Thai Western Mobilities And Migration

The chapters in this volume study transnational social relationships and cross-border connections between ‘ordinary’ people that arise from the increasingly large-scale mobilities and migrations between Thailand and ‘the West’. While Thai and Western people’s social relationships are usually studied as personal stories within a cross-border marriage migration perspective, this book considers it necessary to see them as more than marriage migration. Even though a focus on the ‘personal life stories’ of marriage migrants provides valuable insights, it can also mask consideration of the structural context of socially embedded cross- border connections and exchanges, as well as state restrictions, that, first, make people’s decisions to move a possibility in the first place, and second, shape a migrant’s post- migration life- trajectory and experiences, relative to others in their origin and settlement societies. The chapters on Thai women who marry and move with older Western men, Western men and women who move to Thailand to retire or for leisure, and Thai rural families transformed by mobilities and migration, try to draw out their gendered experiences of transnational living. The individual choices that shaped these lives, and the surprising prevalence of lives like these in Thailand and abroad, needs to be understood within context as an outcome of the specific globalisation processes that have shaped Thailand through transnational links to other parts of the world over the last decades. Globalisation and penetration by foreign capital, cultures, and people through mass tourism is key to this explanatory backstory as well as the internal rural/ urban cleavages that drive Thailand’s economic development. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

This book challenges the classic – and often tacit – compartmentalization of tourism, migration, and refugee studies by exploring the intersections of these forms of spatial mobility: each prompts distinctive images and moral reactions, yet they often intertwine, overlap, and influence one another. Tourism, migration, and exile evoke widely varying policies, diverse popular reactions, and contrasting imagery. What are the ramifications of these siloed conceptions for people on the move? To what extent do gender, class, ethnic, and racial global inequalities shape moral discourses surrounding people’s movements? This book presents 12 predominantly ethnographic case studies from around the world, and a pandemic-focused conclusion, that address these issues. In recounting and juxtaposing stories of refugees’ and migrants’ returns, marriage migrants, voluntourists, migrant retirees, migrant tourism workers and entrepreneurs, mobile investors and professionals, and refugees pursuing educational mobility, this book cultivates more nuanced insights into intersecting forms of mobility. Ultimately, this work promises to foster not only empathy but also greater resolve for forging trails toward mobility justice. This accessibly written volume will be essential to scholars and students in critical migration, tourism, and refugee studies, including anthropologists, sociologists, human geographers, and researchers in political science and cultural studies. The book will also be of interest to non-academic professionals and general readers interested in contemporary mobilities.

This book analyses how Asian migrants adapt and assimilate into their host societies, and how this assimilation differs across their sociodemographic backgrounds, ethnic profiles, and political contexts. The diversities in Asian migrants’ assimilation trajectories challenge the assumption that given time, migrants will eventually integrate holistically into their host societies. This book captures the diverse patterns and trajectories of assimilation by going beyond marriage migration to look at how family formation processes are shaped by migration driven by reasons other than marriage. Using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method analyses, not only does this book uncover the nuances of the link between marriage and migration, but it also widens methodological repertoires in research on marriage and migration. It also captures various social outcomes that may have been influenced by migration, including migrants’ economic well-being, cultural assimilation, subjective well-being, and gender inequality vis-à-vis marriages. This book further embeds the studies in the Asian contexts by drawing on individual countries’ unique policies relevant to cross-cultural marriages, the persistent impacts of extended families, the patriarchal traditions, and systems of religion and caste. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

