Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 brill.

nl/ajss

Bonded Labour in Southeast Asia:

Introduction*

Annuska Derks
Bern University

Abstract
he introduction of this special issue takes up the questions: Why ‘bonded labour’? What do
we mean by it? And, why focus on ‘bonded labour’ now? Answers to these questions require an
efort of deinition, as well as contextualisation, of a phenomenon that, though long expected
to disappear with societal and economic developments, has persisted or re-emerged in the wake
of current processes of transnational migration and globalisation. he introduction briely dis-
cusses longstanding theoretical debates on bondage in past and present Asia, as well as new
insights derived from a Swiss research project focusing on ‘Contemporary Forms of Bonded
Labour in Southeast Asia.’

Keywords
bonded labour, debt bondage, indentured labour, slavery, free labour, labour migration,
Southeast Asia

he title of this special issue raises its own questions of explanation: Why
‘bonded labour’? What do we mean by it? And, why focus on ‘bonded labour’
now? Answers to these questions require an efort of deinition, as well as
contextualisation, of a phenomenon that, though long expected to disappear
with societal and economic developments, has persisted or re-emerged in the
wake of current processes of transnational migration and globalisation.
Within the introduction to this special issue, I intend to briely discuss long-
standing theoretical debates on bondage in past and present Asia, as well as

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at ICAS 6, Deajeon, in August 2008. I am
grateful to Anthony Reid, Nicolas De Genova and the contributors of this issue for their
extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/156853110X530750

840 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

new insights derived from a research project focusing on ‘Contemporary

Forms of Bonded Labour in Southeast Asia.’1

Coming to Terms
Why focus on ‘bonded labour’ when it is actually more fashionable to speak
of ‘modern’ or ‘new’ forms of ‘slavery,’ ‘traicking’ and ‘forced labour’?
Although referring to diferent practices and to diferent discourses originat-
ing in diferent times and in diferent eforts to combat these practices, the
terms are often used interchangeably. To illustrate, the ILO (2005; 2009)2
considers ‘slavery’ and ‘bonded labour’ as a form of ‘forced labour’ and ‘traf-
icking’ as a practice leading to ‘forced labour’; the U.S. State Department
(2005; 2009)3 calls ‘the enslavement of people for purposes of labour exploi-
tation’ or ‘forced labour,’ as well as ‘bonded labour,’ a form of ‘traicking’;
and Bales (1999) sees ‘chattel slavery,’ ‘debt bondage’ and ‘contract slavery’ in
modern labour relations as forms of ‘new slavery.’ To avoid confusion and to
bring some nuance in the analysis of these phenomena, it is, thus, necessary
to be clear about what one is talking about when using a concept like
‘bonded’ labour.
Probably the easiest way to start doing so is by looking at what is generally
considered to be its opposite: ‘unbound’ or ‘free’ labour. For Marx
(1974[1857−1858]:406), ‘free labourers’ are ‘free’ in two respects, namely
free from means of production (i.e., they are property-less) and free from old
patron-client and bondage obligations. As a result, ‘free labourers’ are forced
to sell their labour power (Arbeitskraft) as if it were a commodity in order to
survive. Although ‘free’ labourers do not belong to one who buys their labour
power and are thus ‘able to enter and withdraw from the labour market at
will’ (Brass, 1999:10), they are dependent on the whole class of buyers
(employers) for their subsistence. Marx (1975[1885]) puts this in contrast to
slave labour: Slaves have been sold, together with their labour power, to one

1
his 3-year research project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and
involved researchers from the Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Berne, and the
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.
2
he ILO relies on the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 (No. 29) for its deinition of
‘forced labour’ as ‘all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any
penalty and for which the said person has not ofered himself voluntarily.’ his is the interna-
tionally, legally-accepted deinition of ‘forced labour’ and covers such forms as slavery, serfdom
and debt bondage (Lerche, 2007:427).
3
he U.S. State Department annual reports document the scope of ‘traicking’ around the
globe and categorise all countries according to their eforts to combat the practice.
 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 841

