Mobility Regimes in Practice: Later-life Westerners and Visa Runs in South-East Asia

Abstract

Studies of Western migrants in South-East Asia emphasise the importance of privilege, work and location within national boundaries in the construction of contemporary subjectivities. This article examines the role and relevance of cross-border mobility through the eyes of older, Western ‘visa runners’ with limited financial resources. Drawing on migrant experience of dwelling in and moving through Penang, Malaysia, I address the ways in which the mobility regimes of immigration frameworks and visa regulations become a formative aspect or otherwise of social practice and belonging. In focusing on the personal and social experience of visa running, this article transcends a methodological nationalist focus on identities and subjectivities within national spaces and highlights the variable role of people, places and life history in the forming of multi-layered attachments across national spaces in South-East Asia.