean and Indonesian immigration and customs officials, other government bodies, and naval patrols.…”

“…These accounts take as the object of their analysis the material and symbolic practices of (b)ordering and control exercised by Singaporean and Indonesian immigration and customs officials, other government bodies, and naval patrols. While these studies also begin to examine the multiple ways in which the IMS-GT supports and inhibits other forms of movement within and along the Singapore-Indonesia border, important distinctions between the realities of different local communities are often lost in a literature which 2 concentrates primarily on the island of Batam and generally either ignores local communities elsewhere in the Riau Islands or otherwise aggregates their experiences with those of Batam Islanders (cf Grundy-Warr et al 1999;Mack 2004;Sparke et al 2004). …”

“…By relocating Singapore's low-end manufacturing industries offshore, the government sought to expand its economic and security borders into the region. The underpinning philosophy of the IMS-GT was economic complementarity in which Singaporean capital would be combined with Indonesian and Malaysian labour and land to facilitate cross-border regional growth (Sparke et al 2004). As a direct result of the growth triangle initiative, industrial manufacturing zones and tourism projects were established on Batam and Bintan.…”

Globalizing Governmentality: Sites of Neoliberal Assemblage in the Americas

“…21 Furthermore, in addition to applying a governmentality analytics to the international or global "level" of analysis, a few studies have also examined how other supra-or trans-national spaces have been constructed as part of governmental projects. The main focus in this literature has been on the construction of geographic regions as part of neoliberal governmental projects (Donegan 2006;Larner & Walters 2002;Newstead 2009;Sparke 2002;Sparke, et al 2004;Walters & Haahr 2005).…”