particular buyer who can resell them to another. Slaves are in and of them-
selves a commodity (Ware), but their labour power is not their commodity.
his does not mean that all non-slave labour should be considered ‘free’
(Engerman, 1999:2). Indeed, as Brass (1999:11) states, to view all forms of
labour relationships that do not entail ownership of persons as ‘free’ would be
to ignore additional forms of ‘unfreedom.’4 hese forms of ‘unfreedom’ occur
in situations where labour power is prevented from entering or withdrawing
from the labour-market under any circumstances, in person, or only with the
consent or at the convenience of someone else than its owner (ibid.). hese
are, according to Brass, exactly the kinds of ‘unfreedom’ which arise in the
case of bonded labour.
Such recognition of diferent kinds of ‘unfreedom’ also urges us to rethink
the conception of ‘slavery’ as the antithesis of ‘freedom’ as is so typical for
dominant Western thought (Patterson, 1991). As anthropologists have
pointed out long ago, to be ‘free’ does in certain African societies not mean
to be ‘unbound,’ but to the contrary to belong to a certain group, which
means having alliances and privileges that a slave, a ‘stranger par excellence,’
lacks (Meillassoux, 1986). his is, albeit in diferent ways, also an argument
that could be made for Southeast Asia. As Reid (1983:21) points out in the
introduction to his volume on Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast
Asia, the alternative to slavery was some other form of obligation, more or
less burdensome, rather than any clearly deined rights as ‘freeman.’ In other
words, what was for Marx a distinguishing feature of a ‘free labourer,’ i.e., to
be without bonds and obligations (to be ‘loose and unattached,’ as Marx
[1974:408] formulated), has in other settings been deined as characteristic
for slavery.5
hese contradictory understandings of slavery and freedom reveal some of
the conceptual ambiguities relating to theorisation about ‘(un)free labour.’ It
shows that instead of categorical oppositions, the distinctions between ‘free’
and ‘unfree’ should rather be considered as gradual and contextual. his con-
ception of graduations, or degrees, in ‘(un)freedom’ is also helpful in our
analysis of bondage and dependency in contemporary Southeast Asia. Our
focus here is particularly on ‘bonded labour,’ which we understand to include

4
he property aspect is central in most deinitions of slavery (e.g., Nieboer, 1971[1910];
Watson, 1980; League of Nations, 1926). Anthropologists have criticised this emphasis on
property and ownership in most deinitions of slavery, because the nature of property changes
with diferent cultural and socioeconomic contexts (Kopytof, 1982; Condominas 1998). Sev-
eral authors have, therefore, argued that slavery is not so much about being property, but about
being excluded from society and made into an exploitable outsider — to a degree that Patter-
son (1982) has called ‘social death’ (see also Meillassoux, 1986; Testart, 2001).
5
I thank De Genova for pointing this out.
842 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

both debt bondage and indentured labour, because it appears to be least con-
fusing and most appropriate to illustrate linkages between past and present
forms of bondage in Southeast Asia.
Before we look at these linkages, we irst have to ask what it is that binds
bonded labourers? he crucial categories in bonded labour arrangements are
those related to debts and contracts. Historically, debt was, according to Reid
(1983:12) ‘the most important source of bondage’ in Southeast Asia. Debt
bondage originates in the practice of pawning persons, as opposed to prop-
erty, for the discharge of a debt (Bush, 2000:39). his means that debtors
themselves who could not repay their debt or their dependants were trans-
ferred into bondage to the creditor as a guarantee for a debt or a security for
a loan (Testart, 2001:76). Within Southeast Asia, pawning one’s dependants
or oneself, or else entering a very unequal partnership with the creditor who
became the patron or master, was a common means of obtaining capital
(Reid, 1983:11). While debt bondage theoretically presents a temporary form
of bondage, which terminated upon discharge of the debt, it could in prac-
tice last a lifetime and even be heritable when the debt could not be repaid
(under the conditions set by the creditor/employer).
Here debt bondage difers from the related practice of indentured labour
as practised around the turn of the 20th century. While similarly consisting
of ‘a pledge of service for the repayment of a debt’ (Bush, 2000:39), inden-
tured labourers, also called coolies, were bonded to work in a distant land for
a ixed period. hey became indebted due to their inability to pay the fare
and were contractually obliged to repay their debt by providing a speciied
period of labour. he pledge to repay was formulated in a (written) contract,
or indenture, which the labourers supposedly signed voluntarily, but after
which they had no choice of master or of work and were subject to strict
public laws that tied them to their master who was legally entitled to exploit
their labour, or to sell them on, until the contract expired (Engerman,
1986:268−269; Bush, 2000:28).
Although originating from diferent systems, the red line between debt
bondage and indentured labour is, to borrow Maurer’s phrase, extremely thin.
While the former is often associated with a ‘traditional’ credit system and the
latter with a labour system that developed during colonial times, examples
show that there was in reality considerable overlap between the two. In his arti-
cle on Javanese indentured labourers in New Caledonia, Maurer (2010) shows
how indentured workers would, while working of their initial debt that cov-
ered their recruitment and travel expenses, be obliged to contract new debts to
be able to buy subsistence necessities. Being doubly debt-bonded to their
employer, many had no choice but to sign on for another term. Conversely,
 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 843

debt-bonded arrangements were also used as a means to directly recruit labour.

