Skip to main content

Governance as Practice: Regulating Lifestyle Migration

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Lifestyle Migration and Colonial Traces in Malaysia and Panama

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

  • 424 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter makes clear how the foreign investment in property anticipated by residential tourism is further supported by specialist visa regimes, which incentivise such investments through tax breaks and other favourable terms of residence. In this way, migrants-cum-investors are treated as exceptional cases. What also becomes clear, however, is the tension between how the migrants themselves manipulate these structures and the tightening and relaxing of these in legislative practice that aims at the exclusion of those less-desirable migrants using such entry routes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ackers, L., & Dwyer, P. (2004). Fixed Laws, Fluid Lives: The Citizenship Status of Post-Retirement Migrants in the European Union. Ageing and Society, 24(3), 451–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. (2010). Migration, Immigration Controls and the Fashioning of Precarious Workers. Work, Employment and Society, 24(2), 300–317.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. (2013). Us and Them?: The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Avila, L. (2017, January 9). Empresarios rechazan bajar tiempo de estadía a turistas. Panamá América. Retrieved May 3, 2017, from http://www.panamaamerica.com.pa/economia/empresarios-rechazan-bajar-tiempo-de-estadia-turistas-1055867.

  • Benson, M., & O’Reilly, K. (2009). Lifestyle Migration: Expectations, Aspirations and Experiences. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M. (2011a). The British in Rural France: Lifestyle Migration and the Ongoing Quest for a Better Way of Life. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M. (2013b). Postcoloniality and Privilege in New Lifestyle Flows: The Case of North Americans in Panama. Mobilities, 8(3), 313–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M., & O’Reilly, K. (2016). From Lifestyle Migration to Lifestyle in Migration: Categories, concepts and ways of thinking. Migration Studies, 4(1), 20–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M., & Osbaldiston, N. (2014). New Horizons in Lifestyle Migration Research: Theorizing Movement, Settlement and the Search for a Better Way of Life. In M. Benson & N. Osbaldiston (Eds.), Understanding Lifestyle Migration (pp. 1–25). Basingstoke: Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Benson, M., & Osbaldiston, N. (2016). Toward a Critical Sociology of Lifestyle Migration: Reconceptualizing Migration and the Search for a Better Way of Life. The Sociological Review, 64(3), 407–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betts, A. (2011). Introduction: Global Migration Governance. In A. Betts (Ed.), Global Migration Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Botterill, K. (2017). Discordant Lifestyle Mobilities in East Asia: Privilege and Precarity of British Retirement in Thailand. Population, Space and Place, 23(5).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broeders, D., & Hampshire, J. (2013). Dreaming of Seamless Borders: ICTs and the Pre-Emptive Governance of Mobility in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39(8), 1201–1218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cranston, S. (2017). Expatriate As a ‘Good’ Migrant: Thinking Through Skilled International Migrant Categories. Population, Space and Place, 23(6), e2058.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croucher, S. (2012). Privileged Mobility in an Age of Globality. Societies, 2, 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ExpatGo Staff. (2015, June). Retrieved from http://www.expatgo.com/my/2015/06/17/malaysia-steps-up-pressure-on-people-doing-visa-runs/.

  • Green, P. (2014). Contested Realities and Economic Circumstances: British Later-Life Migrants in Malaysia. In M. Janoschka & H. Haas (Eds.), Contested Spatialities, Lifestyle Migration and Residential Tourism (pp. 145–157). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, P. (2015). Mobility, Stasis and Transnational Kin: Western Later-Life Migrants in Southeast Asia. Asian Studies Review, 39(4), 669–685.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, M. (2014). “We Gained a Lot Over What We Would Have Had”: The Geographic Arbitrage of America’s Lifestyle Migrants to Cuenca, Ecuador. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(12), 1953–1971.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, M. (2015a). Moving South: The Economic Motives and Structural Context of North America’s Emigrants in Cuenca, Ecuador. Mobilities, 10(2), 267–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, M. (2015b). “It Is Hard Being the Different One All the Time”: Gringos and Racialized Identity in Lifestyle Migration to Ecuador. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(6), 943–958.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, M. (2018). Gringolandia. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, R. W. (2008). Western Retirees in Thailand: Motives, Experiences, Wellbeing, Assimilation and Future Needs. Ageing & Society, 28(2), 145–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huete, R., & Mantecón, A. (2012). Residential Tourism or Lifestyle Migration: Social Problems Linked to the Non-Definition of the Situation. In P. Burns (Ed.), Controversies in Tourism (pp. 160–171). Oxford: CABI.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Knowles, C., & Harper, D. (2009). Hong Kong: Migrant Lives, Landscapes and Journeys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kunz, S. (2016). Privileged Mobilities: Locating the Expatriate in Migration Scholarship. Geography Compass, 10(3), 89–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Long, M. (2017a). Tourists Can Still Stay for 180 Days in Panama Not 90 as Previously Reported. Panama for Beginners. Retrieved May 4, 2017, from http://panamaforbeginners.com/tourists-can-still-stay-180-days-panama-not-90-previously-reported/.

