Seminar 17.01: African Migration to Thailand. Race, Mobility, and Integration / Elżbieta M. Gozdziak

We sincerely invite you to the next scientific seminar of the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań! Tuesday 17.01.2023 at 09:30-11:00, room 2.122.

FACEBOOK

TEAMS: https://tinyurl.com/pe5d2rch

ELZBIETA M. GOZDZIAK

Center for Migration Studies (CeBaM) 

African Migration to Thailand. Race, Mobility, and Integration 

This presentation is based on my recent book, co-edited with Supang Chantavanich of the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.  Based on exploratory ethnographic research, the book analyzes the experiences of African migrants in Thailand. 

Thailand has always been a regional migration hub with Africans being the most recent cohort of immigrants. Sitting at the intersection of race and migration studies, this book focuses on the challenges Black labor migrants face trying to integrate into a society that has had very limited contact with and knowledge about Black Africans. Bringing together research from African, Thai, and European scholars, this volume focuses on forced migrants, such as Somali asylum seekers, and labor migrants, largely African men seeking better livelihoods in niche economies such as gem trading, garment wholesale, and football playing and coaching. The book also includes theoretical contributions to the understanding of precarity and human security, the concept of in/visibility to analyze the challenges African migrants face in Thailand as well as the concept of othering to understand discrimination against Africans. The book also analyzes the Thai migration policy context and the challenges facing Thai policy-makers, law enforcement representatives, and the migrants themselves. While not comparative in nature, this volume directly connects with studies of Africans in other parts of Asia, especially China. 

In this presentation, I outline the major findings stemming from our research as well as provide a glimpse into the process of collaborating with senior and emerging migration scholars from Africa and Thailand.