Znoj (2010) demonstrates in his article how traders in rattan who had diicul-
ties inding workers willing to leave for extended periods in the jungle used
debt-bondage arrangements to create a workforce for the hard and dangerous
work of collecting rattan in Kerinci-Seblat National Park, Sumatra.
In this context, it may be useful to refer to the distinction Bush
(2000:40−42) made between ‘traditional debt bondage’ which served to dis-
charge a debt and which typically grew out of patron-client relationships in
which economic debt and moral obligation were blended in a multi-stranded
relationship of lasting statutory and personal dependency (Derks and Znoj,
2005), and ‘modern debt bondage’ which facilitated the recruitment of ‘a suf-
icient amount of suitable labour’ for the emerging capitalist enterprises —
plantations, mines or manufacturing workshops — that came up in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. While strongly resembling indentured labour,
‘modern debt bondage’ difered in that it was managed informally by private
brokers and agents, whereas labour recruited by indenture was directly
organised by colonial oicials and regulated by formal procedures (Bush,
2000:41). Both resulted in the creation of a workforce that once mobilised,
was to be immobilised through legal, social, inancial or other forms of coer-
cion (Balachandran, n.d.; Breman and Daniel, 1992).
he same can also be said of the contemporary context. he distinction
between bondage in state-regulated vs. informal labour lows calls to mind
current debates about issues of control and coercion in relation to ‘legal’ vs.
‘illegal’ migration and the related development of a ‘migration industry.’ he
increasing numbers of people moving across borders in search for work else-
where has given rise to new regulations to control, as well as new possibilities
to earn from these migratory movements. From brokers, labour recruiters,
transport agents, employers, house owners, shopkeepers, creditors and banks
to police, migration oicials and states more generally, a range of actors have
been able to proit from the aspirations, needs, labour and earnings of
migrants. hese diferent actors play an important role in facilitating the
migration and employment of aspirant migrant workers, but may also cause
migrants to highly indebt themselves to inance their migration, to be trans-
ported and treated as ‘commodities,’ and/or to face severe restrictions in their
autonomy, as well as conditions of subordination and abuse — much like the
coolies in colonial times.
It is exactly through such confrontation between present and historical
patterns of bonded labour that we will be able to throw new light on phe-
nomena that are often discursively cut from the past in studies focusing on
‘modern’ forms of slavery and ‘traicking.’
844 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

Bondage Today
his brings us back to the question: Why ‘bonded labour’ now? he major
attention for ‘traicking’ for prostitution and ‘slavery-like’ practices in trans-
national contexts suggests that despite the fact that slavery, debt bondage and
the indentured labour system have all been abolished, various kinds of
‘unfree’ labour arrangements continue to be a common phenomenon in Asia.
he ILO (2005:13) estimates that three-quarters of the global number of
‘forced labourers’ (12.3 million) can be found in Asia and the Paciic.6 While
such numbers may call attention to the urgency of the issue, they tell us
nothing about what this bondage consists of, why it takes place now, or how
it relates to practices in the past. In our research project on ‘bonded labour,’
we seek to explore these questions and make such connections, while reveal-
ing gaps and errors in common perceptions of ‘unfree’ labour in contempo-
rary Southeast Asia. he contributions in this volume all take a processual
approach to bonded labour and look at how bondage arrangements develop
over time and space. his has allowed us to challenge some popular narratives
in which bondage is associated with particular sectors, population move-
ments and situations.
Within the dominant narrative about bondage today, ‘modern forms of
slavery’ and ‘traicking’ have been intimately linked to prostitution. While,
as several authors have pointed out, this common association between bond-
age and prostitution shows some clear similarities with the late 19th century
debate about the mobility and trade of women’s labour and bodies (Doezema,
1999; Derks, 2000; Kempadoo, 2005:x), it is questionably to what extent it
relects actual patterns — it may, in fact, hide actual patterns (see also Ander-
son and Rutvica, 2008). he ILO (2005:13−14) estimates that traicking for
‘commercial sexual exploitation’ constitutes less than half of all traicking
cases worldwide and less than ten percent of total ‘forced labour’ in the Asia
and Paciic. In other words, bondage does not necessarily exist where one
would, on the basis of the dominant narrative, expect it the most. his also
the argument of Nguyen and Gironde (2010) in their paper on Vietnamese
sex workers in Cambodia. hey show how important it is to analyse bondage
in prostitution in relation to mobility patterns more generally, as well as in
relation to the ways it builds on, but also may transform dependency rela-
tions in the home situation.

