This chapter draws on “assemblage thinking” to understand how the gendered state relates in seemingly contradictory ways to its citizens going overseas as temporary labor migrants. Using Sri Lanka as an illustrative case, the chapter presents the argument that there are three distinct but interrelated gendered state assemblages: regulatory gendered state assemblages, protective gendered state assemblages, and brokerage gendered state assemblages. Thus, migration flows are sustained while acknowledging and attempting to address gendered harm. The particular configuration of power relations within the constitutive elements of the assemblage helps to produce the gendered state, which, in turn, produces and reproduces gender.
From Migrant to Worker: Global Unions and Temporary Labor Migration in Asia