Since the 1970s, global inequality has dramatically increased. A geography of power separates the handful of rich societies from the large number of poor ones (Korzeniewicz and Moran 2009; Firebaugh 2003).Footnote 1 Although this division is not new and dates back to before the “age of empire” (Hobsbawm 1989), the current era of globalization, by increasing the speed and intensity of transactions, has arguably transformed economic, political, and cultural relationships. Scholarship on global inequality often takes an elite-centered view that focuses on the actors (nation-states, cities, organizations, or groups) that are able to shape the global political economy, and on the distribution of important cities nationally and internationally (Neal 2010; Smith and Timberlake 2001). Such scholarship, which emphasizes the concentration and distribution of goods and services, has been theorized through the lens of cities (Sassen 2001[1991]; Castells 1989; Friedmann 1986), and dependency and world-systems perspectives (Frank 1973; Prebisch 1959; Singer 1949; Chase-Dunn and Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 2004). By definition, these approaches ignore sites of significant international or intercultural exchange that occur outside these spaces.

In contrast, scholarship on frontiers, borders, and borderlands recognizes how inequalities are reproduced in places that cross international or intercultural boundaries (Alvarez 1995; Donnan and Wilson 1999). However, we know surprisingly little about how inequalities are maintained and reproduced in spaces that are based on cultural, social, and economic interactions beyond these particular locales and those that occur within foreign-controlled spaces. Examining unequal interactions—namely, those among foreign visitors, local visitors, and local workers in institutionalized, semi-autonomous, and foreign-controlled spaces that lie within national or city boundaries—contributes to research around the construction of social boundaries and its relationship to the reproduction of inequality.

Although Philippine scholars and activists tend to use the former US bases and current Freeport Zones in the Philippines as symbols of US imperialism and Philippine dependency (e.g., Kirk 1998; Go 2011), my aim here is to not generate a theory of US and Philippine economic or military relations nor is it to say whether these spaces are “good” or “bad” for development. Rather, I seek to identify how specific foreign-controlled sites within national boundaries perpetuate and maintain unequal spatial, economic, social, and cultural international relationships. Political scientists and economists analyze the economic and political impact of military bases and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) on host countries (e.g., Thompson 1975; Cooley 2008), and scholars writing from the perspective of feminist or ethnic studies emphasize their negative traits and consequences (e.g., Enloe 2000 [1990]). Historians and anthropologists analyze the expansion of frontier zones and cross-national ties within cities on national borders (e.g., Alvarez 1995). I combine these approaches with global city scholarship to analyze the new analytic spaces of “global borderlands.”

In this article, I first define global borderlands and detail their shared features. Then I situate global borderlands with the literatures on global cities, which are economic command and control centers, and geopolitical borderlands, which highlight micro-interactions across national boundaries, and note that global borderlands represent nationally bounded, foreign-controlled centers for cultural and social interactions that also have important economic influence for their host nations. In this way, they are localized command and control centers of varied forms of foreign exchange. Third, I outline my methodologies and describe the micro-setting of the case study, the Subic Bay Freeport Zone (SBFZ) in the Philippines.

Next I focus on the three features that global borderlands share and show (1) how the semi-autonomy of global borderlands produces different regulations depending on nationality through an analysis of the legal case trial on the rape of Nicole, (2) how their geographic and symbolic borders differentiates these spaces from their surrounding communities vis-à-vis socio-spatial organization, moral discourses, and cultural practices associated with the SBFZ, and (3) how the semi-autonomy of these locales and their geographic and symbolic borders reproduce unequal relations. To do so, I compare structural inequality within the SBFZ with locals’ and foreigners’ cultural understandings of these unequal exchanges to show how inequality is institutionalized in everyday cultural practices and discourses. I also show how locals’ perceptions of Americans and Koreans are filtered through the broader U.S.-Philippine and Korean-Philippine relations. Although separately, these three features are common, how they come together in global borderlands is unique because they lie within spaces that are foreign-controlled. I conclude by describing the significance of analyzing global borderlands as a new unit of analysis. By examining interactions within foreign-controlled spaces, I focus on how unequal relations between countries play out on the ground, and on the negotiations that occur in spaces where a state’s sovereignty is fluid not just for businesses–as could be argued for global cities–but within geographically-defined spaces.

Global borderlands: a definition

Global borderlands are semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange. By “international exchange” I mean the combination of social, cultural, and economic exchanges and interactions, since none of these can be divorced from the others, between different nationalities. Economic exchanges are rooted in shared cultural understandings and social relationships (e.g., Zelizer 2013; DiMaggio and Louch 1998). At the same time, cultural and social interactions often involve exchange and have important economic consequences. I also use the term “foreign-controlled” to refer to either foreign ownership or heavy foreign influence, where this influence is one of the defining characteristics of a space—for example, special economic zones are not foreign-owned but are created to cultivate foreign investment. Additionally, global borderlands are territorially defined locations where distinct international, state, and sub-national legal orders overlap, are negotiated, and directly influence one another. These sites include overseas military bases, SEZsFootnote 2 (for example, the island province of Hainan in China), all-inclusive tourist resorts, embassies, cruise ships, and international branch campuses.

For example, NYU Abu Dhabi is a global borderland because it is a U.S.-controlled and -owned university in the United Arab Emirates; however, NYU in New York City is not. The semi-autonomy of universities in general—which includes the maintenance of their own police forces—is not the same because the semi-autonomy of global borderlands is based on nationality. Additionally, all-inclusive American-owned resorts, such as the CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort in Cancun, Mexico, or timeshares, such as the RCI-owned Mayan Place Acapulco in Acapulco, Mexico are global borderlands, but a locally owned and operated hotel in Mexico is not. These places share a basic framework of semi-autonomy and foreign control, symbolic and geographic boundaries, and international exchange and unequal relations.

In much the same way as Sassen (2001[1991]) uses the term “global” to emphasize how globalization is structured and localized in the current era (p. xix), I use the term “global” in global borderlands to highlight how globalized interactions are structured and localized in particular places, whose histories and connections with foreign authorities shape the interactions that occur within them. In these spaces, legal authority and applicability is ambiguous, and law and punishment differ depending on the identity of the criminal and the context of the crime. This nationality-based semi-autonomy occurs on a continuum. For example, overseas military bases are ruled by separate laws—not those of the host nations—while within SEZs, national economic laws, such as tariff barriers, are relaxed.Footnote 3 For all-inclusive, foreign-owned resorts, semi-autonomy is much more informal.

In developing countries, these spaces represent a particular type of global borderland defined by the historical and contemporary power relations among countries and the asymmetric distribution of resources among foreign visitors, local visitors, and local workers. They are not “flat” spaces of international exchange; instead they are defined by macro- (state-to-state) relationships between countries as well as by the micro-interactions that occur between foreigners and locals, which are further defined by individuals’ class, nationality, race/ethnicity, and gender. By examining semi-autonomous non-city and non-national foreign-controlled spaces surrounded by geographic and symbolic borders, we can shed light on spatial and symbolic segregation within urban sociology (Paulsen 2004; Borer 2006) and how overlapping legal orders are managed on the ground and in the courts (Benton 2008; Merry 1988). Global borderlands, in particular, represent physical areas where governance and regulations increasingly depend on national identity.

Such sites are not insignificant. For example, military bases are often bundled with forms of military and economic aid, leave behind permanent structures that can later be used locally, and are an important source of employment for locals in host countries. The number of US overseas military bases alone grew from 173 in 32 countries in 1995 to 750 in 45 countries in 2010 (e.g., Cooley 2008; Evinger 1995; United States Department of Defense 2010).Footnote 4 Similarly, the construction of SEZs is one way that countries try to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), which has consequences for national development—though the benefits and consequences are debated—and the meanings associated with SEZs differ depending on local context (FIAS report 2008; Evans and Timberlake 1980; Dixon and Boswell 1996; Rondinelli 1987; Fernandez-Kelly 1989; Lee 1995). Export Processing Zones (EPZs), one of many types of SEZ, grew from 93 in 25 countries in 1997 to 3,500 in 130 countries in 2006 (Boyenge 2007).