6
It has to be added here that the major part of the cases relate to debt-bonded labourers in
South Asia.
 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 845

his brings to light how contemporary forms of ‘bonded’ or ‘unfree’ labour

are inherently related to mobility, involving geographical (within, as well as
across, borders), as well as social, dimensions (in the sense of being removed
from their own social context). As Killias (2010) observes in her paper, it is
often thought that among those moving across borders, it is the ‘illegal’
migrants who are ‘at particular risk of coercive recruitment and employment
practices’ (ILO 2005:18), whereas legal migrants can be assured of protection
by the state. Contrary to this common narrative, the case studies focusing on
international labour migration illustrate how the regulatory practices of the
state of origin and of destination may actually function to bind migrant work-
ers to their employer. It is for that reason that both Le (2010) and Killias
(2010) describe contemporary contract labour as ‘modern’ versions of inden-
tured labour. Le (2010) describes in detail the mechanism by which Vietnam-
ese contract labourers migrate to Malaysia, the role of debt and how the
involvement of triple contracts spins a web of obligations around Vietnamese
labour migrants who are indebted to their family, state, recruitment agents and
employer. Killias (2010) focuses on the migration of Indonesian domestic
workers to Malaysia and shows that legal labour migration is not a guarantee
for basic labour rights, more security and access to justice, but can, in fact,
involve ‘unfree’ labour relations, and that labour migrants who decide to (be)
come undocumented may actually do so as a way to defy a coercive system.
his does, of course, not mean that our understandings of control and
coercion in relation to the popular dichotomy ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ migration
simply need be reversed, but that we need to relect on the workings of the
system by means of which labour is mobilised and controlled if we want to
analyse how labour is bonded today. And this is where we challenge another
popular belief, namely that contemporary forms of labour bondage in South-
east Asia exist mainly in the form of scandalous exceptions to the rule, where
ruthless brokers link up with exploitative employers to proit from vulnerable
migrants (Belser and Andrees, 2009). Coercion, abuse and exploitation can,
however, not be dealt with in isolation from ‘the overall system that created
the conditions for their occurrence in the irst place’ (Lerche, 2007:431). By
analysing the mechanisms of entry, the conditions of work and the con-
straints to exit — what we call the diferent ‘moments’ in the bonded-labour
process —, Derks (2010) illustrates that the contradictory perceptions of
‘force’ and ‘freedom’ pertaining to Cambodian migrant workers in the hai
ishing industry are the result not of separate migrant groups — ‘bonded’ vs.
‘free,’ or for that matter, ‘illegal’ vs. ‘legal.’ Instead, they are inherently linked
to the interrelated processes of the mobilisation and immobilisation of
migrant workers. Although these processes of immobilisation — brought
846 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

about by the workings of the labour regime, patterns of (ir)regularisation,

payment modalities, as well as social conditions of life in a foreign country —
have little in common with old-style, intergenerational bondage relations, or
with classical forms of indentured labour, the case of Cambodian migrant
workers is illustrative for the ways in which labour relations involving ‘degrees
of unfreedom’ (ibid.:445) have developed in the global economy to create a
lexible, disposable workforce.
While the proposition that the often heralded increased mobility of people
seeking work abroad goes along with immobilisation processes at the place of
destination is, as such, nothing new, the insight forces us to go beyond
analysing individual migrant-broker and worker-employer relations and
include the role of family and other social networks, patronage ties, socio-
cultural understandings and expectations, and, particularly, the role of the
state. We have seen that debt and contracts remain important instruments in
mobilising workers and tying them to their brokers and/or employers at des-
tination, but these categories alone cannot explain how labourers are bonded
in diferent social and historical contexts. Debt does not bind Indonesian
domestic workers in the same way as it binds Vietnamese factory workers to
their Malaysian employers. he ways debts are contracted, to whom workers
are indebted, as well as how the repayment of the debts is conditioned by
contracts or forms of immobilisation is crucial to any understanding of these
debt arrangements. Furthermore, considering the contested-ness and instabil-
ity of debt in some debt bondage arrangements (Znoj, 2010) it has become
more opportune to compel labourers to stay in an employment relation
through withholding of wages until the end of the contract (Derks, 2010;
Brass, 1999:27).
Similarly, it is not that the signing of a labour contract, as such, necessarily
leads to bondage, but in the context of legal frameworks, such as immigra-
tion laws that are providing employers with instruments of control otherwise
not available, contracts can reduce workers’ autonomy to such an extent that
they are prevented to enter or withdraw from the labour market at will. his
is not only related, as is often argued, to the absence of the law (i.e., the lack
of the rule of law, corruption, etc.), but also to the actual workings of the law.
he case studies on cross-border labour migration therefore reinforce insights
of De Genova (2002) regarding the ways in which immigration laws serve as
instruments of labour subordination and how migrant ‘deportability’ func-
tions to control, discipline and cheapen migrant labour.
 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 847

