Disrupted Geographic Arbitrage and Differential Capacities of Coping in Later-Life: Anglo-Western Teacher Expatriates in Brunei

Abstract

North-South migration by relatively privileged skilled or lifestyle/retirement migrants has been analyzed, using the concept of geographic arbitrage (i.e., the use of North-South migration as a cross-border social maintenance or advancement strategy). However, little research has examined what happens when such projects are prematurely disrupted in later life. This article addresses this gap by drawing on interviews with 25 Anglo-Western teacher expatriates in Brunei. While these “middling” expatriates have been able to capitalize on their positions as desirable native English-speaking teachers to kickstart or continue their expatriation, recent shifts in Brunei’s political economy, coupled with its exclusionary citizenship and immigration policies, have posed unforeseen disruptions to their original geographic arbitrage projects. By examining individuals’ differential capacities to cope with this unexpected situation in later life, this article urges migration scholars to be attentive to individual circumstances (e.g., age, marital and familial situations, migration history) that produce in-group mobility inequalities. This focus adds nuance and texture to the geographic arbitrage thesis.

Keywords

later-life teacher expatriates geographic arbitrage Brunei

Introduction

Since 2000, there has been an expansion of the global market for international school education: the number of English-medium international schools has tripled to 11,451, while student numbers have grown six-fold to 5.8 million and staff numbers five-fold to 554,000 (Merriman 2020). This global market is now generating US$54.8 billion in yearly fee income, with Asia constituting 56.8 percent of the global demand for international school education (Merriman 2020). Indeed, countries in Asia often desire English or Anglo-Western education — and, by extension, Anglo-Western teachers — as both are equated with quality education and seen as a means to help internationalize the domestic economy and workforce (Phan 2016).

In this article, I use the term “teacher expatriates” in reference to migrant teachers working in the abovementioned industry. As I later discuss, the term “expatriate,” often differentiated from the term “migrant,” comes with racialized assumptions (Kunz 2020; Koh and Sin 2020). Although using the label “expatriate” risks reproducing a reified understanding of it (Kunz 2016), I chose to do so for two reasons. First, the term is used locally in Brunei — the study context — by the government, the media, the general public and such teachers themselves (Barry 2011), including the respondents in this study. Second, I want to contribute to recent migration scholarship that problematizes the notion of privilege that is often associated with the label “expatriate” (e.g., Fechter and Walsh 2010; Kunz 2020; Koh and Sin 2020) and that highlights differentiation within the category (Botterill 2017; Benson and O’Reilly 2018). Drawing on interviews with 25 Anglo-Western teacher expatriates in Brunei, I demonstrate that there are limits to the degree and durability of relative privilege that they enjoy, especially in later life (i.e., mid-40s to late 60s). To develop this argument, I bring together the literatures on (teacher) expatriates and later-life migration, which I briefly review below, and the emergent literature on geographic arbitrage — the use of migration to capitalize on North-South socio-economic divides as a way to maintain socio-economic advantage (Hayes 2014; Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017).

The literature on teacher expatriates has largely focused on young North-South migrants at the initial stages of their expatriating teaching careers (Collins 2014). This body of work has analyzed their forays into international teaching as volunteer/backpack tourism (Stainton 2018), lifestyle migration (Codó 2018), or part of their journeys toward attaining adulthood (Collins and Shubin 2015). Despite Codó’s point that there is “a complex humanscape of relocators of different ages, trajectories and aspirations” in the international teaching industry (2018, 436, original emphasis), the literature on teacher expatriates, to date, has not given due attention to later-life teacher expatriates.¹

The literature on older and later-life migrants, on the other hand, has focused almost exclusively on aging-related issues such as retirement, health, care arrangements, and social welfare policies in selected contexts such as Europe, the United States, and Asia (e.g., Walters 2002; Warnes and Williams 2006; Oliver 2008; Ciobanu, Fokkema, and Nedelcu 2017; Ciobanu and Hunter 2017). A theme in this literature examines the macro-structures and micro-experiences of later-life mobilities, with studies focusing on specific groups of later-life migrants such as singles (Sampaio 2018), women (Gambold 2013; Escrivá and Vianello 2016; Lulle and King 2016), and the “old old” (Ormond and Toyota 2016) who use migration as a strategy to cope with their needs and aspirations during their later-life stage. However, this body of work has not examined teacher expatriates as a specific group of later-life migrants.

The strategic use of North-South migration by relatively privileged skilled or lifestyle/retirement migrants as a cross-border social maintenance or advancement strategy has been described by Hayes and his colleagues as “geographic arbitrage” (Hayes 2014; Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017). Hayes (2014, 1962) defines geographic arbitrage as a practice where “earnings are gained at ‘high latitudes’ of the global division of labour…and day-to-day expenses are transferred to lower-cost locations.” This practice, Hayes argues, is “a new form of transnational agency” (2014, 1954) for North-South migrants who face the neoliberal erosion of socio-economic life in their home countries. Since this practice has been used predominantly by North-South migrants, Hayes and Pérez-Gañán (2017, 117) highlight that “the symbolic and economic power of privileged global social positions are increasingly moved across borders to take advantage of emerging individual arbitrage opportunities in a globalized social field.” Indeed, by taking advantage of North-South inequalities, North-South migrants are able to live “like the King and Queen” (Bell 2017) in their host countries in the Global South.