This edited book emerges from the observation that the current literatures on migration in China are constrained by a series of shortfalls, including a relative topical homogeneity centred on domestic labour migration; relatively narrowly conceived and institutionalist conceptions of migration and migrants, without adequate attention paid to the identities, agencies and everyday experiences of migrants; and finally a lack of engagement with theoretical models and paradigms in the broad discipline of migration studies. Assembling eight fine-grained research works engaging with a broad variety of migratory trajectories and experiences, this book addresses these shortfalls by: (1) investigating diverse forms of domestic and transnational migration in and to China; (2) problematising, rethinking and innovating well-established analytical tools and categories to move beyond their epistemological fixity and highlight their socially and dynamically constructed nature; and (3) underscoring the centrality of identity, subjectivity and everyday experiences, rather than mechanical causality between institutions and migration outcomes, to theoretical understandings of migration in China. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Sociology, Politics, Human Geography, Social Work and Urban Studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Temporary migration is a human response to uncertain economic, ecological, political and socio-cultural environments. This book provides an important contribution to the literature on the rights, lived experiences and trajectories of temporary migrants. It focuses on the precarity of temporary migrants at different scales in urban settings, varying from the household, institution, and neighbourhood, to the city. Temporary migrants experience oscillations in precarity that vary with their categorization as skilled (professionals with valued skill sets, international students) or unskilled (domestic workers, labourers), their ambiguous legal status and the locales in which they reside and work. Individual chapters use case studies from around the world (USA, Canada, Ireland, Turkey, Singapore, China) to show how temporal and scalar precarity intersect and are mediated by national and local policies, civil society, as well as the personal and social attributes of migrants themselves such as gender, race, and country of origin. Although often overlooked due to their transitory status, the chapters demonstrate how temporary migrants are embedded in urban life and resist their categorization as disposable through individual and collective efforts. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Sociology, Politics, Human Geography, Urban Studies, and Social and Cultural Anthropology. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

This book focuses on the migration of undocumented minors arriving recently to the United States and the European Union, flows that are often labeled ‘undocumented’, ‘illegal’, or ‘irregular’ and due to their sudden increase, they have been described in the media, policy circles, and scholarly work as a ‘surge’ or a ‘crisis’. Leading scholars examine the intricacies of the contexts that these minors encounter in the localities where they arrive, including the legal and ethical frameworks for protecting unaccompanied minors, governmental decisions about the ‘best interests’ of the children, these minors’ expressions of their own best interests or agency as they navigate immigration and social service systems, conditions in detention centers, and the health and social service needs in receiving communities. Though definitions and techniques for counting unaccompanied migrant minors differ between the U.S. and the EU, this book underscores the immigrant minors’ common vulnerabilities and strategies they adopt to protect themselves and improve their circumstances. At the same time, contributors to the volume highlight common challenges that both European and U.S. governments face as they develop policy strategies and legal mechanisms to attempt to balance the best interests of these children with national interests of the countries in which they settle. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Marriages that involve the migration of at least one of the spouses challenge two intersecting facets of the politics of belonging: the making of the 'good and legitimate citizens' and the 'acceptable family'. In Europe, cross-border marriages have been the target of increasing state controls, an issue of public concern and the object of scholarly research. The study of cross-border marriages and the ways these marriages are framed is inevitably affected by states' concerns and priorities. There is a need for a reflexive assessment of how the categories employed by state institutions and agents have impacted the study of cross-border marriages. This collection of essays analyses what is at stake in the regulation of cross-border marriages and how European states use particular categories (e.g., 'sham', 'forced' and 'mixed' marriages) to differentiate between acceptable and non-acceptable marriages. When researchers use these categories unreflexively, they risk reproducing nation-centred epistemologies and reinforcing state-informed hierarchies and forms of exclusion. The chapters in this book offer new insights into a timely topic and suggest ways to avoid these pitfalls: differentiating between categories of analysis and categories of practice, adopting methodologies that do not mirror nation-states' logic and engaging with general social theory outside migration studies. This book will be of interest to researchers and academics of Sociology, Politics, International Relations, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Human Geography, Social Work, and Public Policy. Barring one, all the chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Visitors to Thailand's urban and beach-sided tourist hotspots notice the presence of colourful and predominantly female vendors offering self-made and mass-manufactured products. A high percentage of these vendors are members of the highland ethnic minority group of Akha who have become micro-entrepreneurs or self-employed street vendors. The work and everyday life experiences of these ethnic minority migrants are situated at the intersections of tourism, migration, and the informal sector. This book investigates the social, economic, and political embeddedness of street vendors in urban tourist contexts in Thailand. Based on extensive field research, it presents a detailed analysis of urban-directed mobility patterns and revealing strategies and dilemmas in the urban souvenir business. Focusing on the development of urban ethnic minority souvenir stalls run mostly by people belonging to the highland group of Akha, the author explains the spatial expansion of ethnic businesses and assesses the economic and political obstacles micro-entrepreneurs are confronted with. The book offers an understanding of the everyday practices and social relations of and between unequally powerful actors related to ethnic minority tourism in urban contexts, and systematically integrates individual and collective action into socio-economic and politico-institutional contexts. A significant contribution to migration and ethnic minority studies in the Thai and Asian urban tourism context, the book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Southeast Asian studies, tourism, migration, and ethnic minority studies.