Similarly, tourism has been called the “world’s biggest business” and affects GDP, employment rates, exports, imports, and national images (e.g., Goldstone 2001, p. 2, Rivera 2008; Wherry 2007). All-inclusive resorts and timeshares shape local markets and structure the interactions among different groups of people. Their very success depends on successful short-term relationships being built across nationalities. As of September 2014, the company RCI alone operated 271 resort/vacation exchanges in Africa and the Middle East, 593 in Asia, 234 in Australia and South Pacific, 114 in Canada, 281 in the Caribbean and Bermuda, 62 in Central America, 1037 in Europe, 476 in Mexico, and 375 in South America.Footnote 5

The impact of global borderlands can be immense. Each has its own infrastructure, workers, and consumers, and they can represent a microcosm of the relationship between the host and guest nations. Although formal agreements related to embassies, military bases, and international branch campuses have the most visible and direct connection between micro-interactions and broader, international arrangements, timeshares and all-inclusive resorts also share such a connection. For example, in 2013, news that six tourists were raped in Acapulco, Mexico—a center of foreign tourism—made global news precisely because it occurred in these spaces;Footnote 6 additionally, state travel warnings lead tourists to choose certain destinations over others. In contrast to global cities, which are concentrated financial hubs, a single borderland in a single country may not account for a significant share of overall economic, cultural, or social global exchange. However, the sheer number of these institutions is significant and they occur in all regions of the world.

Forms of international exchange

Social science research has a long history of investigating forms of international exchange. For example, global cities are financial command and control centers; they are city nodes created by, and dependent on, an international economic network (Sassen 2001[1991]; Friedmann 1986; Friedmann and Wolff 1982). Such cities are strategic research sites for examining the economic processes of globalization and their implications for internal city dynamics and inequality, as well as for stratification on a global scale. Some scholars debate which cities can be considered “global cities,” while others have worked to identify cities’ positions in the world city network and how these cities are shaped by historically specific, localized processes (Hall 1996; Baum 1997; Smith and Timberlake 2001; Rimmer 1998; Wang 2004).

Research on geopolitical borders also looks at sites of international exchange. Sometimes the words “frontiers” and “borderlands” are used interchangeably because they both represent the meeting between different types of groups and acknowledge the existence of “internal” (within a specified territory) and “external” (across two territories) spaces (Donnan and Wilson 2010; D’Argemir and Pujadas 1999). However, frontier scholarship tends to have a one-sided, imperial focus on powers expanding into “borderless” lands (such as colonial expansion into the American Southwest) and is “outward-oriented.” In contrast, borderland researchers tend to analyze how national ideologies and understandings of “belonging” are shaped by changing political and transportation boundaries; how individuals and states are culturally, socially, and financially linked; how borderlands are sites of informal and formal consumption and cross-national organizational cooperation; how borderland or transnational identities and cosmopolitanism are created; and how borderlands are sites of contestation, negotiation, and meaning-making (Rutherford 2011; Tirres 2008–2010; Rippl et al. 2010; Widdis 2010; Pisani 2013; Adelman and Aron 1999).

Other scholars take a less optimistic view and suggest that both border patrols and residents on either side of the border place people into wanted and unwanted categories based on nationality, race/ethnicity, and class (Helleiner 2012; Sundberg 2008; Heyman 2009; Casas-Cortes et al. 2012). To these scholars, geopolitical borderlands are sites of institutionalized inequality; they also help form the symbolic identities of people living in two cultures (Anzaldua 1999; Alvarez 1995). However, precisely because these researchers focus on geopolitical borders or cities along these borders, they tend to ignore bounded sites within the state that share similar characteristics.

In analyzing global borderlands, I draw on literatures that emphasize how these borderlands act as sites where different groups of people interact, and how they maintain and reproduce inequalities through social and economic relations and cultural meanings. The global cities literature is also important because of the similarities global cities and global borderlands share in their social organization, where the dynamics of the rich necessarily depend on the work of the poor and because the empirical approach to analyzing and identifying global cities can be adapted to the analysis of global borderlands.

In defining “global borderlands” as semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange, I draw on Sassen’s (2000, 2003 [2000], 2006) work on “analytic borderlands,” which are a “formation of particular types of territoriality assembled out of ‘national’ and ‘global’ elements, each individual or aggregate instance evincing distinct spatio-temporal features” (Sassen 2006, p. 386). Analytic borderlandsare “assemblages” of both the national and local. I similarly emphasize the need to identify places, understand how they are rooted in historical localized processes, examine their “social thickness,” understand the interconnected (that is, not mutually exclusive) and partial nature of the global and the national, and the transformation of states’ and people’s territory, authority, and rights. However, my work deviates from Sassen’s in important ways.

First, I focus on foreign-controlled spaces within a sovereign nation-state. Global borderlands are specific places of semi-autonomy based on nationality. Second, my emphasis on place is rooted in specific geographic locations and their ties to local context. Although the analytic borderlands of digitized finance are “inserted in the physical space of national territory, they may have little to do with the surrounding context” (Sassen 2006, p. 394). Within global borderlands, the country, city, and immediate community in which they are located, the local history, and the historic and contemporary relationship between the host nation-state and foreign visitors’ countries of origin are all important. This grounding in history is necessary to understand the complex interactions that occur within these spaces and to understand the implications these interactions have for broader state-to-state relationships.

For example, it is important that the SBFZ’s buildings are former US naval structures, and that it is located in Olongapo City rather than in another Philippine city. The relationship between the US Navy and Olongapo is distinct from the relationship between Subic Bay Naval Base’s sister base, Clark Air Force Base, and its surrounding community, Angeles City. I argue that this is, in part, because of the greater integration of the US Navy with Olongapo. The Subic Bay Naval Base employed almost four times as did Clark, and the Navy was integrated into the Olongapo City political dynasty of the Gordons—the first mayor of Olongapo City was the son of an American Marine (Bowen 1986). Finally, whereas Sassen (2006) emphasizes analytic borderlands’ cross-national connections, the networked nature of global borderlands is an empirical question.

In analyzing the spaces of “global borderlands,” I follow previous work on how place, culture, and economy interact with global and national processes. However, I extend this literature by examining how these interactions and processes occur within foreign-controlled spaces that are geared toward international exchange.

Methodology and data

I use qualitative historical, interview, ethnographic, and case study methods to examine the forms of interactions that occur within the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in the Philippines. I focus on the SBFZ because, as the home of a former US military base and the current site of a Freeport Zone (FZ), it serves as a particularly “strategic research site” (Merton 1987) to examine the different ways that groups interact with varied forms of foreign control within a space of unequal power.

Historical sociology “is the attempt to understand the relationship of personal activity and experience on the one hand and social organization on the other as something that is continuously constructed in time” (Abrams 1982, p. 16). Indeed, social, political, legal, and economic acts have “historical residue” (Sewell 2005, p. 7) that influence contemporary conditions, and I use an intensive strategy of studying a single place to develop meaningful historical interpretation (Gocek 1995, p. 107). Following Braudel (1975), I emphasize (a) path-dependent social conditions and processes that generate historical spaces, and (b) the experiences of local actors (Gocek 1995). I also follow Bradshaw and Wallace’s (1991) assertion that single case studies are particularly useful for generating theory when they focus on a “special … set of circumstances or phenomena that warrant intensive study” (p. 155). The SBFZ’s long history as first, a Spanish arsenal, then as a US naval base, coupled with its current iteration as a Freeport Zone, allows me to conduct in-depth study of a single place that has experienced varied forms of colonial and military foreign power.