To be sure, geographic arbitrage is a powerful thesis that rightly captures the enduring structural inequalities and colonial continuities that have accorded relatively privileged North-South migrants transnational agency in accessing “the good life” (Benson and O’Reilly 2018, 169–196) in their Global South host countries. However, I argue that this political economy framing may present an overly homogenous and normative portrayal of North-South migration. Specifically, this approach obscures the fact that individuals have differential capacities, even if they are relatively privileged and have transitional agency, in their pursuit of geographic arbitrage. What happens when individual geographic arbitrage projects are prematurely disrupted at the later-life stage? How do individual migrants seeking geographic arbitrage negotiate unexpected turn of events in later life, at a time when their migration options may be curtailed as a result of being older? In short, what if there are limits to geographic arbitrage, especially in the later-life stage?

This article addresses these questions through a case study of Anglo-Western teacher expatriates in Brunei. Centering on individual circumstances, it extends and enriches the geographic arbitrage thesis by examining individuals’ differential capacities of coping with the unexpected disruption of their geographic arbitrage projects in later life. It argues that while geographic arbitrage can and does lend relative advantage to North-South migrants, there are limits to the degree and durability of this advantage, especially in later life. In doing so, this article urges migration scholars to be attentive to individual circumstances (e.g., age, marital and familial situations, migration history) that produce in-group mobility inequalities.

Theoretical Context

(Teacher) Expatriates

The term “expatriate” is typically used in reference to “European or North American nationals who move abroad, mostly for work-related reasons, including to countries which were former colonies” (Fechter and Walsh 2010, 1199). Due to its origins in colonial contexts (Fechter 2007; Kunz 2016), the term is imbued with a racialized colonial baggage of (white) privilege and eliteness that has contributed to its questionable binary distinction from the category “migrant” (Kunz 2020; Koh and Sin 2020). More recent migration scholarship, however, has highlighted that the uncritical notion of privilege associated with the term “expatriate” obscures the internal differentiation, inequalities, and asymmetries within the group labeled as such (Botterill 2017; Benson and O’Reilly 2018).

Indeed, scholars have noted that some expatriates are, in fact, “middling” transnationals (Conradson and Latham 2007) who are positioned between elite transnationals (e.g., corporate/business expatriates) and (low-skilled) migrant labor in the migrant hierarchy. Teacher expatriates, for example, belong to this group of middling transnationals in terms of their socio-economic capital, occupational, and migration status (Bunnell 2017; Tarc et al. 2019). Moreover, international exposure, presumably attained through international teaching (Bense 2016, 46– 47), is thought to contribute to cosmopolitanism, an often marketized aspect of international school education (Hayden 2012). However, this “mobility imperative” (Cairns et al. 2017) (i.e., the assumed necessity for teacher expatriates to be globally mobile) is not usually accompanied by institutionalized support (Bense 2016, 44-46). In other words, individual teacher expatriates (and their families) must shoulder the financial, emotional, and psychological burdens of their mobile lives (Poole 2020; Tarc et al. 2019). For example, as a result of their global mobilities, such teachers may lose out on place-based social security protections, and their multiple cross-border moves require constant adjustments to new cultures and the loss of social network support (Lam 2013).

Bunnell (2016, 545) has argued that “teaching abroad is a precarious situation with considerable risks and pitfalls,” noting in particular the uncertainties and insecurities that teacher expatriates face due to the lack of standardization in regulatory measures and employment protection in different teaching contexts. He further notes that the international schooling industry as a whole lacks “universal contracts, pay, access to health care, bargaining and union rights, or pension” (2016, 547). Poole (2020) concurs but also suggests that teacher expatriates develop “resilience capital” to cope with setbacks and precarious experiences. As he explains (2020, 229),

Resilience capital is produced when teachers take a more positive attitude towards negative or precarious experiences, utilising them in order to develop skills, dispositions and endurance which also can be converted into more traditional economic and cultural forms of capital.

However, as mentioned earlier, these studies on teacher expatriates have not examined those who are in their later-life stages. To what extent can later-life teacher expatriates develop “reserves of resilience…that would make them more employable” (Poole 2020, 234) when they are arguably at the tail end of their careers? Codó (2018, 448) has highlighted that the international teaching industry is one that “expects docile and inexperienced bodies, and…where nativeness enables quick access to jobs, but only to…temporary ones”. Arguably, young(er) teacher expatriates can tap into their youth, inexperience, and capacity (and flexibility) to be mobile as their “reserves of resilience” to mitigate against precarious situations of “permanent temporariness” (Bailey et al. 2002). The same, however, cannot be said of teacher expatriates in their later-life stage, when they may not have the luxury of time or the resources and capacity to endure prolonged unemployment, undertake early retirement, or move across industries and countries so easily.

