Globalising Thailand through gendered ‘both-ways’ migration pathways with ‘the West’: cross - border connections between people, states, and places

Statham, Paul and Scuzzarello, Sarah and Sunanta, Sirijit and Trupp, Alexander (2020) Globalising Thailand through gendered ‘both-ways’ migration pathways with ‘the West’: cross - border connections between people, states, and places. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46 (8). pp. 1513-1542. ISSN 1369-183X

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Abstract

This article explains why significant Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migration pathways have evolved, grown and sustained over the last decades. It introduces a set of research contributions on transnational social relationships and cross-border connections between people that arise from the increasingly large-scale mobilities and migrations between Thailand and ‘the West’ – countries from Europe, North America and Australia. While Thai and Western people’s social relationships are usually studied as personal stories within a cross-border marriage migration perspective, we consider it necessary to see them as more than marriage migration. Specifically, we argue that the growing ‘both-ways’ Thai-Western migration pathways can only be understood by reference to three features of globalisation processes specific to Thailand: first, cross-border connections and social networks generated by massive West-to-Thailand tourist mobilities that incentivise Western men to see living permanently with a Thai partner as ‘realistic’; second, the radical transformations of Thai rural societies under conditions of economic development that produces ‘surplus’ mobile women; and third, the restrictive state immigration and citizenship regimes in the West and Thailand that leaves few pathways open for migration, other than by ‘marriage’. In sum, Thailand’s specific experience of globalisation is the explanatory backstory to the extraordinary prevalence of Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migrations.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Divisions:	Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) > School of Tourism and Hospitality Management
Depositing User:	Alexander Trupp
Date Deposited:	24 Apr 2020 01:20
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2020 02:52
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/11953

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