I use in-depth interviews, 9 months of ethnographic observation, documents and statistical information. I conducted 47 in-depth, semi-structured interviews of foreign SBFZ visitors, local SBFZ visitors, and local SBFZ workers, a survey of hotel managers inside the FZ, and informal interviews of SBFZ government workers and others whom I befriended in my daily routine, both within and outside the SBFZ. Interviews revolved around their perceptions of the FZ, reasons that they visited or worked inside the FZ, comparisons between inside and outside the FZ, and where they eat, shop, and work. Interviews with foreign visitors were conducted in English. I am also an intermediate speaker of Filipino (Tagalog), one of the national languages of the Philippines, and interviews with local workers and local visitors were conducted in Tagalog, unless they requested to be interviewed in English. Interviewees were recruited through a flyer, then through snowball sampling where interviewees recommended others. In-depth interviews are an important source of information that allows researchers to get at meanings and collective understandings. How might my social position influence the interviews I conducted? One concern is that Filipino respondents might censor what they say about the former military base and/or U.S. military personnel because I am a female, mixed-race American academic. In previous research in the Philippines, I spoke with students, activists, academics, and mothers of Amerasian children—whose fathers were U.S. military personnel and mothers were Filipinas. In these conversations, many shared their critical perspectives on the U.S. military, and I found that some were even more eager to share this with me because as a Filipino American, they assumed I shared this perspective. It has been my experience that people easily share both their negative and/or positive perceptions of the U.S. military.

I also used a targeted ethnographic approach, spending a total of 9 months in the local area over three three-month periods within a single year. In the spirit of classical ethnographic community studies (e.g., Gans 1962; Stack 1974), I moved into an apartment that was approximately 15 min by foot from the SBFZ, made daily trips into the SBFZ, and conducted participant observation inside both places (e.g., shopping at local food markets, using local jeepney transportation, and visiting local businesses). My ethnographic observations produced three types of data: (1) counts of the number of hotels, businesses, and foreign visitors inside and outside the borderlands, (2) observations of popular spaces of interactions and non-interactions among different groups, with a particular focus on differences in skin color, signals of class, and nationality, and (3) differences in the facilities and resources available in spaces geared toward foreigners versus those that were not. Documents were similarly analyzed using an inductive approach that emphasizes identifying emergent theoretical and substantive patterns.

I conducted keyword searches of “Subic Bay Naval Base,” “Subic Bay Freeport Zone,” “Subic Bay,” and “Olongapo City” using Westlaw and LexisNexis for US court cases as well as ChanRobles Virtual Law Library and Lawphil.net for Philippine legal cases. Philippine-US treaties, as well as Philippine government documents, such as executive orders and republic acts, were also gathered from ChanRobles and Lawphil.net. Additionally, I have paper copies of Philippine local cases from visits to the Olongapo City regional trial courts (RTCs); however, these are limited because the 1992 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which destroyed Clark Air Force Base and damaged the Subic Bay Naval Base, also destroyed many files. The cases I highlight give insight into the types of international disputes that occur within global borderlands. I obtained SBFZ statistics from SBFZ workers in various departments.

Analytic approach

In analyzing my data, I take a relational approach (Zelizer 2005, 2010; Bandelj 2002, 2009) that emphasizes the relationships among two or three parties. For example, in contrast to global or world-systems analyses that take into account how the unit of analysis (cities, countries) fits into a global or national understanding, I draw and expand on Bandelj (2002, 2009) to suggest a more specific approach aimed at understanding how relationships among actors shape localized interactions. I have argued elsewhere (Reyes 2013), that to understand global inequality, we need to analyze how relationships between countries differ based on their specific historical, institutional, and cultural connections. Thus, my analytic approach emphasizes historical connections, cultural understandings, and social structures, and how they relate to macro- and micro-power relations. For example, to examine the SBFZ in the Philippines, it is not enough to consider the Philippines’ former or contemporary global position, or its US colonial past. Rather, understanding specific relationships—for example, between the United States and the Philippines, Australia and the Philippines, or Japan and the Philippines—can illuminate how Filipino workers and locals understand and interact with different types of foreigners, depending on their nationality.

Furthermore, in contrast to Sassen (2006) who emphasizes that economic actors (defined as firms, organizations, and business people) encounter jurisdictional overlaps in analytic borderlands and that these spaces privilege the “multiple ‘rights’ to foreign actors” (Sassen 2006, p. 208), I follow legal pluralist scholars who emphasize the plural nature of legal orders (e.g., they are not limited to state laws, but also include normative orders). Thus, my focus is on how these multiple legal orders are differently and similarly understood and followed by foreign and local actors. Furthermore, I compare not just foreigners and local workers, but also local visitors.

The setting: Subic Bay Freeport zone, Philippines

The SBFZ is a strategic location to study global borderlands, because it allows me to examine how varied forms of foreign authority and investment influence local dynamics. It served as a port for Spanish colonial powers and was home to the largest overseas US naval base (Subic Bay Naval Base, or SBNB) until 1992; it now functions as a key tourism location and a FZ, which continues to host US military ships, and also contains a port district, shipping and manufacturing businesses, universities, an international school, a local zoo, a water park, duty-free shopping centers, an upscale mall, three gated communities, and land shared with the Aetas—an indigenous group. The very visibility of the different types of interactions and conflicts that take place in the SBFZ, rather than any differences in the nature of these interactions, makes it an ideal case study to examine inequality, legal ambiguity, and the porous or non-porous construction of boundaries within foreign-controlled spaces.

Semi-autonomy

I draw on the legal geography and legal pluralism literatures to examine the ambiguity and contextual nature of the semi-autonomous legal spaces of the SBNB and SBFZ. Legal geographers emphasize the interwoven connections between space and law, and how this relationship produces and reproduces meanings, identities, and differentiations among people (Blandy and Sibley 2010; Butler 2009; Delaney et al. 2001). Territories and bounded spaces are not found; rather, their borders are created, negotiated, and contested. They mediate the relationship between individuals and their governing authority, and are spatial representations of power and inequality (Blomley 2010).

The negotiations and rules over and within borders and places often occur within spaces where different cultures and people interact. For example, drawing on the legal geography literature, Gould (2003) demonstrates how British settlers engaged in different behaviors, obeying or flouting British laws, depending on whom they came in contact with. In this way, settlers justified acts of war with non-Europeans because “into the early years of the eighteenth century, the British … held that key European treaties did not apply (or did not apply with equal force) outside the so-called lines of amity, the imaginary quadrant that distinguished Europe from Asia, Africa, and the Americas” (p. 479). Similarly, certain acts, such as scalping were prohibited except when the enemy were “Indians, or Canad[ians] dressed like Indians” (Gould 2003, p. 483). Whom the Europeans interacted with and where these interactions took place determined what laws they would follow.

Scholars interested in similar cross-cultural interactions often also draw on research on legal pluralism, defined as social fields where two or more legal systems coexist (Berman 2009; Griffiths 1986; Tamanaha 2007; Michaels 2009; Merry 1988). The research on legal pluralism acknowledges how jurisdiction over people, rules, norms, and expectations is increasingly ambiguous and depends on the identity of individuals and the government. For examples, scholars have shown how colonial regimes shape indigenous laws, how courts blend indigenous and national laws, how unofficial religious laws are practiced to reassert identity, how international legal decisions influence domestic laws, and how national and transnational court decisions are intertwined (Snyder 1981; Yilmaz 2008; De Sousa Santos 2006; Scheppele 2010).

