Natalia Bloch

Within the framework of global mobility regimes, some bodies are encouraged to move while others are pushed back. Nation-states create control mechanisms to block those who are “undesirable”. Apart from political utility, the colour of the bodies is indicated by the critics as the main criterion of division. However, one more important dimension that intersects with race here is the gender of these bodies. A woman fits the figure of an ideal victim better due to the nationalist patterns of femininity: she is vulnerable, submissive, and deprived of agency. Contrary to a man: his duty in the context of war is to remain in his homeland and fight for it. A man who does not do that, seeking asylum in Europe, is morally doubtful: he is a migrant posing a threat to “our” prosperity and security. This is how people crossing the Polish-Belarusian border are presented to public opinion and contrasted with female Ukrainian refugees. The article offers a critical analysis of gender representations of refugees in the Polish public debate through the prism of postcolonial theory, demonstrating that gendered and racialised colonial discourses underpin rationalisations about who has and who does not have a right to be a refugee.

Searching for a Good Life in the Global South. Migrants In the Informal Tourism Sector in India

Migration motivated by searching for a good life is usually associated with the privileged citizens of the Global North. This is even more apparent if we look at the intersections of migration and tourism. These are usually ‘expatriates’ from the Global North in the Global South who fulfill their quest running lifestyle oriented small tourism businesses. Meanwhile, migrants who originate from the Global South are imagined as homo economicus, motivated predominantly by better earning opportunities. I challenge this assumption by scrutinizing the informal tourism sector at the Hampi World Heritage site in India. The majority of small entrepreneurs in this sector are seasonal migrants. When asked about the reasons for choosing Hampi, they point at the category of shanti (i.e. tranquility), which they use to counter capitalist notions of profitability. I seek to answer the question of how ‘tranquility’ is defined by them and how this affects their migratory decisions.