This book provides one of the most comprehensive researches on Thai marriage migrants in Germany to date. It investigates the employment dilemma of Thai marriage migrants after implementation of the new Residence Act of 2005 in Germany. Also it sheds light on the underlying problems that hinder Thai marriage migrants’ potential as full-time labourers, examines the Thai diaspora and explores the present-day trans-nationalism of Thai marriage migrants in Germany. Most importantly, it applies Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical concept of capital, habitus and social space to better understand Thai marriage migrants’ career choices in the German milieu.

Remittances of Thai female married migrants have been one of the recognized conflicts among Thai-German spouses for a long time. However, the issue of remittance has only been partially debated and clarified as the economic support of Thai wives towards their natal family in Thailand. This book analyzes the determinants that influence Thai migrant wives to send remittances to their natal families and investigates the impact of remitting on both their marital and origin family relationships. The study acquired primary data from the eight key informants by a case study research approach, and supportive information from secondary informants who were personally related to the key informants. Data collection methods included interviews (in-depth and focus-groups) and observations (non-participant and participant). The findings revealed that the financial aspect is the least significant reason for sending remittances among Thai wives in Germany. The remittance practice appears to be an adoption of the cultural gratitude belief deeply rooted in Thai wives’ mentality. Thai women reported having remitted to their parents before they married and maintaining this practice as a particular way to perform their decent child’s duty towards parents while living abroad. Remitting also carried a symbolic meaning of love and care underpinned by the concept of a gratitude culture.

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 dynamic Handbook unpacks the entanglements between the two notions of home and migration, which illuminate the lived experiences of (in)voluntary mobilities and the contested terrain of inclusion and belonging. Drawing on cross-disciplinary contributions from leading international scholars, it advances research on the social study of home in relation to migration, refugee, displacement, and diaspora studies. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

This book provides an insight on the Buddhist way of Thai temple life in German Diasporic context. It is based on input from several Thai Buddhist communities in Germany where the first-generation Thai transmigrants construct and form a sense of belonging by actively participating in temple life. It also explores the multifaceted role that Thai temples play in the lives of Thai transmigrants. Moreover, this book combines the anthropology of diasporas with Buddhism and identity.

This incisive study combines the two subjects and views the migration scholarship through the lens of the gender perspective.

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is generally considered to be a great success. Mary Waters, however, tells a very different story. She finds that the values that gain first-generation immigrants initial success--a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save--are undermined by the realities of life and race relations in the United States. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

The IDC identifies 250 examples of positive alternatives to immigration detention in 60 countries, that respect fundamental human rights, are less expensive and equally or more effective than traditional border controls.

Aims to assist states in their efforts to develop new policy approaches, solutions and practical measures for better management of labour migration in countries of origin and of destination. Analyses effective policies and practices and draws on examples from OSCE participating States as well as other countries that have experience in this field.