Migrant populations are often viewed in terms of alterity despite being settled members of communities. The image of migrants in many western contexts is one of being poor or ethnically and religiously different. This image in turn often frames migrants as being non-local. However, in reality, the local is not perceived and constructed through predetermined or essentialist subjectivity but through processes of constructing and negotiating borders of identity and place that incite people to shift between subject positions of local/visitor, host/guest, or tourist/migrant. This paper problematises the rigidity of social positions that underpin images of migrant populations as the other by examining the visiting friends and relatives (or VFR) practices of migrant residents in Malmö, Sweden. Whereas many studies of VFR build on a tourism-migration dialectic and focus on migrants, this study uses mobility politics as an analytical lens to examine both migrant residents and their friends and family. This focus sheds light on how family and friend's mobility politics are connected to the perception and construction of the local, local selves, and others. The research findings demonstrate that migrant residents are not the other but are an embedded part of the city regularly attracting visitors to the area. Furthermore, during visits, lines between host and guest, migrant and tourist, and visitor and local are blurred. Residents and visitors, guided by the rules of hospitality, attribute new embodied meanings to tourist and migrant mobilities that strengthen and bound the imaginations of residents and visitors to transnational networks. The conclusions from the study also help shed light on migrant integration and potential avenues for working with integration in the future.

“Visiting friends and relatives” (VFR) is a tourism term used in academic and practitioner vernacular that refers to a substantial amount of activity and is yet commonly disregarded. This paper builds on previous literature that has demonstrated how a lack of understanding of what VFR encompasses facilitates the phenomenon to be undervalued and misunderstood. Without a clear conceptual definition, VFR continues to be presented with inconsistent and conflicting parameters, which creates discursive confusion rather than clarity and appreciation. This is important as tourism is often presented as a positive force for economic development in a wide range of communities, and VFR is almost routinely overlooked with high‐yield (hotel consuming) markets favoured; this is despite a growing body of literature that has explored the sustainability and positive community impacts of VFR activity and potential. A review of existing definitional work on VFR is provided, and a new conceptual definition is offered. Mobility influenced by a host is first distinguished from other forms of human movement; VFR is then positioned as a form of mobility influenced by a host that includes face‐to‐face interaction between a host and visitor who have a preexisting relationship. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Tourism is central to late-modern life, and tourism research that threatens this centrality is prone to media attention. Framed by sociotechnical transitions theory, we introduce the concept of ‘shadowcasting’ to show how tourism knowledge disseminated through the media, combined with public comments on its reporting, cast shadows that co-constitute imagined futures. We illustrate shadowcasting through a mixed method approach that demonstrates how media reporting and public comments on a recent paper on autonomous vehicles in tourism emerged and diverged from the original paper. Our findings reveal that issues around sex and terrorism were sensationalised, generating diverse public discourses that challenge linear visions of future transport efficiency. Our concluding discussion indicates other tourism research contexts that are most inclined to shadowcasting.

Most research on visits focuses on (semi)successful connections that equate valued intimacy to adaptation to transnational life and ethno-national kin obligations. In contrast, we highlight important migrant relationships where adaptation is minimal and contact diminishes, yet they also take on heightened affective intensity. Drawing from a multi-sited ethnography that includes migrants and friends and family, we examine the affective and ethical dimensions of visits and ICTs (information and communications technology) within the personal relationships of highly skilled Italian migrants in London. Deploying the concepts cruel optimism and polyrhythmia, the paper examines how contrasting rhythms of visits and ICTs provoke reflections and feelings on whether intimacies at a distance are 'real' . Despite difficulties, informants suggest intimacies 'feel normal' , imbuing relations with hope for their authenticity that grounds relations in a state of mobile impasse:where feelings of normalcy lead to less interest in recreating connections yet also constructs hope that sustains visits and digital connections.

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