Legal geographers have emphasized the role that place and space play in negotiations and contestations over legal authority, while insights from legal pluralism highlight how people on the ground negotiate and behave in spaces where legal rules, authority, practices, and norms overlap. Global borderlands are geographically defined places that are semi-sovereign, foreign-controlled, and predicated on intersections among different groups of people and nations, they are places where the legal order is increasingly differentiated depending on nationality.

In the case of the SBFZ, important legal and cultural issues such as sovereignty, legal authority, and power differentials come to light through a number of cases and agreements. The 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that currently governs US armed forces in the Philippines has roots in the original 1947 Military Bases Agreement (MBA), and the United States and Republic of the Philippines (RP) negotiated very specific terms around who has authority over what, where, and when regarding both civil and criminal matters. The results of these negotiations reflect the uneven power dynamics that govern US and RP relations.

For example, an important VFA article delineates who has jurisdiction over what crimes and under which circumstances. The United States has jurisdiction with regard to: (1) “all criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction conferred on them by the military law of the United States over United States personnel in the Philippines,” including offenses solely against US property, security, or persons, or offenses done in performance of official duty. The RP has jurisdiction over US personnel over all other offenses, except those spelled out for US jurisdiction. Although these guidelines are similar to those of the earlier MBA, there are added sections to the VFA article on criminal jurisdiction that are presumably included to give full credence to Philippine sovereignty. For instance, if the US authorities determine that an act is done in the performance of official duty, they have to issue a certificate to Philippine authorities and if those authorities question the certificate’s validity, a review occurs that includes US and RP authorities “at the highest levels.” However, like the MBA, the VFA has other ambiguous and not-so-ambiguous clauses that structure the US-RP relationship so as to limit full use of Philippine sovereignty. For instance, either government may request the other to waive its primary right, but

recognizing the responsibility of the United States military authorities to maintain good order and discipline among their forces, Philippine authorities will, upon request by the United States, waive their primary right to exercise jurisdiction except in cases of particular importance to the Philippines

The treaty allows a channel of contestation, but the United States has only to take these requests into account and does not have to abide by them. Furthermore, once an American is convicted, his or her confinement or detention by the RP “shall be carried out in facilities agreed upon by appropriate Philippine and United States authorities.” The language that specifies court and custody jurisdiction is left ambiguous, with clear avenues for individual RP and US officials to come to an agreement that leaves the negotiations open to influences of power and pressure.

The case of Nicole

Issues regarding the 1-year time limit for trials—after which the United States does not have any obligations to produce an accused person—and of custody before, during, and after trial, which are included in the VFA, are contested, and this can be seen through the trial of the rape of Nicole, a pseudonym used by Philippine courts and media to protect her identity. On October 30, 2005 Nicole, a 22 year-old Filipina, and her sister traveled to the Subic Bay Freeport Zone on the invitation of two servicemen who were their friends. On October 31st, after a night of drinking and dancing and in a white van with three other servicemen in the back, Nicole and Lance Corporal Daniel J. Smith had sexual intercourse—rape as alleged by Nicole, consensual sex as countered by Smith. This case ended in April 2009 when Smith’s guilty verdict was overturned by the Philippine Court of Appeals.

Nicole’s trial was popularly known as the Subic Rape Case. The custody of Smith before, during, and after his trial—but not court jurisdiction—was at the forefront of controversy between the two nations. In his ruling on Smith’s petition to be transferred to US custody after his conviction—which was dismissed before he ruled, because Smith had already been transferred to US authorities—Judge Apolinario D. Bruselas, Jr. outlines why and how custody relates to sovereignty and dependence. He said that “at the core of the controversy is the basic question of who gets to keep a person who has been charged, tried and convicted of committing a crime, or stated differently, who should punish persons who commit crimes in a given territory.” He framed the issue of custody in terms of sovereignty and territorial supremacy, when he said that being able to punish people for the crimes committed within their boundaries is the sign of a sovereign state.Footnote 7 Additionally, he pointed out how jurisdiction and custody go hand in hand, the one being an essential part of the other, and that the VFA is about protecting the people of the host nation, not the foreign, visiting soldiers.

In his ruling, Judge Bruselas also noted that the United States did not immediately turn Smith over after his arrest and that officials did not respond to multiple requests (through embassy notes) from the Philippine government for custody of Smith, nor did they file an official request for his custody. This assertion is borne out through an analysis of the embassy notes in question (see CA-G.R. SP. NO. 97212 for copies of these notes). On November 16, 2005, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs sent an embassy note to the United States requesting that it turn over the servicemen involved in the alleged crime, noting that custody was to be decided among US and Philippine authorities and citing the VFA clauses related to the non-receipt of a formal request for US custody and the extraordinary, heinous nature of the case. The US embassy ignored the note until a follow-up exchange almost 2 months later. On January 16, 2006, the United States responded that “having taken full account of the position of the Government of the Philippines regarding custody, the U.S. Government shall continue to exercise custody until completion of all judicial proceedings, as provided for by Article V, paragraph 6 of the Visiting Forces Agreement.”

An immediate reply from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs clarifies why the Subic Rape Case qualifies as an extraordinary case. The note reads

The Philippine Government is seriously concerned over the patent disparity in the treatment of U.S. military personnel in other countries on the issue of custody in criminal cases. In the light of the decision of the United States Government to maintain its position on the issue of custody during trial, the Department of Foreign Affairs wishes to continue discussions on this matter. …

The United States retained custody of Smith until the end of the legal proceedings. However, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs’ reply outlines how the issues of sovereignty and dependence are negotiated in disputes over territory and nationality in criminal cases. They do so by noting the seeming pattern of unequal treatment of US personnel—by virtue of their nationality and without regard to the territorial authority in which the crimes were committed—in criminal cases across countries.

This issue of disparate treatment based on nationality goes hand in hand with discussions of sovereignty and can also be seen through the discourse of the protesters during and after the trial. For example, in a November 1, 2006 protest, activists shouted, “U.S. band of rapists, guilty, ikulong, parusahan [jail them, punish them],” while Nicole, who helped lead the protest, asked, “Why can’t our government do anything to stop the Americans from coming here? [We need] to avoid another rape [of Filipinas].” She also expressed dismay at the sight of US ships in Subic again “as if nothing happened, as if it is business as usual.”Footnote 8 Likewise, in a November 21, 2006 rally, protester Joms Salvador, referring to the VFA and the US custody of Smith, told a newspaper, “[the Philippine] government has long been subservient to the US.”Footnote 9

Similar discourses arose after Smith’s guilty verdict—both in protests and in court documents. Although Smith’s conviction was seen as a victory of Philippine independence, the controversy over post-conviction custody and detention refueled the discourse of US imperialism and Philippine dependency. For example, Evalyn Ursua, Nicole’s lawyer, said that she would “file criminal cases against Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romula, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez and all those responsible for Smith’s transfer [because] they are all rapists. They raped our Constitution. They should all be held criminally liable.” Furthermore, she called US efforts over the transfer “arm-twisting” of the Philippine government and said that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could be impeached for allowing this “violation of our sovereignty” and “clear foreign intervention.”Footnote 10

Government officials also used the trial to condemn the United States. For example, Bayan Muna partylist Representative Satur Ocampo said:

The appellate court’s reversal of the lower court’s conviction of Lance Corporal Daniel Smith for raping [Nicole] is at bottom a major blow to our national sovereignty and dignity, and to Philippine jurisprudence.… [the Court] adopted the defense side, as it gave more credence to the supposed recantation of the victim prepared by the lawyers of the accused.… In practical effect, the Court of Appeals decision abets the abuses of ‘visiting’ US military forces that have a historical record since the long years of the US military bases presence in the country.

