Encounters with borders

This article examines (im)obility in the global visa regime through the experiences of a Global South academic working in the Global North. Drawing on an autoethnographic account of a visa application, this article outlines the ways in which the global visa regime negatively affects a Global South academic’s life. Visa regulations constitute a particular Global South academic subject in the Global North, one whose academic career is characterised by uncertainty and anxiety, as visas can limit access to promotions and to fieldwork and research opportunities. Visa experiences can thus contribute to alienation and non-belonging of Global South scholars in academia, while impacting knowledge production and teaching.

Travellers’ Satisfaction on the Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Malaysia’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is perceived as being able to transform tourism and hospitality industry’s operations into a greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness while offering travellers unique experiences. This study examines travellers’ satisfaction of AI applications, specifically through e-Hailing, e-Wallet, e-Gate and e-Visa in the tourism and hospitality industry in Malaysia. Quantitative research approach was adopted in the current study. Data was gathered from 200 respondents using self-administrative questionnaires. Local and foreign travellers of age 18 and above who had past travel experience were chosen as samples. The findings indicated that e-Hailing, e-Gate and e-Wallet significantly influence travellers’ satisfaction. However, the outcome shows that e-Visa application has no relationship with travellers’ satisfaction. This study helps to strengthen the tourism ministry’s current initiatives in boosting the tourism and hospitality industry in Malaysia. The outcome of the study might be of interest to the policy makers and regulators to improve on the applications of AI in tourism and hospitality in Malaysia.

Impacts of Visa Policy on Inbound Tourism in Kazakhstan

Every destination in the world tries to create affordable conditions for tourists to get the maximum benefit from international tourism and one of these conditions is accessibility, which refers to the visa policy of a country. An effective and appropriate visa policy makes travel destinations more attractive and easily accessible to visit. This research focuses on the visa policy of Central Asian country – the Republic of Kazakhstan and reveals several problems related to it, such as lack of information on the visa application process, especially on e-visa, raw systemized visa and migration portal, a long list of visa-needed countries, plenty of refusals in invitation letters by Migration Police and existence of huge visa restrictions for some countries. The current visa policy makes the Republic of Kazakhstan less open to foreigners and less competitive among other countries. Based on a literature review on visa policy and its effects on the economy and tourism sector in a destination and by using comparative analysis of visa policies of two Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, several problems that affect inbound tourism, as well as recommendations for improvement of visa policy for Kazakh government are discussed in this research.

Selectively permeable national borders: An ethnographic study of a pre-entry TB screening centre

Background The securitisation of borders against the threat of invading microbes, carried by immigrant bodies, is not a new phenomenon. Tuberculosis (TB), transmitted through coughing, has been a core member of the infectious diseases deemed important to control for more than a century. Following evidence suggesting airport screening for TB using chest x-rays was ad hoc, ineffective and costly, the UK - following in the footsteps of other high-income, low TB-burden countries - moved to pre-entry screening of migrants for TB. Thus the 'biosecuritisation' of immigrant bodies was shifted off-shore. Since 2014, pre-entry screening for TB has been a mandatory part of the visa application system for those moving to the UK for a period of 6 months or longer from high-incidence countries. This ethnographic study explores how pre-entry screening is experienced by migrants. Methods Data was drawn from a project exploring migrants' experiences of accessing healthcare. This involved a focused ethnography, comprising 180 hours of field work over four weeks including interviews with clients and staff, in a pre-entry TB screening centre in India in 2017. During this time over 1000 individuals were screened for active pulmonary TB as part of their visa application. In addition, 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with migrants diagnosed with TB in the UK. Foucault's concept 'governmentality' and sociological theories of bordering were used alongside thematic analysis to analyse the data. Results This study reveals the previously undocumented harms experienced by individuals who are required to undergo pre-entry screening for TB. Through the 'biosecuritisation' of some, but not all, off-shore bodies; some, but not all, off-shore TB; some, but not all, infectious diseases; pre-entry screening becomes a border force, reinforcing global inequities and racialised hierarchies. In this context, I argue pre-entry screening makes UK citizens live while letting 'others' die. Key messages Pre-entry screening marks migrants as ‘other’ in a global, racialised, hierarchy of TB risk that ignores intra-country heterogeneity, obfuscating solutions that might reduce inter-country inequities. The global health security agenda must consider the experiences of those caught up in its policies and practices in order to ensure disease control does not do more harm than good.

Palestine and the Habeas Viscus

Borders have been a political tool to control, manipulate and affect the lives and movements of individual and groups. These borders can also work as a barrier designed and used to discriminate against specific ethnic, religious, or linguistic groups and individuals for political reasons. In specific cases, borders can create a generation of exception, where the lives of a particular group of individuals matter less than others. The Palestinians in Gaza have been living in a state of exception, where their lives have been animalized and constrained both within the Gaza Strip, but also outside the Gaza Strip, at border points of entry in many places. This paper is an auto-ethnography of the lives of Palestinians as a state of exception, visa violence, airports and borders. It examines and describes, as an anthropological phenomenon, experiences such as visa application processes, rejection, travel and encounters with border officials. The article starts with describing the state of exception of a generation who were born and grew up under Israeli occupation. The paper then examines and analyzes the process and ritual of travelling as a quasi-citizen through various border points of entry. This article is an anthropological narrative of how a continuous state of exception and profiling of an individual creates a homo-sacer man.

