Sirijit Sunanta

This edited volume is an important contribution to the studies of contemporary human mobilities. It is among the first projects that empirically explore and systematically analyze the entanglements between different forms of human mobilities, particularly tourism, migration and exile. The book consists of an introductory chapter, 11 empirical case study chapters, and a postscript chapter. The introduction by Kathleen M. Adams and Natalia Bloch questions existing conceptual frameworks that classiffy of human mobilities by time (shortterm vs. long-term), voluntariness (by choice vs. by force) and motivation (work vs. pleasure, economic vs. relaxation, production-led vs. consumption-led). Challenging the conventional separation of tourism, migration and exile studies, Bloch and Adam postulates that in reality the boundaries between these forms of mobilities are blurry and people’s spatial movements are complex. They emphasize mixed and multiple motivations of mobile people as well as the entangled nature of their movements, for example, temporary stays get protracted, tourism and activism are intertwined, and refugees and economic migrants can be overlapping. They also point out the engagement of migrants in tourism entrepreneurship and the way in which tourist space constitutes a contact zone where different groups of people interact, forging relationship and leading to migration. Mobility categories are also crosscut when migrants engage in

After a few decades of large-scale transnational marriages and migration of Thai women to countries in the Global North, the phenomenon has matured and Western-Thai married couples have aged, particularly the men who tend to be older than their Thai wives. This article examines the understudied topic of Western man – Thai woman couples in their old age, focusing on those who decide to spend their late life in Thailand. Ageing in Thailand as non-citizens, many Western husbands fall through the net of social protection and rely on their Thai spouses as the only source of care. This study examines the implications of caring for frail Western husbands on Thai wives, drawing on biographical narrations of three Thai women. Located at the intersection of local and global care configurations, Thai wives are expected to perform the gendered role of spousal care givers with little support from either sending or …

This paper examines Thai immigrant entrepreneurship in the UK, drawing on 17 interviews with Thai migrants in Brighton, East Sussex. It explores how Thai immigrants from different socioeconomic backgrounds and migration pathways mobilize ethnic and non-ethnic forms of capital in their entrepreneurial activities. Thai immigrants constitute a relatively new, small, but internally diverse migrant population in the UK, with female marriage migrants dominating the Thai migrant population in the past two decades. The findings of this study reveal that Thai migrants tend to own small-scale businesses or provide personal services in three sectors: cleaning and care work, beauty and massage, and food and catering. In their interaction with opportunity structures in the UK, Thai restaurant and massage entrepreneurs mobilize the exotic notion of "Thai-ness" to add value to their services catering to local British customers.

The migration flows connecting Thailand and Europe have constructed social spaces in which different stereotypes regarding Thais and Europeans emerge, perpetuate, and circulate, thereby affecting to various extents the lives of these individuals. To challenge these stereotypes, the present Special Issue takes into account the mechanisms of social categorization at transnational and local dimensions in three critical steps. First, it adopts an inclusive stance by not limiting itself to heterosexual relationships involving Thais and Europeans. Second, it shifts the scholarly gaze from marriage and family issues to Thai migrants’ mobilities in spatial, social, and intergenerational terms. And third, it highlights Thai migrants’ engagement in the labor market as intimate workers and entrepreneurs to uncover the factors shaping their (re) productive labor and social incorporation in their receiving countries. Using an intersectional approach, this Special Issue presents six empirically grounded case studies to unveil often-neglected dimensions and complexities of Europe-Thailand transnational migration.

The interview with Mrs. Chongcharoen Sornkaew Grimsmann, a long-term member and former president of Thai Women Network in Europe (TWNE), was originally conducted in English over email by Sirijit Sunanta and Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot in July 2022. It was supplemented by an online interview (via WebEx) in Thai by Sirijit Sunanta in November 2022. Mrs. Grimsmann served as the President of TWNE from 2019 to 2022. TWNE is well-established and one of the most active organizations of Thai migrant women with individual and organizational members in 16 European countries, the US, and Thailand. TWNE seeks to collaborate with governmental and non-governmental organizations, both in Thailand and the destination countries, to improve the welfare of Thai migrant women. They organize annual general meetings to discuss topics relevant to Thai migrant women’s lives in destination countries and publish an annual newsletter Sarn Satree (สาร สตรี) to circulate information. Mrs. Grimsmann has extensive experience of providing community service as a social volunteer and working with international organizations, particularly in the area of women and children’s welfare. She is now based in France and Thailand.

This chapter analyzes the political economy of eldercare in Thailand where the entrepreneurial state promotes the commodification of care for retirement migrants as part of an economic development strategy, while public care and social protection for the growing number of Thai aging citizens is underdeveloped. The inequalities of elder healthcare provision are reinforced by the (unintended) consequences of this policy. Many international retirees not only have insufficient income to use private healthcare facilities but, due to insufficient means, strain the public health system with a high amount of unpaid bills, consume more of the time of healthcare workers, and require extra services such as translation. Furthermore, wealthy foreigners who can afford private medical care are given priority for services and medicines over poorer Thai people with the same health conditions and healthcare needs.

Lifestyle migration refers to the relocation of relatively privileged individuals in a pursuit of a better, more fulfilling life. Initially conceptualized to study migration within Europe and the Americas, the concept has later been adopted to study migration from the Global North to the Global South including destinations in Asia and Africa. Gender has been understudied in the literature of lifestyle migration although what constitutes a good life is highly gendered. Studying the migration of predominantly older German men to Pattaya, Thailand, we found that the intimate relationship with Thai women—ranging from casual encounters with bargirls, to boyfriend–girlfriend relationship and to marital partnership, is integral to the migration decision. Embedded in a history of gendered mobilities between Thailand and Germany, the settlement of German men in Pattaya reveals the blurry boundaries between sex tourism …

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 …