LAUSR

SCHOLARS HAVE ARGUED that mobility is one of the key processes of globalization (Urry 2002; Sassen 2000; Elliot and Urry 2010) and is connected to the increase in international travel. As travelers can witness at international airports, citizenship and identification papers have a great influence on the ease of travel. While people holding passports of the wealthy or befriended countries can often breeze through custom checks, often using fully automated systems such as “e-gates,” citizens of poor and politically fragile countries, particularly from South and South-East Asia, the Middle East and Africa, generally require a travel visa to enter and have to queue up in long rows at the border. This seems to mirror a structural inequality in immigration and travel rights: travel visas are generally required for citizens of countries in the “Global South” who are often perceived by government officials and policy makers in the “Global North” as an immigration risk in terms of their potential to seek asylum seekers or to overstay their visas, or perceived as a security risk in terms of their potential to threaten public life as criminals or terrorists. However, the perception of a North-South mobility divide may reflect a Western or Eurocentric perspective and a bias created by the fact that Westerners mainly travel through Western airports where they may face only minor travel constraints. Realities seem to be more complex than this dichotomous representation. For instance, European citizens or North Americans travelling to sub-Saharan Africa and countries including Russia, China, and India often need visas to do so and may find themselves queuing at borders too. While citizens of regional blocs such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union (EU), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the South African Development Community (SADC) enjoy free intra-regional travel, travelers from Europe and other third countries may well need an entry visa. This suggests that