  • Long, M. (2017b). Panama Restricts Costa Rica Border Runs in Effort to Crack Down on Perpetual Tourists. Panama for Beginners. Retrieved May 4, 2017, from http://panamaforbeginners.com/panama-restricts-costa-rica-border-runs-in-effort-to-crack-down-on-perpetual-tourists/.

  • Long, M. (2017c). Tourists Now Required to Leave Panama for a Minimum of 30 Days Before Returning. Panama for Beginners. Retrieved May 4, 2017, from http://panamaforbeginners.com/tourists-now-required-leave-panama-minimum-30-days-returning/.

  • McWatters, M. (2009). Residential Tourism:(De)Constructing Paradise. Bristol: Channel View Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, E. (2009). What Becomes of Boquete: Transformation, Tension and the Consequences of Residential Tourism in Panama. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Ohio University.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, K. (2000). The British on the Costa del Sol. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, K. (2007). Intra-European Migration and the Mobility-Enclosure Dialectic. Sociology, 41(2), 277–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, K. (2009). The Children of the Hunters: Self-Realisation Projects and Class Reproduction. In M. Benson & K. O’Reilly (Eds.), Lifestyle Migration: Expectations, Aspirations and Experiences (pp. 103–120). Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, K. (2017). The British on the Costa Del Sol Twenty Years On: A Story of Liquids and Sediments. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 7(3), 139–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliver, C. (2011). The Global Governance of Lifestyle Migration. In A. Betts (Ed.), Global Migration Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ono, M. (2008). Long-Stay Tourism and International Retirement Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia. Senri Ethnological Reports, 77, 151–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ono, M. (2014). Commoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia. Mobilities, 10, 609–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ormond, M. (2013). Neoliberal Governance and International Medical Travel in Malaysia. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rudolf, G. (2014). Desarrollo, ¿para quién y hasta cuándo? Canto Rodado, 9, 85–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sigler, T. (2014). Panama’s Special Economic Zones: Balancing Growth and Development. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 33(1), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spalding, A. (2011). Re-Making Lives Abroad: Lifestyle Migration and Socio-Environmental Change in Bocas del Toro. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of California, Santa Cruz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stones, R. (2005). Structuration Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Toyota, M. (2006). Ageing and Transnational Householding: Japanese Retirees in Southeast Asia. International Development Planning Review, 28(4), 18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toyota, M., & Xiang, B. (2012). The Emerging Transnational “Retirement Industry” in Southeast Asia. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 32(11/12), 708–719.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Velásquez Runk, J. (2012). Indigenous Land and Environmental Conflicts in Panama: Neoliberal Multiculturalism, Changing Legislation, and Human Rights. Journal of Latin American Geography, 11(2), 21–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, A., & Walker, C. (Eds.). (1997). Britain Divided: The Growth of Social Exclusion in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Child Poverty Action Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, K., & Musa, G. (2013). Medical Tourism in Asia: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and India. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, K. M., & Musa, G. (2014). Retirement Motivation Among ‘Malaysia My Second Home’ Participants. Tourism Management, 40, 141–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Benson, M., O’Reilly, K. (2018). Governance as Practice: Regulating Lifestyle Migration. In: Lifestyle Migration and Colonial Traces in Malaysia and Panama. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51158-4_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51158-4_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51157-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51158-4

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics