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.
Ⅲ This article offers an ethnographic investigation of contemporary capitalist discourses about entrepreneurship by exploring the expanse of the direct sales industry into Thailand. Direct selling is a century-old merchandising approach that developed in the United States as an 'alternative' form of capitalism. Since the 1980s, the direct sales approach of Amway, Avon, and other firms has become increasingly globalized and has achieved some success in Thailand. This article demonstrates the implication of local meanings and social hierarchies for the translation of entrepreneurial rhetoric into Thai contexts through the case studies of two direct sales distributors in Bangkok. This ethnographic exploration of the production and reception of discourses about entrepreneurial self-help offers a cardinal illustration of the cultural processes of post-Fordist capitalism.
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