Labour geographies of plantation landscapes: linking production and social re-production

Oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia are embedded in a regional scale of production in which transnational corporations operate plantations, mills and refineries in both Malaysia and Indonesia. This vast plantation landscape is created by workers who can be highly mobile and whose actions are linked to spaces of social reproduction that often lie outside the plantation zone. This article takes a look at the transnational space of social reproduction created by Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia. Discussing the experience of migrant workers from Lombok, the article argues that workers, through their everyday practices, produce a social landscape that is dependent on but also at odds with the dictates of production. While these transnational networks are themselves shaped by gendered and repressive power relations, a social reproduction perspective from the plantation-free zones could also offer new possibilities for organizing plantation labour on a regional scale.