REFUGEES' TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITY: A STUDY OF ASYLUM SEEKING IN HONG KONG AND URBAN THAILAND

Based on qualitative interviews conducted between 2011 and 2013 with urban refugees in the first asylum ports of Hong Kong and Thailand, this study examines three inter-related dimensions in refugee migration: aspirations, practices and embodiment. It demonstrates what actually happens in the asylum seeking process, from home to host destinations, and the cultural process of becoming a refugee. Travelling abroad is not merely a matter of crossing the border at an immigration checkpoint. Rather, the participants in this research have to fashion themselves as potential legitimate travellers or smuggled persons in the making of exits and entrances. This article shows how they make use of their local and transnational social connections for making both legal and illegal exits and entrances, and how the embodied experience of cross-border movement influence their perception of being refugee.