The research cluster on Transnational Intimacy and Migration Process is a collaboration between Thai and international researchers working in the field of gender and migration. Inspired by the participation in the panel “Transnational Intimate Relation, Migration and Rural Transformation” at the 13th Thai Studies Conference at Chiangmai University in July 2017, founding members of the cluster have developed cross-university and cross-disciplinary research collaboration with the support from the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University. The cluster aims to advance knowledge of gendered mobilities from and to Thailand.
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Over the past two decades, one of the most studied cases of Thai migration is that of marriage migration of Thai women to economically more advanced countries. Studies on transnational marriages between Thai women and Western men have tended to adopt labour migration approach to analyze this migration flow. Poverty, economic motivations, opportunities to migrate and economic inequalities between Thailand and destination countries are often described as push factors that drive Thai women to marry Western men. The questions of gender and sexuality have only recently been raised to complicate the economistic approach to the studies of marriage migration. Examining migration processes through the gender lens opens up new areas of inquiries in transnational mobilities: emotional and physical intimacy, multiplicity and contestations of masculinities and femininities, and the transnational outsourcing of care and intimate labour, for example.
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The second limitation in studies of Thai women’s marriage migration is that Thai wives are often represented as a homogenous group—poor, lowly educated women from rural backgrounds who seek to advance their social and economic status. Experiences, motivations, and adaptation of Thai marriage migrants from different backgrounds—educated, middle-class and professional—are therefore invisible. Taking into account the diversity of Thai women who in participate in marriage migration will reveal the complexity and dynamics of this gendered migration flow.
Third, studies on transnational marriage migration should go beyond individuals’ relationship and explore the extended migration processes such as the formation of Thai communities overseas, second generation Thais in receiving countries, Thai migrants’ networks and community making in massage shops, restaurants, temples and public spaces where Thai migrants gather and the transmission of (selective) Thai cultural values and identities within the Thai diaspora. Future studies should also include new developments in Thailand in connection to Thai marriage migration such as changing patterns of land ownership in wife sending communities, return migration of Thai wives, communities of Westerners in Thai urban settings and tourist destinations, health and elder care facilities for ageing migrants and return migrants from economically more developed countries.
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To start, the research cluster set out to systematically explore the existing body of work on Thai transnational marriage migration. Theoretical frameworks, methodology and findings of existing studies will be documented. The team will map out and analyze the development of research on this migration flow, identifying knowledge gap and potential directions for future research.