The Limits of Geographic Arbitrage

To a certain extent, teacher expatriates’ global mobility trajectories can be understood through the concept of geographic arbitrage (Hayes 2014; Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017), which suggests that relatively privileged migrants take advantage of the structural inequalities between the Global North and Global South in their mobility projects. In this portrayal, expatriation can be seen as “an active strategy…to address and ameliorate perceived life chances” (Faist et al. 2015, 193), particularly in the contemporary context of economic crises and the increasing withdrawal of state welfarism in the Global North. In addition to economic and lifestyle gains such as opportunities to enjoy higher purchasing power, lower costs of living, and higher quality of life in destination countries in the Global South, teacher expatriates can “trade on their inherited colonial privileges” (Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017, 118) as desirable native-English-speaking teachers. Indeed, the preference for native-English-speaking teachers in certain destination countries contributes to the viability of geographic arbitrage projects for middling Anglo-Western teacher expatriates as they can convert “English as capital” (Barry 2011, 211) into employment, therefore building their careers and lives in the international teaching circuit.

Geographic arbitrage can also be used by later-life migrants, such as those who use international retirement migration “as a calculative alternative to aging ‘at home’” (Gambold 2013, 184). While terms such as “old age economic refugees” and “exported grannies” have been used to describe these retirement migrants (Ormond and Toyota 2016) and to highlight the economic precarities and old-age healthcare vulnerabilities that they face, the fact remains that these migrants can, and do, partake in geographic arbitrage to stretch their pension dollars in a less-developed destination country. The structural inequalities between the Global North and Global South enable such later-life migrants to use geographic arbitrage to capitalize on the material disparities in currency values, costs of living, and access to quality and affordable healthcare, as well as the immaterial disparities in social positions vis-à-vis local residents. Geographic arbitrage, therefore, allows them to enjoy a more comfortable life and a higher social status in the host country, which may not be possible had they remained in their home country (see Hayes 2014; Bell 2017).

However, “mobility reproduces inequality in new places and [in] new forms” (Botterill 2017, 10). New inequalities can develop as individuals’ geographic arbitrage projects intersect with various structuring forces during their mobile journeys across specific borders and in specific landing sites. With the passage of time and as more borders are crossed, privilege might be enhanced or disrupted, transformed or dissipated. In this way, then, the geographic arbitrage project is not static or universal, nor does it guarantee equal or predictable success as individuals’ circumstances and subjectivities inadvertently change in-migration. These changes, in turn, shape individual migrants’ capacities to cope with an unexpected turn of events. Indeed, among the same group of migrants, “there can be different forms of geographical mobility arrangements, related to different types of resources and their location as well as different ways of mobilising resources” (Bolzman, Kaeser, and Christe 2017, 13). For example, migrants’ capacities to accumulate and mobilize resources at particular junctures in time and across space may be contingent on their citizenship and social security status in their home and host contexts (Gehring 2017), as well as their familial constraints and responsibilities.

I therefore argue that we must be attentive to individuals’ differential capacities to participate in, actualize, and see through geographic arbitrage. In this article, I focus on the later-life stage to examine how individual circumstances (e.g., age, marital and familial situations, migration history) shape individuals’ differential capacities to be mobile and to actualize capital conversion to cope with unexpected disruptions of their geographic arbitrage projects. Doing so, I suggest, adds nuance and texture to the geographic arbitrage thesis.

Empirical Context

Migration and Citizenship in Brunei

Brunei is an Islamic monarchy country located on the northern coast of Borneo. Before gaining independence in 1984, it was a British protectorate. As we shall see later, this colonial connection has its remnants in Brunei’s postcolonial education policy, which privileges teacher expatriates originating from selected “native English speaking” countries. Brunei relies on foreign laborers, most of whom are on temporary and/or fixed-term contracts (Asato 2019). In Brunei the term “expatriate” is typically used to describe (Anglo-Western) skilled migrants and professionals, while the term “migrant” is normally associated with low-skilled foreign labor (Asato 2019). While expatriates are largely engaged in the private sector, including the oil and gas (O&G) industry, some are employed in the public sector as teachers and healthcare professionals (Anaman 2003, 25).

Citizenship in Brunei, based on the jus sanguinis (i.e., “right of blood”) principle, is seen as an exclusive privilege (Maxwell 2001, 190–201) usually acquired through patriarchal lineage. For example, acquisition of citizenship by operation of law is only possible if a person was born in Brunei, belongs to one of the officially recognized indigenous groups,² and has a father who is also a Brunei citizen belonging to an officially recognized indigenous group (Brunei Nationality Act 1962). By contrast, acquisition of citizenship through maternal lineage alone is not possible. While there are provisions for acquiring citizenship by registration or naturalization, the criteria are stringent, often requiring lengthy, cumulative periods of residence in Brunei (at least 15 or 20 years, respectively) and passing a citizenship test taken in the Malay language (Brunei Nationality Act 1962).

