Medical tourism describes a new pattern of movement of people for medical care, particularly from wealthier to poorer countries. Using the example of Thailand, where annually a million non-Thai patients seek medical treatment, this article provides a critical analysis of the political economic contexts for this medical migration. Drawing on urban geography and heterodox economics, the article considers medical tourism as an interaction of bodily, national, and global scales shaped by processes of globalization. This approach provides a thick context for (...) the transnational care of bodies while proposing that the bodily scale also has a role in reformulating the scale of the nation. (shrink)

This essay investigates the political economy of sexuality through an interpretation of sex shows for foreigners in Bangkok, Thailand. Reading these performances as both symptoms of, and analytical commentaries on, Western consumer desire, the essay suggests the ‘pussy shows’ parody the mass production that was a hallmark of Western masculine identity under Fordism. This reading makes a case for the erotic generativity of capitalism, illuminating how Western, post-Fordist political economy of the post-1970s generated demand for these erotic services in Asia (...) and how Western, heterosexual masculine desire is integrated into global capitalist circuits. (shrink)