Infrastructures of Escort: Transnational Migration and Economies of Connection in Indonesia

Writing during Suharto's final years of rule, Saya Shiraishi offered pengantarmeaning both "introduction" and "escort"-as an elegant pun and entry point for understanding Indonesia's New Order. 1 As James Siegel has suggested, Indonesia is characterized by a politics of connection and patronage rather than a politics of communication and identification based on general rights. As such, proximity to power and recognition are critical dimensions of economic and political life. 2 More specifically, the network, or jaringan, is the primary form of access to power and resources-at least in an urban or translocal context-and the pengantar (the escort) is the point of access. From the perspective of her own temporary embeddedness in upper-middle-class Jakarta, Shiraishi elaborates on the intimate nature of the politics