As a result, there have been claims by civil society organizations that Brunei’s stringent citizenship and permanent residence policies are, to a certain degree, discriminatory on the basis of race and gender (Stateless Network Asia Pacific et al. 2018). Generations of ethnic Chinese-Bruneians born and raised in Brunei, for example, remain stateless (Somjee and Somjee 1995), while permanent residence status is highly guarded, even for foreign spouses of Bruneian citizens and their locally born children, as is described later.

Teacher Expatriates in Brunei

Shortly after achieving independence, the Brunei government implemented its Bilingual Education Policy in 1985 in an effort to streamline the Malay- and English-medium schooling systems and to ensure that students attained a high level of bilingual language proficiency (Ministry of Education [MoE] Brunei Darussalam 2013, 5). Under this policy, all subjects at pre-school and early-primary levels were taught in Malay (except English language as a subject), while all subjects at the upper-primary level were taught in English (except for Malay language, Islamic religious knowledge, physical education, art, and history) (MoE Brunei Darussalam 2013, 9).

In 1984, in preparation for the Bilingual Education Policy, the Brunei government started working with CfBT Education Services (hereafter “CfBT”), the Brunei outpost of an educational charity based in the United Kingdom,³ to recruit native English speakers to teach in Brunei’s primary and secondary schools (Taylor 2009; Barry 2011). Only the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand are recognized by the Brunei government as source countries for native English speakers. While the first CfBT contract in 1984 was for 15 secondary school teachers (Taylor 2009, 38), the contract’s scope quickly expanded to about 200 teachers annually to teach in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions in Brunei (CfBT Education Services (B) Sdn Bhd [CfBT] 2006). Over the years, this arrangement has supplied a steady flow of teacher expatriates to Brunei. As CfBT teachers are employed as government employees, Brunei’s Ministry of Education (MoE) is heavily involved in the recruitment process. In addition to the CfBT-MoE recruitment arrangement for public schools, teacher expatriates are also employed directly by the two private international schools in Brunei. Nevertheless, as will be clear later, the expatriate package is relatively similar regardless of whether teacher expatriates were recruited as public or private school teachers.

It is under the broader citizenship and expatriate teacher recruitment regime outlined above that the Anglo-Western teacher expatriates who participated in this study were accorded guest worker entry into Brunei. Before turning to the analysis of their experiences, the next section explains the study methodology.

Methodology

This article draws on a larger research project on expatriates in Brunei, conducted during 2016 and 2017. I recruited participants using the snowball strategy by sending e-mail invitations through gatekeepers in employing organizations, embassies, and expatriate clubs. The overall sample consisted of 28 current expatriates (twenty teachers, one lecturer, one doctor, one O&G professional, four accompanying spouses to O&G professionals [including one teacher], and one accompanying spouse to a teacher) and four former expatriates (all teachers).⁴ All were Anglo-Westerners, with the exception of three Asians (one doctor and two accompanying spouses). To contextualize individual expatriates’ narratives, I also interviewed three representatives from employing organizations and selected embassies.

Most interviews took place in-person in cafes, restaurants, or respondents’ homes or offices. The majority of respondents were interviewed individually, although four married couples were interviewed jointly. Interviews with former expatriates were conducted through Skype. Respondents were asked about their expatriation trajectories, their reasons for coming to Brunei, their lived experiences in Brunei, and their future plans. Interviews ranged from 30 minutes to two hours, with most lasting an hour. Interview transcripts were supplemented with ethnographic notes recording my research observations and reflections. I used NVivo to analyze the data, using thematic coding.

At the onset of the project, I was not specifically seeking later-life teacher expatriates; this focus came about serendipitously as the research developed. Nineteen of the 25 teacher expatriates interviewed in this study were in their 40s to late 60s (Table 1

Table 1.

Respondents’ Demographic Profiles.

Variable		N	%
Gender
	Female	16	64.0
	Male	9	36.0
Age (years)
	31–40	6	24.0
	41–50	8	32.0
	51–60	7	28.0
	61 or older	4	16.0
Marital status
	Single	2	8.0
	Married without children	1	4.0
	Married with children	15	60.0
	Divorced with children	6	24.0
	Widowed with children	1	4.0
Citizenship
	Australia	6	24.0
	Canada	4	16.0
	New Zealand	7	28.0
	United Kingdom	6	24.0
	United States of America	2	8.0
Age at first expatriation
	21–30	6	24.0
	31–40	10	40.0
	41–50	6	24.0
	51–60	2	8.0
	61 or older	1	4.0
Primary reason for expatriation to Brunei
	Financial	8	32.0
	Lifestyle (expatriate package, travel)	8	32.0
	Mid-career crisis	3	12.0
	Empty nest	3	12.0
	Family (care responsibilities, accompanying spouse)	3	12.0
Years in Brunei
	1–5	15	60.0
	6–10	6	24.0
	11–15	–	–
	16–20	1	4.0
	21 or more	3	12.0

). What surprised me further was that nine embarked on their first expatriation when they were in their 40s to early 60s. The significant proportions of both groups sparked my curiosity: What compelled them to become later-life expatriates?

As I looked more closely at the teacher expatriates’ trajectories, I noticed similar migration circuits — circulations through selected countries in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates) and Asia (India, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand) before or after their stints in Brunei. I was intrigued: Where, and how, does Brunei fit into the circuit of countries through which Anglo-Western teacher expatriates circulate? Is Brunei particularly conducive for, or accepting of, later-life teacher expatriates? As the next section shows, answers to these questions lie in Brunei’s attractiveness as a destination for (later-life) teacher expatriates and the recruitment conditions set by Brunei’s MoE.

Why Brunei?

A Desirable Expatriation Destination

Recent shifts in the global economy and business practices have seen a reduction in the classic expatriate package, which typically includes a high salary relative to local hires, free or subsidized accommodation, family and healthcare benefits, international relocation costs, and annual return airfare for home visits (Economist Intelligence Unit [EIU] 2010). However, the classic expatriate package is still on offer in Brunei. According to CfBT representatives, “Brunei is incredibly consistent with expatriate packages,” and benefits are almost standardized across the country, irrespective of industry sector. Indeed, interviews with former expatriates confirmed that their expatriate packages in the 1990s and 2000s were the same as the current ones.

Expatriates are attracted to Brunei for a number of reasons. First, salaries (including the contract completion gratuity contributing an additional 17–25 percent of the contract salary) are tax free, and Brunei’s cost of living is relatively low, with heavily subsidized utilities and petrol (Oxford Business Group 2016b). As accommodation is also covered in the expatriate package, expatriates and their families live almost rent-free in large apartments and houses. As a result, they are able to accumulate significant financial savings and enjoy the luxury of space. As a CfBT representative put it,

The sort of key demographic who come here are parents with young children who are confronting the reality of “I won’t be able to afford a standard housing,” “I need schooling” — all those issues. And Brunei is quite rare on offering space. You can go and teach in Hong Kong, but it’s a very different way of living…. International school, lots of space, you can live in a house, you can have a car — Brunei is quite unusual in that regard.

Indeed, all respondents mentioned the financial attractiveness of the expatriate package in Brunei, although most quickly added that “it’s not really just for the money” (Grace, United Kingdom, early 50s, divorced). George (United Kingdom, in Brunei from his late 30s to early 40s), for example, said,

We had some financial issues in the UK. We lost money on our house, and my wife had been hit with an unexpected income tax bill. So financially, our heads were just below the surface of the water. It took us that first contract [in Brunei] to get us sort of properly solvent again, so it seemed silly to then give that up. I mean, financial reason wasn’t the only reason why we stayed. But the nature of the contract, with the gratuity you got and all that sort of stuff, did make it worthwhile.

Second, international school fees for expatriates’ school-going children are heavily subsidized through educational allowances, which are available for up to four children between the ages of 5 years and 21 years, and typically cover 90 percent of international school fees. This educational allowance is especially attractive for expatriate families as their children can enjoy an international school education at almost no cost. This schooling option would be “financially out-of-reach and/or outside [their] middle-class habitus” (Tarc et al. 2019, 668) had they remained in their home countries. In addition to the financial savings, many expatriate parents also emphasized that their children were able to attain a higher level of global mindedness and cosmopolitanism, forged especially through contact and friendships with fellow expatriate children from all over the world. Some expatriates, in fact, relocated to Brunei to “prolong their children’s childhood” (Jessica, United States, early 30s, married) or shelter their school-going children from what they perceived to be negative influences in schools in their home countries, such as alcohol, drugs, and teenage sex.

Third, since the majority of teacher expatriates are government employees, they enjoy heavily subsidized, almost free, public healthcare for themselves and their dependents. This health benefit is attractive for expatriates across all age groups, especially those who are giving birth, need long-term medical care, or are in their later-life stage. Private healthcare in Brunei is also accessible and relatively affordable in comparison to healthcare costs in many Anglo-Western countries. Sharon (United Kingdom, in Brunei with her teacher expatriate husband during their mid-to-late 30s), for example, recalled being “treated like a movie star” when she gave birth at the private hospital, where “the quality of healthcare was very good” and “the facilities were phenomenal.”

Fourth, Brunei’s location in Southeast Asia is favorable for expatriates who wanted to travel regionally. Budget airlines and easily accessed major international airports in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong offered possibilities for short- and long-haul flights to holiday destinations in Asia and beyond. Those who had family in Australia and New Zealand appreciated the proximity for more regular and affordable visits. Many expatriates also preferred and appreciated Brunei’s warm and predictable weather, especially compared to the cold winters in their origin countries.

Finally, expatriates were attracted to the simple lifestyle and good work-life balance they could enjoy in Brunei. Most respondents, especially those who had taught in the Middle East, spoke about how “teaching is easy” (Sophia, Australia, early 60s, single parent) in Bruneian schools, as “any sort of behavior issues could be minor compared to what [they] have to deal with [elsewhere]” (Emily, New Zealand, early 50s, single). Since domestic help was affordable and easily available, many expatriates employed live-in or part-time amahs (domestic workers) who also doubled as drivers who did school runs for them, further freeing up their time and energy to pursue lifestyle activities.

A Place for Later-Life Geographic Arbitrage

In addition to its attractiveness to expatriates, as explained earlier, Brunei is perhaps one of the few remaining places in the international teaching circuit for Anglo-Western teacher expatriates to partake in later-life geographic arbitrage. Since “international schooling is a very small community” (Angie and Simon, New Zealand, mid-40s, married couple), good expatriate teaching opportunities in particular destinations are often circulated through transnational personal networks. Indeed, a CfBT representative boasted that “in the international [teaching] circuit, we are very well known.” He further distinguished expatriate teaching in Brunei from “going and working in a language school for $300 in Thailand that is sort of accessible to many young people” and argued that “You live in Brunei, but really, it’s a real job. It’s not just like a kind of thing you do while travelling. It’s a really serious, full on, professional commitment.” The emphasis on this being a “real job,” not a “working holiday” for younger people without a commitment to the teaching profession, is underwritten into the recruitment criteria, as is discussed below.

On the demand side, Brunei’s educational policy, outlined earlier, created a market for native-English-speaking, experienced teachers from specific Anglo-Western countries. Working hand-in-hand with CfBT, Brunei’s MoE required incoming teacher expatriates to be accredited teachers with at least three years of post-accreditation teaching experience in their home country and experience teaching English as an additional language. As a CfBT representative explained, “to kind of do that, in most cases it’s actually five years [of teaching experience].” The Middle East “has tended to be a place where people get their first experience,” as schools in the region “have been hiring huge numbers of teachers and have not been that fussy about who they hire.” Teacher expatriates in Brunei also relocated from East and Central Asian countries with “big native speaker schemes,” such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. The existence of these schemes is a key enabler for these teacher expatriates’ geographic arbitrage projects in the international teaching circuit. For example, a teacher expatriate could build a lifelong career out of circulating through a number of Global South countries where his/her embodied native speaker capital can be converted into employment and residence at each destination, therefore fueling the geographic arbitrage project over a longer timeframe and across multiple locations.

In addition to the criteria for qualified and experienced teachers, Brunei’s exclusionary citizenship and immigration policies meant that teacher expatriates were kept “permanently temporary” (Piper and Withers 2018, 582) — that is, as temporary guest workers on one- to three-year expatriate visas without any guarantee of longer-term employment or any real pathway toward permanent residence. On the one hand, such exclusionary policies offered Brunei’s MoE and CfBT the flexibility to retain or replace teacher expatriates through the use of fixed- and short-term contracts and work visas. On the other hand, this de-facto guest-worker system ironically offered opportunities for new cohorts of experienced, later-life teacher expatriates to kickstart or continue their geographic arbitrage projects in Brunei, as the existing cohorts of teacher expatriates could be constantly and easily replaced. Brunei’s selective recruitment criteria effectively excluded younger cohorts of teachers from gaining entry into the country’s teacher expatriate market, keeping it a perfect place for “inner circle native English speaking teachers” (CfBT representative) to partake in later-life geographic arbitrage.

On the supply side, a range of sector-specific and/or personal factors resulted in mid- and late-career teachers seeking overseas positions. In terms of the sector-specific factors, respondents like Tom (Australia, late 50s, single) spoke about being “squeezed out” of the shrinking teaching industry back home, which led to “a whole lot of teachers going overseas to continue working in that area.” Others spoke about mid-life career crisis or disillusionment with the teaching industry and education system back home. For example, John (United Kingdom, early 40s, married) felt that “teaching jobs in the UK have become diabolical,” and Patrick (United Kingdom, mid-50s, married to Bruneian wife) observed that “a lot of teachers are leaving the UK” because “things are horrendous” with “the discipline problems [and] the regulations.” Grace found herself unable to fit into the United Kingdom’s teaching industry after more than 15 years of expatriate teaching in the Middle East. She said,

I was totally unprepared for how the children were when they talked to me and how they were allowed to talk to me. And my responses were seen as inappropriate. I reported a child who told me to F-off and got told, “What’s your problem?” basically. “She’s a foster child, and she’s had a lot problems, and you’ve got to understand.” I don’t need to work in conditions like that. I can come here, and nobody speaks to me like that…. I’m choosing to be a teacher, and I’m choosing not to tolerate being spoken very rudely to. I’m not tolerating that. I don’t want it. And it’s stressful. I’m not doing that.