The Court’s acquittal of Smith also raises questions about possible political pressure on the justices from the US government and the executive branch. Akbayan party list Representative Risa Hontiveros said that Malacañang’s [the President’s residence] role in facilitating Smith’s transfer to US custody “lacked gender sensitivity and nationalism and [was] an insult to our nation.”Footnote 11

Nicole recanted her testimony before the Court of Appeals decision was filed, though the judge specifically stated that the court did not take the recantation into account. However, although the indirect effects of her recantation are unknown, it would not be far-fetched to think that her recantation, (in which she said that she “was so drunk when the incident happened” and “she raised doubts that Smith raped her, admitting that she was attracted to the US Marine officer”Footnote 12) was subject to US influence, since shortly after she withdrew her testimony, she permanently left the Philippines to reside in the United States. Her retraction could then be used by the United States and others to counter or silence the issues raised in the case.

From the beginning of the trial until after Smith’s acquittal in 2009 by the Philippine Court of Appeals—which declared that there was insufficient evidence of rape—judges, along with newspaper accounts, protests, and activist writings, imbued the various court decisions with symbolism, meanings, and understandings of sovereignty, respect, and dependence/independence among nations. Perhaps one of the most widely covered trials related to US and Philippine relations in the Philippines, this case, despite formal agreements on criminal jurisdiction, shows the fluidity of semi-sovereignty, the varied meanings it holds, and the importance of and negotiations over space, place, and nationality.

Geographic and symbolic borders

The semi-autonomy and legal geography of the SBFZ are demarcated by geographical and symbolic borders. The theory of global cities also includes an increasing spatial separation between the rich and the poor (e.g., Sassen 2001[1991]; Friedmann 1986). For example, Loukaitou-Sideris and Gilbert (2000) argue that workers not only occupy separate spaces, but also differently perceive and attach meanings of “belonging,” safety, and group territory to specific sections of downtown Los Angeles. This idea that cities are bounded, that certain areas cater to certain types of people, and that strangers or “others” are not wanted is not a new concept. Since their origin, cities have been both political and spatial phenomena (e.g., Pirenne 1969) and they reflect the stratification of the societies to which they belong (Massey 2005). For example, much of the research on cities has shown the geographic and symbolic segregation of minorities and the poor (e.g., Sassen 1990). This includes American residential segregation patterns, ethnic enclaves, colonial residence patterns, fortress cities, and slums (Massey and Denton 1993; Drakakis-Smith 2000[1987]). Such borders also serve to concentrate and spatially isolate the wealthy, for example, in gated communities, fortified enclaves, and suburban shopping malls (Grant and Mittelsteadt 2004; Blakely and Snyder 1999; Caldeira 1996; Cohen 1996). These spatial arrangements are also often intertwined with symbolic meanings that enforce social boundaries (Lamont and Molnar 2002). Ethnographies, in particular, have a long tradition of examining how the meanings that people attach to places where they work, live, and visit are shaped by spatial organization (e.g., Cressey 1932; DuBois 1996 [1899]; Zorbough 1929; Liebow 1967; Anderson 1992; Duneier 2000).

The city of Manila, Philippines, has been used to examine how these geographic borders interact with symbolic meanings and social stratification and how they perpetuate class inequality (e.g., Shatkin 2005/2006; Berner and Korff 1995). For example, Garrido (2013) links the symbolic and geographic boundaries that separate the rich from the poor in Manila to the segregating practices that both groups engage in to reinforce their “sense of place”—where “certain types of places (enclaves or slums) or the people associated with those places elicit certain introspective states (mental states, including affect and motivation), which, in turn, predispose certain segregating practices” (Garrido 2013, p. 1344)—thus maintaining spatial and social inequality. Global borderlands similarly highlight the segregation between the rich and the poor; however, these locations have legally enforced gated or guarded boundaries around a semi-autonomous space owned or operated and influenced by foreigners. These boundaries involve not just racial/ethnic and class differences but also those based on nationality.

For the SBFZ, these geographic and symbolic boundaries revolve around the institutionalization of the legacies of the US military—in its built environment, discourses surrounding the differences between inside and outside, and associated cultural practices. The US military left behind an estimated $8 billion worth of infrastructure (Bowen et al. 2002), and Filipino officials instilled these buildings with a cultural myth weaving together the site’s past as a base and its future as an economic stronghold. This is true in documents, where lease contracts continue to reference the military base; in the military bunkers-turned-gated housing communities for foreigners and Filipinos, whose residents are not permitted to change their military-based façade; and in other former US buildings that were transformed for SBFZ use, for example, American ammunition bunkers that were turned into Zoobic Safari attractions, (Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority 2009; Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority 2011, p. 14).Footnote 13

The visual legacies of the US military are most telling at the SBFZ’s “Main” or Magsaysay gated and guarded walking entrance. A bridge runs over a tributary branch of the Kalaklan River and connects Olongapo City to the SBFZ. This bridge and the sentry stations—the first visual cues of the SBFZ—maintain the US military’s original built forms. The sentry station has four queues, which vendors, residents, employers, employees, and students—who all require Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) IDs—as well as visitors and shoppers—who are not required to have IDs—must walk through to enter or leave the area. Armed Filipino guards sit and stand among the queues and in the station office to watch people as they come and go. They have the authority to search any person or item, and this is one way they regulate who enters the SBFZ, since no formal laws specify who is and is not allowed inside (Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority 1992). Thus, the guards can enforce the informal norm of excluding the poor and informal, unregistered vendors based on their “presentation of self” (Goffman 1959). Clothes, shoes, and general appearance all identify the rich, who “belong,” and the poor, who do not. According to my interviewees and the people I befriended during my fieldwork, there’s a noticeable and obvious difference in the clothing and appearance of people who frequent the SBFZ—their clothes are nice, without holes, they are well groomed, and they always wear shoes—and those who do not.

Discourse comparing the SBFZ with the surrounding city of Olongapo also reinforces its geographic and symbolic boundaries. Interviewees and others I encountered still referred to SBFZ as “the base,” reflecting the common knowledge that it is distinct, different from Olongapo City, and for foreigners and rich Filipinos. Harbor Point mall workers describe the SBFZ as “clean,” “spacious,” “civilized,” “good,” “like Manila,” “safer,” “[having] lots of job opportunities,” and “disciplined” because of the prevalence of security officers and the perception that there is relatively less crime and less pollution. Although security officers serve as literal and figurative gatekeepers, their very presence signals a benefit to workers. Ramon,Footnote 14 a Filipino contractor with the SBMA, said that the difference is apparent “the moment you step up in the gate. … It’s good in FZ. I think there in FZ much more order, as a practice [SBMA officials try] to continue [the] orderly [nature/practices of the] military base [when it transformed in] to the economic zone.” Maria, a Filipina high school teacher, said that the SBFZ is “better because [there is] lots of new stuff, [there’s] no trouble or noisy.” Jing, a Filipino local, said that you can “find all you want” in the SBFZ. Teresa, also a local Filipina, noted the contrast—the SBFZ is “not the same as outside … [there are] lots of obstacles there [in Olongapo City].” However, local workers’ and visitors’ view of security guards as symbols of safety and order was in direct contrast to the views of the US military personnel I interviewed. In particular, Rob, an African American seaman, pointed out that guards often had empty holsters, and he wasn’t sure what kind of training they received, while George, a white American seaman, said he could probably “kill [them] with bare hands.”

Foreigner visitors see the SBFZ’s geographic and symbolic boundaries much like the locals do, though their references of place—their home country—are different. For example, Jeremy, a white Australian whose business is in the SBFZ, says that there’s a “big difference [compared to Olongapo]. The Freeport, [is] just normal” [emphasis mine]. Pat, a white British businessman, concurred; he said that “the Freeport is organized and it’s safer, I think, than outside.” Mary, a white Canadian who had been active in business in the SBFZ since its inception reminisced:

There are two different answers to that, if you ask [what the differences were between the SBFZ and Olongapo City] 10 years ago, I’ll give you a completely different answer. Well, as you know, the Freeport started in 1992, virtually and it was a very exciting time because the Freeport was being transformed from military base to what it is today. It was a lot more exciting and fewer problems, fewer people, bus traffic, it was exciting. A lot of the people coming here as investors at the time were form different countries all over the place and it was much smaller than it is now, so you could kind of need people as they moved in and they were very sure the same kind of problems and where can I get this, that sort thing. Now, it’s all spread out. There isn’t that same sort of community, can I call it camaraderie, than they used to be.

