Intersecting socio-legal regimes and (in)securities: Belgian migrants confronting legal and health challenges in Thailand

Studies on socio-legal experiences of migrants are most often examined in the context of South-North migrations, unveiling situations of marginality and precariousness. This scholarly tendency overlooks the plight of many North-South migrants, who may also experience difficulties accessing stable legal status and social security in their receiving countries in the “Global South”. Through an intersectional approach, this presentation aims to unpack these migrants’ socio-legal experiences and illuminate their tactics to face varying challenges in their receiving countries. As a case study, it analyses the situation of Belgian men in Thailand, specifically their encounters with this country’s migration and social security regimes. Drawing from observations and interviews conducted in Thailand and Belgium between 2018 and 2020, it unveils how Thailand’s migration and care regimes intersect, engendering legal precarity and health (in)security on the lives of Belgian men. It also reveals how these migrants confront these regimes through different individual and collective tactics. The intersecting categories of age, social class, racialised identity, and legal status linked to migration and family situation shape their experiences at the micro level, whereas social networks and legal consciousness seem to influence them at the meso and macro levels.