In Search of (Dis)continuities
While the above discussion gives a clear idea about how bondage works
today, we have so far few answers to the question as to why it is — still or
again — used today. he question, as such, is, however, inherently linked
to the assumption that bonded forms of labour had or should have ceased
to exist.
his assumption has a long tradition. Both Marx (1957[1867]) and Weber
(1972[1921]) saw ‘free’ wage labour as conditional for the development of
capitalism.7 he idea was that capitalist development would make reliance on
slavery and bonded forms of labour unnecessary, as the process of proletarisa-
tion and a growing number of landless labourers would make ‘wage labour a
cheaper and more eicient system of exploitation’ (Reid, 1983:33). Even if
the issue of irrationality and ineiciency of ‘unfree’ labour may have been
questioned since the appearance Time on the Cross (Fogel and Engerman,
1989[1974]), the moral and humanitarian arguments leading to the formal
abolishment of slavery and other forms of bondage seem to have been uni-
versally accepted today. his has led to the conviction that with the formal
abolishment of these practices, the state would provide protection against any
form of force, coercion or bondage in labour relations by means of legislative
sanctions.
Research on bonded labour in South Asia has shown, however, that these
assumptions are not correct. In India, where the system of bonded labour
and its persistence has been much more extensively studied than in Southeast
Asia, it became evident that bonded labour did not disappear with legislation
banning the practice in 1976 and with the advancement of capitalism in the
Indian rural economy, but has, in fact, continued to exist and taken on new
forms — which Breman called ‘neo-bondage’ (Breman, 1970, 1996; Breman
et al., 2009; cf. Brass, 1999). his has led to a long-standing theoretical debate
on the relation between ‘unfree’ labour and capitalism, with disagreeing posi-
tions as to whether freely-entered contractual relations should really be con-
sidered ‘unfree,’ whether ‘unfree’ labour relations are the result of the
persistence of semi-feudal structures, or whether ‘unfree’ labour relations are,
in fact, perfectly compatible with capitalism (Lerche, 2007; cf. Rao, 1999;
Brass, 1999).

7
It has to be noted here that, for Marx, ‘free’ (wage) labour is basically another form of
labour subordination, consisting of ‘free, unprotected and rightless proletarians’ who have been
dispossessed of their means of subsistence and are compelled to sell their vital energies to earn
the money necessary for their survival (De Genova, 2010:56−57).
848 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

he latter proposition seems more and more accepted. An increasing

number of analysts, not only of the Indian situation, agree now that ‘capital-
ists are not merely able to create production regimes through structures of
“unfreedom,” but that under certain conditions this is actually the preferred
institutional arrangement’ (Steinberg, 2003:484). hese conditions may, as
Maurer (2010) suggests, be related to ‘the two major phases of extension of
the capitalist system’ in which the need for labour has led to distinct but
comparable systems of indentured labour over a hundred years. Some go as
far as to argue that ‘new slavery’ provides the world economy with a ‘vast
workforce’ which under conditions of globalisation spreads like a ‘new disease
for which no vaccine exists’ (Bales, 1999:22,32).
Such sweeping generalisations do not help us much in inding answers to
the question as to why this ‘disease’ afects certain sectors in certain countries
more than others. If globalisation is to blame for the existence of ‘slavery’ in
the contemporary context, why are ‘modern slaves’ actually observed in set-
tings where its inluence has been relatively muted (Quirk, 2006:580)? How
can we explain that, if we may believe ILO (2005), as well as other estimates
(Bales, 1999), that ‘unfree’ labour relations are more commonly observed in
some developing countries and emerging economies though far less in the
most developed capitalist countries (Lerche, 2007:436)?
hese questions remind us that the undiferentiated use of broad concepts
like capitalism and globalisation to explain the persistence or re-emergence of
‘unfree’ labour relations has limited analytical value. Not only are such con-
cepts of little use when exploring slavery, bondage and other forms of ‘unfree-
dom’ in pre-capitalist societies, they also apply to such wide stretches of time
and space that they tend to obfuscate the very diferences we seek to under-
stand. It is, therefore, necessary to be more speciic about the conditions,
mechanisms and discourses that cause, enable and legitimise bonded labour
arrangements.
he current global economic crisis may bring in here a new dimension of
analysis. Local and international organisations consistently warn that the eco-
nomic crisis will push more people into ‘forced labour’ or make them more
vulnerable to ‘traicking,’ but one may — following the logic of Nieboer
(1971)8 — just as well argue the contrary, since there will be enough poor