Now, Mary laments, with the building of the Harbor Point mall,

where you get a bigger influx of people of course there’s more crime, if you will, mostly petty crime but copper theft is a huge problem here. Anything that’s got copper in it, street lights, sometimes two kilometers of street lights will not be working, we find out because they’re stealing the wires constantly, which is a shame.

Gloria, a white American who spends part of her time in the SBFZ, and the other in Hong Kong, when asked about the differences between the SBFZ and Olongapo said:

You know, it’s just a different environment. So there’s [the] issue [of going places at certain times to avoid crowds], but the other thing that’s hard to see, is it’s hard to see my husband fished a bunch of dead—or bunch of kittens live out of the garbage can. I’ve to see yet a day where there’s not someone urinating in public or an animal being abused outside of the Freeport. It doesn’t happen very much and that really affects you on the psychological level … [though] it’s definitely safer also. That’s a very big point. The other point is the chances of me being harassed at Royal are a lot less than at the palengke. The chances of my vehicle being broken into or just is not the same in the Freeport. So, a lot of people will live here and face it will pay more and cost more just to be able to have that, I won’t say higher standard for living but you’re actually essentially paying for a safer environment even though it’s not related to the security officers.

These discourses are associated with distinct cultural practices that differ from those outside the SBFZ. One practice that contributes to these discourses is trash pickup. The absence of litter within the FZ is particularly noticeable as soon as you walk through the main gate. The FZ’s cleanliness is one of the first things Filipino workers, Filipino visitors, and foreign visitors alike commented on when asked about the differences inside and outside the zone. Litter is perceived as “bad” in the United States (Sampson and Raudenbush 2004; Wilson et al. 1982). Although environmental laws prohibit littering in the Philippines (Philippines 1975, 1997, 2001), throwing trash on the ground is the norm. I have seen people hold onto trash inside the SBFZ, and throw it on the ground as soon as they exit the gate.

Just as Murphy (2012) observes for American suburbs, the structural constraints of the availability of trashcans and trash collection contribute to the buildup of litter around Olongapo City. However, these factors do not account for all of it. Convenience stores, branch fast food restaurants, and the SM mallFootnote 15 in Olongapo City all have trashcans outside their storefronts, and employees maintain their cleanliness. Yet litter remains. Additionally, the SBFZ trashcans are often filled not with garbage, but rather with leaves, tree branches and other miscellaneous items. Trashcans do not automatically mean that people will place litter inside them. And the practice of not littering is more strictly enforced in certain areas of the SBFZ than in others. For example, near the gated entrances as well as within and around businesses, litter is absent; however, a walk or drive around the various parts where there is not a lot of foot traffic and few visitors shows that certain pockets of the FZ do continue to accumulate litter. The institutional legacy of the military base does not influence cultural practices evenly.

The differences in these practices result from official enforcement of rules and regulations and from local government officials cultivating the institutional legacy of the military base. When the base was operational, rules prohibited litter. When the military withdrew, Filipinos continued the American patterns of behavior because they had become normalized and routinized. The first SBMA chairman also preserved and policed these behaviors to maintain the symbolic link to the U.S. and to court international businesses by signaling the SBFZ’s status as a standard Western environment. As Douglas (2008 [1966]) argues, social relations and stratification are reinforced by practices and discourses of pollution and cleanliness. In the SBFZ, practices that reduce visible litter and trash are one way that Filipinos and foreigners alike reinforce the symbolic and geographic boundaries that separate it from Olongapo. In other types of global borderlands, these boundaries may take different forms.

However, some of these geographic and symbolic boundaries, and the practices associated with them, are more permeable than others. Corruption is a prime example of how Philippine practices penetrate the SBFZ. Bureaucracy and red tape in the SBFZ, and in the Philippines in general, present an opportunity for corruption. The corruption practices can contribute to inequality, for example, through nepotism - when jobs are created and given to certain people over others because of social ties. It becomes a cycle, where jobs are created both due to over-population and utang na loob (debt of gratitude, reciprocating social or economic debts and taking care of family), which then creates obstacles to employment; for example, requiring paperwork that necessitates multiple signatures from multiple offices. Local workers at the Harbor Point mall note that there is no clear guideline for how to fulfill work requirements, such as medical clearance, SBMA ID, SBFZ ID, specific store ID, security clearance, or a letter from their barangay [neighborhood] captain [the elected official who represents the barangay] who testifies to the candidates’ “moral being.” Kelly (2001) argues that this requirement helps prevent union strikes since barangay captains hold deep influence over families. Some workers lamented that it was very difficult to obtain the paperwork they needed to begin their job because they had no knowledge of how to navigate the bureaucracy. Although some workers obtain employment through SBMA job fairs, many people are hired because of connections, often when a friend alerts them to an opening in their store and walks them through the paperwork process. However, this and other forms of corruption are common place within and outside the SBFZ, so workers tend to expect it.

Foreigners who live and work near or inside the SBFZ also articulate how corruption occurs within the SBFZ. For example, Jeremy talked about needing to factor bribes into his business expenses, since truck drivers going to Manila to pick up material are consistently stopped by police and required to pay bribes, and Pat shared how his business contracts were held up or turned down at the last minute due to certain politicians’ influences. He also noticed, because he has ongoing cases against employees who owe him a debt, how people are able to hold up the court process if “they pay the right person.” Both of these men described the corruption of customs agents, who required exorbitant bribes to release shipping containers, regardless of whether they contained legal or illegal goods.

The borders signifying the SBFZ are ambiguously seen. For foreigners, the SBFZ is at times too Filipino and corrupt, while at other times, it reflects a community “like home.” To Filipinos the social stratification reinforced by these boundaries designates this space as American and Western—for foreigners and rich Filipinos. The maintenance (e.g., litter) or disregard (e.g., corruption) of some laws over others highlights the semi-permeability of these borders, and how they differ depending on social position and nationality, as well as the intent of government officials.Footnote 16 The geographic and symbolic borders that surround these semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled spaces signify unequal exchanges between different groups of people. For further discussion on the legacies of the former military base on the SBFZ, and on the SBFZ’s geographic and symbolic boundaries, see Reyes (2015).

Unequal relations

A key feature of global borderlands is that the nature of their inequality is such that the everyday unequal interactions between different groups of people reflect differences not only between classes, but also broader power structures between countries, since they are foreign-controlled. However, unequal relationships are not exclusive to global borderlands. A key component of the global or world city hypothesis is that the economic concentration within global cities necessarily relies on economic and social polarization, and that the creation and maintenance of global cities relies on the growing chasm between the very rich and the very poor, which includes particular relationships involving race, gender, and immigrant status—though others maintain that global cities can be linked to a rise in professionalization (Sassen 2001[1991]; Mollenkopf and Castells 1992; Hamnett 1994; Baum 1999).

Particularly when they are in developing countries, global borderlands—like many other places—are also built on structural foundations of inequality. The establishment and closing of US military bases are associated with changing patterns of employment, travel, and crime (e.g., Thanner and Segal 2008). Interdisciplinary and feminist research tends to focus on the negative consequences of these installations, including human trafficking, sex tourism, violations of sovereignty, and anti-militarism, seeing them as outlets of imperialism (e.g., Gonzalez 2007; Yeo 2010).