In contrast to the younger cohorts, these later-life teacher expatriates did not discuss motivations such as seeing the world or gaining international teaching experience. Instead, they constructed narratives of reactionary motivations of escaping from “stuckness” (Cresswell 2012) at home or in their previous place of expatriation. In their narrativization, Brunei emerged as a perfect place for their geographic arbitrage project, an “escape hatch” (Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017, 129) and a chance for a mid- or late-career new start.

In terms of personal factors driving later-life expatriation, some respondents had gone through divorce and had to grapple with the financial responsibility of being a single parent (Grace, Sophia). Others wanted “an adventure” (Olivia, Australia, late 40s, divorced; Paul, New Zealand, late 60s, married) or “my time” (Alice, New Zealand, late 50s, divorced), a desire that emerged in later life after their children had left home and they faced an “empty nest.” Some others wanted to move closer to their home country because of caring responsibilities. Emily, for example, completed her previous expatriation in the Middle East and moved back to New Zealand to care for her parent, before expatriating to Brunei.

As the study progressed, I was surprised to find that a number of female respondents were divorced, single parents with school-going children. Brunei mattered as a place for geographic arbitrage for this particular group, as its expatriate package offered them all that they needed to survive sustainably and comfortably as the breadwinner of a single-parent household. However, as I next explain, the geographic arbitrage to Brunei turned out differently, with individuals finding themselves with differential capacities to cope with unexpected disruptions to their projects.

Differential Capacities of Coping

In late 2016, the Brunei MoE changed the expatriate teaching contract arrangement with CfBT. In line with the policy objective of “capacity building,” CfBT was tasked with recruiting new expatriate teacher leaders, instead of renewing the contracts of existing teacher expatriates in Brunei. This change coincided with a period of oil crisis and the contraction of Brunei’s oil-reliant economy. The government budget decreased drastically from a surplus of 28 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2011 to a deficit of 16 percent in 2016 (Oxford Business Group 2016a). Many CfBT teachers, including Tom and Sophia, were “told quite late” that their contracts would not be renewed. This news presented unexpected disruptions to teacher expatriates’ plans, especially if they had hedged their bets on rolling contracts in Brunei until the end of their working years. Those who were in their 40s were also caught unawares. As Sophia observed,

There were quite a few people who were disappointed…. Because a lot of them were much, much younger. We had the leavers’ meeting the other day, and I looked around. There were people there in their 40s. It’s quite sad if you are in your 40s and, you know…. Well, these things happen.

Although, as Sophia noted, “these things” do happen, respondents had differential capacities to deal with the disruption to their geographic arbitrage projects. Generally, those whom I describe as “lucky and prepared” had other resources (in Brunei and/or elsewhere) to mobilize and could better cope with the situation, while those whom I describe as “unlucky and unprepared” did not. Importantly, being “lucky” or not and being “prepared” or not appear to correspond to respondents’ trajectories and relative timings in the expatriate teaching circuit, as well as their personal and household circumstances. That there were differential capacities to cope with such disruptions to the geographic arbitrage project, largely based on individual circumstances, suggests that geographic arbitrage may not be equally plausible or sustainable for what might appear to be the same group of relatively privileged teacher expatriates. In short, there are limits to the geographic arbitrage strategy and, thus, thesis, as this framework, which prioritizes a political economy explanation, does not seem to be able to take into account diverse individual circumstances.

The “Lucky and Prepared”

Later-life teacher expatriates who had been aging in-place in Brunei belonged to the “lucky” ones. They had arrived in Brunei well before the oil crisis and had been able to extend their geographic arbitrage projects with multiple contract renewals. Patrick, for example, had eight contract renewals over his two-decade stay in Brunei. He acknowledged, “I was lucky…when I came [in the 1990s], it was still pretty good.” When I asked about his future plans, Patrick appeared nonchalant about the uncertainty of his next contract renewal.

I’m near the end of my career. Probably this will be my last contract. I might apply, but whether I’ll get it for another 3 years, I can’t say. I’m reaching the age of 60, and now they are getting strict about it. They used to let people go all the way before. Now you have to get a very good report to go on…. If I could, yeah. If not, I can live with it. I’ve saved enough.