8
According to Nieboer (1971[1910]), who explored the conditions necessary for the success
of slavery as an industrial system, open access resources that make subsistence easy to acquire
further the growth of slavery. Under conditions of open access resources, everybody is able to
provide for himself. Free labourers will not ofer themselves, at least not for employment in the
common drudgery, the rudest and most despised work and therefore have to be compelled
(ibid.:421).
 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852 849

people who voluntarily ofer themselves as labourers, compulsory labour will

be superluous. Societies can, in other words, ‘move into diferent servile
directions’ (Patterson, 1977:17). Notwithstanding the general conception of
slavery and other forms of bondage as belonging to ‘an earlier, less developed
stage of human evolution’ (Quirk 2006:585), the articles in this special issue
illustrate that there is no unilinear development towards ‘free’ labour. While
some types of bondage did disappear or decline in importance, others have
continued to exist, re-emerged or taken on new forms along with changing
social relations, economic structures and political regimes.
But the questions raised above also remind us that as we explore the mac-
rodynamics of ‘unfree’ labour, we should not lose sight of how it interacts
with the microsystem (cf. Kopytof, 1982). his does not mean that we
should fall back on culturalist explanations, but that we have to look at the
‘longstanding historical roots’ (Quirk, 2006:566) of contemporary forms of
bonded-labour arrangements, as well as at the meanings of bondage and
dependency for the actors involved. As we have seen, the kinds of coercion,
commitments and compensations that are instrumental in creating depend-
ency relations between labourers and employers in the contemporary South-
east Asian context do not appear in a vacuum. hey get their meaning in a
speciic social system, which according to Reid (1983:7), has historically been
characterised by ‘vertical bonding.’ He argues that the labour system of
Southeast Asia was through much of its recorded history based on these ver-
tical bonds of obligation between labourer and patrons, debtor and creditor
and also the various forms of bondage have their origin in this broader basic
pattern.
his basic pattern can clearly be observed in the case of rattan traders in
Sumatra who used debt to take full control over the lives of their followers,
whereas rattan collectors accepted their debt bond, but (only) as long as the
traders ‘fed’ them and their families. It is, however, more questionable
whether this basic pattern still holds true today in a context where labour
relations are not only increasingly internationalised, but also monetised, con-
tractualised and de-personalised. Yet, by taking into account the understand-
ings and legitimisations of bonded labourers, their families, their employers
and their states, we are able to recognise how diferent actors may use and
manipulate existing inequalities to (re)create vertical bonds of obligation in
the wake of societal transformations, as well as the ways in which these may
be contested. And this brings to light the ambiguities that characterise many
bondage relations. While the ‘personal bond’ between Indonesian maids and
Malaysian madams physically tie workers to their employers by constraining
the freedom of movement of the former, it serves at the same time to still
850 A. Derks / Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 839–852

parental (and state) concerns regarding the safety and sexual morality of their
migrant daughters. And, while labour and migration regimes contribute to
severe constraints in the freedom of movement and a total control over the
labour power and earnings of Vietnamese and Cambodian migrants abroad,
they also create the conditions for employers to capitalise on their role as pro-
tector and as guardian of migrants’ take-home pay.
hese examples suggest that we should go beyond a view of bondage as a
purely economic relationship. Any analysis of bonded labour arrangements
needs to be embedded in a broader social, cultural, political, economic and
legal context and to take into account the ways in which bonded labour
arrangements are ambiguously characterised by exploitation and mutual obli-
gation. And it may be exactly due to these kinds of ambiguities that the exist-
ence of ever-renewing forms of bonded labour arrangements remains possible
into the 21st century.

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