Research on SEZs reflects the variability in the definitions, functions, processes, and outcomes of these zones. For example, Ong (2006) explores “neoliberalism as exception” and analyzes how our traditional understandings of citizenship and sovereignty is being unraveled and reconceptualized through government use of neoliberal ideology to advance market-based economic and technological approaches as development strategies (6). In SEZs, this is seen through the exclusion of citizenship for some populations (the poor, women, low-skilled workers) who are overregulated, and “graduated citizenship” of others, who are less regulated, based on race and ethnicity. However, the concept of “neoliberalism as exception” is not geographically bound but also includes changing definitions, for example, of gender. Alternatively, Sklair and Robins (2002) advocate a global-systems theory that, similar to the approaches by Zelizer (2005) and Bandelj (2002, 2009), highlights how transnational practices operate in economic, political, and cultural-ideological spheres that are “superimposed upon each other rather than separate spheres” (p. 82). Using a transnational (transcending nation-states) rather than an inter-national (between nation-states) approach, he uses Mexican maquiladoras and the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone to explore the effects of export-led industrialization fuelled by foreign investment and technology on temporary urbanization, the emergence of new classes who benefit from the creation of these zones, and how they influence the ways that capitalism is integrated within countries (Sklair 1991, 1992).

Global borderlands’ spatiality is an important characteristic, as is the focus on social and cultural exchanges and not just labor and other types of economic exchanges. In contrast to Ong, my analytic approach is not limited to the Western, neoliberal economic and political influence but highlights specific cultural understandings, historical connections, and institutions that structure the varied forms of interaction within these spaces; additionally I use the term nationality as opposed to the concept of citizenship, since regulations are based on a continuum and differ according to the aforementioned forms of interaction between countries that are shaped by history, culture, and institutions. Although this approach is similar to Sklair’s, it differs in that I analyze specific between-country relationships, not transnational processes, to explore the varied cultural understandings, historical connections, and social structures of and between local and foreign visitors and workers.

To examine how inequality relates to social structures, locals’ and visitors’ cultural understandings of the zone, and the historical macro-relationships between various countries, I focus specifically on work practices and discourses through a case study of the Harbor Point mall (HP) in the SBFZ, which opened in April 2012; newspaper analysis of Korean-owned Hanjin Shipping, an SBFZ shipping and manufacturing company; and a document- and interview-based examination of the former US military base. I also examine locals’ perceptions of Americans and Koreans to illustrate how state-to-state relations influence and are influenced by micro-interactions.

First, it is important to note that as in many places, structural inequality underlines interactions between workers and consumers, as well as foreigners and visitors. For example, there is a significant wage difference between local workers and both local and foreign visitors. Wages of Harbor Point employees range from 230 to 330 Philippine pesos (Php). The average fast food meal in the mall costs upwards of 79 to 99 Php, almost one-third of their daily wage. This is in contrast to meals, including rice and drinks, offered at local, non-SBFZ palengke stalls that range from 30 to 65 pesos. When workers spoke of lunch, they talked about how they brought their lunch to work and very rarely ate at fast food or other restaurants in the mall because of the price. Eating “out” is a luxury workers can rarely afford, reserved for special occasions or for payday. Contrast this with a self-employed Filipino businessman, a consultant and advisor to the SBMA, whom I saw nearly everyday at a coffee shop inside HP; sometimes he would read a paper and drink coffee, while at other times he conducted business meetings, treated colleagues to merienda (snacks) and used the coffee shop as a work space. His salary was 100,000 Php per month. Calculating workers’ monthly salary using a six-day workweek, workers’ monthly salaries are 6 % (5,520Php) to 8 % (7,920Php) of his. Similarly, compared to American military salaries, which ranged from $1,000 ($600 in cash, $400 towards bills through allotments) every 2 weeks to $80,000 per year, and others’ salaries—including an American “sexpat” (a term used by a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) to describe a sex tourist) whose annual salary ranged from $20,000 to $60,000 depending on the year and a British businessman who did not want to disclose his salary but said it was “a range. Quite a lot,” these workers’ salaries are extremely low—though PCV’s salaries are comparable at 150Php per day and missionaries raise their own money before they embark on their trip.

The meanings of work within the SBFZ are complex and depend on the social position that individuals occupy. For example, despite the wide gap in pay between themselves and foreigners, Filipino mall employees prefer to work inside the SBFZ rather than outside because minimum wage rules are regulated and enforced, workers are eligible for social security benefits, and employment is more stable and available. Like other types of immigrants who migrate within-country or internationally, they occupy a privileged social position when compared to workers outside the SBFZ and to their families. Interviewees were often the family breadwinners, sending remittances to family members in the province if they lived in a boarding house nearby, or paying for a substantial amount of their families’ housing and living costs, often giving half of each paycheck to the head of their household.

Furthermore, when we look at interactions among different groups of workers, employers, and consumers, meanings about one another take varied forms based on historical and contemporary meso (organizational)- and macro-relationships between nation-states. These broader relationships are filtered through everyday interactions, which both directly influence and are influenced by the macro-ties between nation-states. Here, I analyze Philippine-American and Philippine-Korean relationships through work and consumption practices and the associated moral discourses.

Locals’ perceptions of Americans

According to Harbor Point mall employees, Americans are “friendly” and treated workers “good” and with “more respect” than even Filipino visitors who were “stuck up” reflecting the class-based workings of Philippine society. Local visitors who used to work at the former base also expressed this sentiment. For example, Maria says:

I worked with Americans before, they were my employer. So in comparison, with the salary and their treatment, Americans are better. They gave us all the benefits and treat their employees right. Although there are some Americans who don’t treat their workers well, it’s not all of them. I once had a supervisor who was biased against Filipinos, but the rest, they were all kind people. Actually, I was given an A or an outstanding rate by our superintendent for 3 years … he appreciated my work. So when the time came that they left, it felt sad. We actually didn’t want to leave. We visited the US counter facility before [they left]. We gathered the staff and reminisced about everything.…We miss our co-workers that are now living abroad. They returned to the Philippines once and we had a reunion.... In comparison to those new workers, they’re not satisfied with their salaries now. Their salaries are not enough for them. Not enough to feed their family. Unlike before, we had bonuses every December that were really high. Americans were good employers. [This is the English translation, see author for Tagalog version.}

Roberto, a Filipino SBFZ visitor who grew up alongside the former military base because his mother and father worked there, told me of his fear that locals would not maintain the Americanized culture of the SBFZ:

Maybe what I generally fear is having Harbor Point [mall], [there are] a lot more people who aren’t from here, you know? Because if you’re from Olongapo or Subic, you know. Everyone knows everyone basically if you’re from here. But now, there’s so many new faces. You don’t know right away, who they are. First, you just think, oh no, they’re not from here?! So what I fear is overpopulation since there’s a lot of visitors that don’t know, in general, the rules and regulations here. I fear that the discipline inside here will vanish. Because of course, some other people throw their waste or garbage in random places. But us, generally, we’re not like that. We don’t spit on the floor. Normally we don’t do that. … I just want to maintain our culture, which was Americanized.

These understandings of Americans are shaped by the broader American-Philippine “special relationship” that originated in colonialism and continues through today’s era of visiting military forces, as well as unequal import and export markets, and the Philippines’ continued dependence on the United States for millions of dollars in nonmilitary and military aid. In Olongapo City, while the base was operational, the US military was the second largest employer in the Philippines, pumping an estimated $500 million each year into the local economies of Olongapo and Angeles (site of Clark Air Force Base). More than 80,000 people in Central Luzon made their living from the bases (United States 102nd Congress 1992). SBNB also had a 4-year apprenticeship program for Filipino college graduates, and during the Vietnam War, the Aetas (one of the Philippines’ indigenous peoples) of Subic trained troops in jungle survival skills (e.g., United States 1986).

