Bribe, Bribery, and Extortion: the Grey Area of the Relationship between the State, Capital and Transnational Migrant Workers

Abstract

This article approaches the problem of bribery and extortion arisen from the state policy regarding the management of migrant workers in the Border Town A through anthropological lenses. Multi-stranded structural forces contributing to such corruptions have been analyzed. These include the neoliberal force that incorporate the border town into the global textile and garment industries where cheap labor is key to capital accumulation the bureaucratic force that regulates migrant labor through its dysfunctional documenting regime and ethnic discrimination that has turned migrant workers into victims of extortion. This article also argues against the institutional approach in corruption studies that tends to emphasize  legal aspect in solving corruption problems. State law to manage migrant workers believed to be efficient is in fact a key device that has created a corrupt exception.