Événements | Faculté de foresterie, de géographie et de géomatique

Soutenance de thèse de madame Naoko Sunai

01 octobre 2024 19 h

Lieu : En mode virtuel

Vous êtes cordialement invités à la soutenance de thèse de Naoko Sunai au doctorat en sciences géographiques. La séance aura lieu en mode distanciel, le mardi 1er octobre à 19h sur ZOOM.

Membres du jury

Président : Patrick Lajeunesse, Faculté de foresterie, de géographie et de géomatique, Université Laval
Directeur de recherche : Danièle Bélanger, Faculté de foresterie, de géographie et de géomatique, Université Laval
Examinateur : Ito Peng, Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto
Examinateur externe : Hongzen Wang, Center for Austronesian Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University
Examinateur : Hiroki Igarashi, Faculté de foresterie, de géographie et de géomatique, Université Laval

Title : Labour migration from Vietnam to Japan and Taiwan: Gender, Exploitation and Resistance

Summary
With the expansion of international migration, the criminalization of undocumented migration has increased, with states tightening their crackdown on undocumented migrants in Japan and Taiwan since the 2000s. Nevertheless, some Vietnamese migrant workers in Japan and Taiwan choose “midcourse undocumented migration,” meaning they enter the country with legal residency status, flee from their employers, and become undocumented migrants. For migrants, residency status provides access to services and rights in the host society, so why does this paradoxical situation occur? In this context, the present doctoral thesis seeks to answer the following empirical questions: Why and how do female and male Vietnamese migrant workers become undocumented migrants in Taiwan and Japan, even though undocumented migration puts them at risk? How do various institutions and actors in the infrastructures of exploitation, which consist of factors such as administrative and political regulations, commercial agreements, and social policies of both sending and receiving societies, contribute to producing undocumented migration by Vietnamese migrants in Japan and Taiwan? This thesis introduces the new concept of infrastructures of exploitation. These infrastructures place people of rural origin in the Global South into the reproduction and production spheres of the Global North or exploitative labor markets, embedding racism, sexism, and exploitation in migration through the infrastructure itself. In answering these questions, this thesis has the following objectives: (1) Theorize the concept of the infrastructure of exploitation. (2) Compare and analyze the undocumented migration of female and male migrant workers in Japan and Taiwan using a gender perspective. (3)Analyze the process of midcourse undocumented migration as a “subaltern resistance” of migrants within and against the infrastructure of exploitation. (4) Analyze the networks and circuits of resistance to the infrastructure of exploitation. This doctoral thesis draws on data from semi-structured interviews conducted with more than 150 Vietnamese women and men migrant workers. It discusses how gender is related to midcourse undocumented migration among migrant workers by including the cases of male migrant workers. Regarding theories and analytical frameworks, this thesis presents a new analytical framework to reveal the structure of migration as an “infrastructure of exploitation.” Furthermore, after identifying Vietnamese migrant women as subaltern women who cross borders from rural areas in the Global South to the exploitative labor markets in the Global North, the dissertation clarifies the relationship between midcourse undocumented migration of subaltern women and the infrastructures of exploitation. In doing so, the thesis discusses the relationship between critical analytical concepts (generation, gender, cultural capital, destination, occupation), midcourse undocumented migration, and the infrastructures of exploitation. It positions women born during the Vietnam War who engage in domestic work in Taiwan as War Generation Mothers and technical intern trainees in Japan and factory workers in Taiwan born after Doi Moi as Doi Moi Kids. Drawing on fieldwork, this thesis reveals that the Asian region has seen the formation and hold of an infrastructure of exploitation that places migrant workers from rural areas of the Global South into the exploitative labor markets of the Global North since the 2000s. The infrastructure of exploitation mobilizes and conditions the destination and occupation of Vietnamese migrants based on their gender, age, and educational attainment while depriving them of fundamental rights and disempowering them (Chapter 4). Additionally, the infrastructure of exploitation generates debt among workers, with the amount of debt varying according to their destination and occupation (Chapter 5). With these findings, this thesis reveals the background of midcourse undocumented migration by showing how and why War Generation Mothers and Doi Moi Kids in Taiwan and Japan flee from their employers. It discusses what midcourse undocumented migration means for migrants as a phenomenon where subalterns mobilize their agency to survive and resist within the infrastructures of exploitation (Chapters 6 and 7). The present doctoral thesis also focuses on migrants who do not or cannot choose midcourse undocumented migration, a topic that has not been sufficiently discussed in previous studies. It explores the possibility that access to support organizations can serve as an alternative rights restoration circuit for migrants, instead of midcourse undocumented migration (Chapter 8).

Informations supplémentaires :

Participer à la réunion Zoom : https://ulaval.zoom.us/j/62059113526?pwd=Lp9f5jIaocy4le3PKEruOzfHe901S5.1