Marriage and Marriageability

How do the Japanese men and Chinese women who participate in cross-border matchmaking—individuals whose only interaction is often just one brief meeting—come to see one another as potential marriage partners? This book traces the practices of Sino-Japanese matchmaking from transnational marriage agencies in Tokyo to branch offices and language schools in China, from initial meetings to marriage, the visa application processes, and beyond to marital life in Japan. Engaging issues of colonial history, local norms, and the very ability to conceive of another or oneself as marriageable, the book rethinks cross-border marriage not only as a form of gendered migration, but also as a set of practices that constructs marriageable partners and imaginable marriages. The book shows that instead of desiring different others, these transnational marital relations are based on the tactical deployment of socially and historically created conceptions of proximity between Japan and northeast China. Far from seeking to escape local practices, participants in these marriages actively seek to avoid transgressing local norms. By doing so on a transnational scale, they paradoxically reaffirm and attempt to remain within the boundaries of local marital ideologies.

Virtual Embassy Portal: The Future of Travel

As the advent of travel continues to increase, tourism continues to expand, becoming the fastest growing economic activity globally. In order to travel internationally, one needs a passport and in many cases a visa is required. Currently, in order to apply for a visa, consumers have to complete and submit an application: online application completion and submission, visit a website to download the application form(s), physically visit an embassy/consulate, or utilize the services of a third party company to submit the application. Thereafter, there is a great chance the consumer might have to appear in person at the consulate/embassy for an in-person interview. There is a need to streamline the visa application process so that it is more efficient for both applicants as well as embassies. This paper aims to fill the gap by introducing the Virtual Embassy concept. This concept promises to bring all embassies to an applicant’s fingertip while making embassies more efficient in the process. The Virtual Embassy enables individuals to complete one application form which can be disseminated virtually to one or more consulate(s) of choice, without requiring extensive travel to embassies, or to manually complete multiple visa application forms.

Effectiveness, Risks and Prospects of Legal Regulation and Practical Functioning of Electronic Visas in Saudi Arabia and Ukraine

The Electronic visa legislative regulation is one of the highest priorities in the country's migration, security and visa policies. The purpose of this study is to compare the legal aspects of visa policy making in the process of issuing electronic visas in Ukraine and in Saudi Arabia, and to identify the distinctive and common features of this type of visa, legislative features, practical aspects, taking into account the specific national legislation of these countries; elicit the disadvantages and perspectives of e-visa. Over a period of 3 months, about 100 Saudi and 20 Ukrainian respondents were interviewed to identify the pros and cons of existing e-visa regulations in both countries. As a results of the research, the hypothesis put forward regarding the fact that in the next 5-10 years, e-visas will almost completely replace the visa application for obtaining short-term visas through diplomatic institutions. It was established that this required the creation of a more simplified and faster way to obtain an e-visa, while not losing ground in matters of state security and migration. As a result of comparison it has been established that service of electronic visas in Ukraine was launched one and a half years earlier than in Saudi Arabia, which enabled her to secure more completely the situation and take into account the nuances of the legislative level; the amount of the visa fee for applying for an electronic visa established by Ukraine and Saudi Arabia is acceptable for most applicants, although in comparison with a visa-free or one-time electronic authorization fee for several years, these amounts are large.

TCS: ‘Hazir SubKuch’—Making Everything Present

The case describes the journey of TCS as it became Pakistan’s leading logistics service provider. It highlights how and when TCS acquired different logistics and other value-adding capabilities and how these capabilities, in turn, complimented the diverse logistics services that TCS offered to a wide variety of businesses. TCS had been offering a top-notch Express and Logistics service around Pakistan for 30 years. TCS started as a company providing secure distribution of letters and packages. Customers perceived TCS as a shipping solution provider for all their goods transportation needs which included parcels, documents, E-commerce products and even their groceries. Table 1 of the case study highlights that TCS had taken up some unique and new initiatives. TCS handled four main clientele areas: Corporate, Consumer, International and E-commerce. For consumer wing, TCS oversaw bookings of documents and parcels at the express centres, door-to-door containerized shipments, domestic and international air ticketing, visa application drop box facility for various countries and financial services in the form of insurance plans. On the corporate side, TCS provided warehousing and distribution, digital printing and bulk mail solutions. International and e-commerce both catered consumer and corporate segments. Over the last decade, TCS had established a warehousing and distribution wing and a mail management and printing facility. Other ventures and services that TCS offered were Visatronix, Hazir, Home Movers, E-COM, TCS Aviation, Mail Management System, Warehouse and Distribution, Intiana, Sentiments express and Octra. The case focusses on the decision of whether or not to run an ambitious new logistics service, that is, Hazir SubKuch (HSK), meant to deliver anything non-prohibited that a customer wanted, on a crowdsourcing model. In the proposed crowdsourcing model, after training and evaluation, anyone could assume the role of a customer service provider by connecting to the system remotely. Similarly, pickup and delivery jobs could be performed under an Uber-like model by anyone who owned a ride and had smartphone connectivity. The service was a brainchild of the new CEO, hired by the founder and chairman as part of the new management team to bring a fresh dynamism in the company.