The border zones of Indonesian Borneo are undergoing a profound and relentless transformation. This 2000-kilometre border with East Malaysia may not attract the same attention as the borders of the Indonesia- Malaysia-Singapore ‘growth triangle’, or those of the Upper Mekong ‘economic quadrangle’, yet it experiences similar processes of redefining the geography and political economy of borders. Over the past 20 years, the demilitarisation of Indonesia's territorial border with East Malaysia and the politics of decentralisation have intersected with processes of rural livelihood diversification and socio-political aspirations of ‘development’ in ways that defy a single logic or rationality. In the border regencies of West Kalimantan, contested socioeconomic trajectories jostle to re-make the built, social, and natural environments. There is a palpable dynamism to these changes and the tensions they generate, as I observed in Sambas, one of the five border regencies in West Kalimantan (Image 1.1). Here, new roads cut through a landscape increasingly marked by swathes of oil palm. The town of Sambas encroaches on former rice fields, which now accommodate new housing estates and government buildings. Recent commercial and riverside developments give Sambas a metropolitan feel, while an historic wooden bridge has been replaced by one made of functional concrete and steel. On my first visit in 2007, a young tertiary-educated Sambas Malay woman described Sambas as a ‘cowboy town’—wild and undeveloped. By 2015, this same woman's sister-in-law was pointing to a new hotel as evidence that Sambas was now sudah maju (‘developed’). Socioeconomic differences have also become more apparent as people pursue diverse opportunities through education, cultural resurgence, cross-border work, and professional employment.

This backdrop of change lies at the very core of this study. The hopeful narratives of socioeconomic improvement recounted by the Sambas Malay women featured in this book are simultaneously framed by perceptions of economic disadvantage and opportunity, political marginality and empowerment, and cultural peripherality and renaissance. Together, the possibility of betterment and awareness of marginalisation intertwine to shape Sambas Malay women's desire for, and the direction of, work-related mobility. While sentiments of political and socioeconomic marginalisation are not uncommon in Indonesia (Haug, Rössler, and Grumblies, 2016), local circumstances give rise to distinct perceptions of marginalisation and specific mechanisms of redress.