Because of the large number of both American and Filipino veterans of the US military, the only US Veterans Affairs office outside the United States is located in the Philippines. However, US and RP legal cases also show that many former base employees have sued the US military to receive retirement benefits. These cases were adjudicated in favor of the US military because of the Filipinos’ work was classified as temporary or non-entitled. So although there is nostalgia for the return of the base—something that is in the works but on a much smaller scale—the nostalgia does not cover or erase the wrongs omitted by the US military. The relationship between the United States and Republic of the Philippines is complex, rooted in a colonialism that ruled “benevolently” through local elites and continued inequality, but is also rooted through a nostalgia and good will on the part of former Subic Bay base workers and manipulation of Filipino elites of American policies.

Local perceptions of Koreans

It is also important to understand broader South Korean and Philippine relations because they serve as a foundation for Filipinos’ perceptions of Koreans and comparisons between Koreans and Americans. Beverley drew this contrast between Americans and Koreans: “Yeah, they kwan, they treat Filipinos like, as slave. Sabi nila ha? Hindi kwan, hindi tao. Sabi ha? Like in Hanjin. ‘Di ba totoo ‘yun, ‘di ba? Like in Hanjin.” [Yeah, they treat Filipinos like slaves. What did they say? That we’re not people. Like in Hanjin [a Korean-owned shipping businesses within the SBFZ]]. Current HP workers agree with this differentiation of customers based on nationality. While Americans are “friendly” and “treat workers with respect,” Korean customers are rude and treat the workers poorly. Mark noted that his Korean friends were not sociable and did not seek his advice, like his American friends did; whereas Juanita did not have any Korean friends, because she does not find them approachable.

This perception of Koreans by Filipinos does not occur in a vacuum but rather is shaped by the underlying Philippine-Korean relationship. Broadly speaking, the Philippines and South Korea have strong economic and social ties, and the Philippines is a popular and relatively cheap place for people from Asian countries to learn English.Footnote 17 Over the past several years, South Koreans have made up the largest share of tourists in the Philippines, accounting for almost one-fourth of all visitors in 2012 alone.Footnote 18 However, Filipinos in South Korea often live in dire circumstances. South Korea continues to host US military bases and reports suggest that the US military personnel there, as well as Korean businessmen, make up a large number of the clientele for Filipina women, many of whom are illegally recruited or trafficked to work in the “entertainment industry.” In 2003, a Seoul district court ruled in favor of the Philippine embassy, which took three night club owners to court on behalf of eleven Filipinas; the court agreed that the women had been forced into prostitution, and it ordered compensation (Korea JoongAng Daily 2003, 2002). Additionally, Filipina marriage migrants face discrimination and domestic violence, and Filipino migrant workers are often invisible to broader society vis-à-vis government rules and regulations (e.g., Lee 2008).

Within the SBFZ, South Koreans have a large and visible presence. In recent months, SBMA signed an agreement for a 20 billion Php resort project with Korean-owned Resom Resort and a memorandum of understanding with Daejeon TechnoPark, the “second biggest center of Administration and Science and Technology” in Korea.Footnote 19 The most recent SBMA statistics say that 13 % (119) of all sole-owned businesses (those that are not partially owned with Filipinos) are South Korean, and Hanjin Shipping is one of the largest employers in the SBFZ (Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority 2012). However, as Beverley indicates, Hanjin Shipping is also associated with workers’ rights violations, including abuse, mistreatment, lack of meal breaks, and sickness and death due to accidents; these violations have resulted in complaints to the SBMA, worker protests, and a recent memorandum of agreement with the Philippines’ Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), which will now conduct regular inspection of SBFZ businesses.Footnote 20 One case regarding two workers who were allegedly illegally dismissed made it to the Philippine Supreme Court of Appeals, which upheld a local ruling that the workers “are entitled to reinstatement to their former positions without loss of seniority rights and payment of full back wages, inclusive of allowances, from the time their compensation was withheld from them up to the time of their actual reinstatement” (Philippines 2011, pp. 16–17). Rosa,Footnote 21 a local visitor who used to work for a Korean company inside the FZ, told me her own story of how Koreans treated Filipinos as though they were not tao (people), saying that it was not uncommon for the Koreans to physically hit or assault employees.

The perception of Filipinos’ interactions with Americans and Koreans are shaped not only by individual social position (worker/consumer, military/civilian, rich/poor, foreign/local) but also both by the organizational happenings within the SBFZ, vis-à-vis the former US military base and Hanjin shipping—whose human rights violations reverberate throughout the community—and through the historical and contemporary connections between the two countries. These broader associations are filtered through everyday interactions, and global borderlands provide an ideal case to analyze such interactions because they are concentrated, geographically bounded centers geared toward this type of international exchange, and these dealings directly and indirectly influence and are influenced by micro-, meso-, and macro-level relationships.

Conclusion

This article introduces the concept of “global borderlands” to identify new globalized and analytic spaces that are semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange. It thus extends the rich literature on global cities and traditional borderlands by showing the significance of these foreign-controlled spaces. It also highlights how or state-to-state relationships--not only an individual country’s place in a world-system—directly and indirectly influence and are influenced by micro-interactions.

Global borderlands share three features: semi-autonomy, geographic and symbolic boundaries, and unequal relations. Although, separately, these characteristics are commonplace, in global borderlands they interact in spaces of unequal power and are influenced by state-to-state relations. The case of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines illustrates how global borderlands work. I show the fluidity of semi-sovereignty and foreign-control. Even when formal agreements are made to regulate military personnel, the ambiguous wording of these agreements allows for power and pressure to influence everyday decisions and actions. Additionally, territorial space and the actions that occur within or outside them are subject to important negotiations between countries.

Second, I show that the geographic and symbolic boundaries that differentiate the SBFZ from Olongapo City take the form of visual representations and historical legacies of the US military, and are associated with everyday moral discourses and cultural practices. Finally, the case of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone illustrates how semi-autonomy and geographic and symbolic boundaries further structure unequal relations that occur within this setting. Here, I lay the foundation of inequality vis-à-vis the unequal structure of wages, comparing Harbor Point mall employee salaries with those of local visitors, foreign visitors, and the workers’ families. Additionally, I outline how Philippine-US and Philippine-Korean state relations are filtered through everyday interactions and perceptions. The macro and the micro influence and shape each other, one is not reducible to the other.

Because the focus is on historical, localized context, a key limitation of the global borderlands concept is not being able to link workers’, local visitors’, and foreign visitors’ experiences as easily as, for example, a world-systems theory that focuses on exploitation. Additionally, although a global borderlands perspective can take into account the profit that organizations and corporations extract from these spaces, that is not what I emphasize. Rather, I concentrate on how, for example, workers’ wages, interactions, and perceptions of daily life influence and are influenced by broader macro-state to state relationships.

Although this article is based on a single case study, it is intended to be a launching point for understanding the dynamics that occur in other semi-autonomous and foreign-controlled spaces. Future research should refine and expand this framework by analyzing how these processes vary across time (e.g. colonial trading posts), national location (e.g., within a country in North America, West Africa, or Eastern Europe), institutional context (e.g., international branch campus, embassy, current military base, all-inclusive timeshare), and history (e.g., history of state-to-state relations, and local histories). Scholars should also explore the networked nature of global borderlands, and the varying global connections that occur based on institutional context.

Global borderlands, including military bases, tourist resorts, special economic zones, international branch campuses, embassies, and headquarters of international organizations are new analytic spaces where we can find and examine globalization processes. In this way, relevant research can be subsumed into a unifying theoretical perspective that pays close attention to how semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled places reinforce, interact, and reproduce unequal interactions among different groups, as well as how these interactions relate to boundary-making between places and people.