Coming Home: Thai-Dutch Couples' Spatial Trajectories at the Intersection of Mobility Capital, Gender, and Ageing

Abstract

This paper applies the notions of mobility, mobility capital, gender, and ageing to analyze marriage migration and the trajectories of geographical and social mobility of Thai-Dutch couples moving from the Netherlands to Thailand. It is based on in-depth interviews with 12 Thai-Dutch couples who moved from the Netherlands to Thailand and resided in Thailand for between three and twelve years. The study explores the key role of mobility capital in stimulating Thai-Dutch couples’ imaginations, their perceptions, and their potential for movement. In terms of their ‘mobility turn’, I argue that their trajectories of mobility and relocation to Thailand should not be understood as a linear and permanent movement from the Netherlands to Thailand. Rather, this mobility is fluid, complicated, and sometimes fragmented. It is marked by the practices of waiting, hesitation to move, imagining their return, preparing to move, having actually returned, and travelling back and forth between Thailand and the Netherlands. It also encompasses local spatial move-ment in daily life.