Decades of in-place expatriation in Brunei had enabled Patrick to “save enough,” as he effectively enjoyed long-term employment in situ without incurring costs for international moves. As Sophia explained, “if you are uprooted and you go somewhere else, it’s costly. You have to pay for this, you have to pay for that. You have to sell it at half the price, and then you start somewhere else, again.” Moreover, being married to a Bruneian citizen and with a child holding dual British and Bruneian citizenship⁵ meant that Patrick had the option of family-sponsored residence, should he fail to secure a work visa. Thus, his family’s citizenship status was a resource on which he could rely to mitigate future uncertainties. He even joked, with a sense of assurance, about doing visa runs “every three months…and then get back in,” if need be. Long stayers and those who were part of a teacher expatriate couple had also benefitted from “vague rules” (Hannah, New Zealand, early 60s) when it came to contract renewals. For example, David (New Zealand, early 60s), Hannah’s husband, got “a renewed contract at 60” with “just a recommendation” from his boss; and Paul, whose teacher expatriate wife was much younger than he was, had gotten contract renewals in his late 60s, despite being “way past the age that Brunei expects people to retire.”

In addition to the “lucky” ones, the “prepared” ones could draw upon their “duality of resources” (Bolzman et al. 2017, 1), with material and symbolic values in different locations to hedge against unexpected disruptions to their geographic arbitrage projects. Olivia, who took no-pay leave from her employing school in Australia, enjoyed “the safety net of having [her] job” back home. Even if she failed to get a contract renewal in Brunei, she knew that she had financial security with “a job [she] could walk back into” in Australia. Charlotte (New Zealand, early 40s, divorced, single parent), a special needs teacher, was not worried about not getting work, as hers was a niche skillset in demand in the international teaching industry.

John and Melissa had also come prepared. They owned two houses back home in the United Kingdom, which they rented out, generating passive income for them while they embarked on their family’s expatriation to Brunei. For this entrepreneurial couple, the geographic arbitrage project had been a calculated move. Melissa was aware that she had “about 10 years” left of geographic arbitrage, as she was “pretty sure [she] can’t get a work visa overseas when [she] hit[s] 55.” The couple planned to stay in Brunei for four to six years and then return to the United Kingdom one to two years before their eldest child entered university. This timing was crucial “so that [they] would not have to pay international [student] fees” in universities in the United Kingdom, which were much higher than home student fees.

The “Unlucky and Unprepared”

In contrast to the “lucky” and “prepared” teachers, the “unlucky” and “unprepared” were later-life teacher expatriates who may not have had the resources or alternative options to buffer their disrupted geographic arbitrage projects. Here, I detail the predicaments of Tom (unmarried single without adult children), Alice (later-life new arrival to Brunei), and Grace (later-life single parent with dependent children) as examples of the “unlucky” and “unprepared” later-life teacher expatriates to highlight how their experiences differed from those of other respondents, described above.

Tom, who was “squeezed out” of the shrinking teaching industry in Australia in his early 50s, had sought geographic arbitrage in Latin America before returning to Australia after a year “to see if the industry had recovered and whether [he] could pick up a job.” When he realized that the industry had yet to recover, he again “looked overseas” and ended up in Brunei. He had originally planned to work in Brunei until he reached “the big 60” — the official retirement age in Brunei. Unfortunately, his current contract was not being renewed due to the policy change described earlier. At the time of the interview, Tom had three months left on his contract and spoke very tentatively about future plans, which included applying for work in Tasmania (where he had family) or “Vietnam or Korea or China, I have no idea.” Alice, who came to Brunei in her mid-50 s and expected to be able to work beyond 60, had not been able to make concrete future plans in the event her expectation did not come through.

I don’t get any pension until I am 67, so that means I need to have a job. It’s going to be very difficult to find a job at 60…. I’m going to try and stay as long as I can here. But if not, I am looking around at other Asian countries. Most of them have an age limit, but some of them don’t. Myanmar, I might be able to work.

Interestingly, both Tom and Alice automatically mentioned certain Asian countries where they thought they might find work. While the presence of these alternatives may suggest that they could continue their geographic arbitrage projects by relocating to destinations where their “‘ethnic capital’ of whiteness and [Anglo-Western] origin” (Hayes and Pérez-Gañán 2017, 128) and “their acquired cultural capital…ha[ve] more symbolic power” (2017, 124), the fact remained that they had fewer options in terms of destinations, due to age limits imposed by countries in the international teaching circuit, as Grace’s story reveals.

Grace (United Kingdom, early 50s, divorced) came to Brunei after a three-year return to the United Kingdom, following a divorce that left her financially drained. Unable to find full-time work in the United Kingdom and with two school-going children to support, she had to expatriate again and chanced upon Brunei. Now that her children had finished schooling in Brunei, she was seeking a “return” geographic arbitrage to the Middle East. However, the ease of geographic arbitrage that she enjoyed previously did not come easy at this point. As she explained:

The situation is I’m [in my 50s]. I’ve got loads of experience, but I’m worried that I’m on the cusp. I may be being viewed as too old now. I’ve had two negative responses from job vacancies [in the Middle East]. So I’ve decided that I’m just staying [in Brunei] for another year. And over next six months I’m going to chase after some plans to get back to the Middle East. This is my window. And if I’m not successful, we are going to have to see…. My whole career has been abroad. And if I stay here [in Brunei], the career is another [less than 10] years, and they are going to cut me off at 60. So for another [less than 10] years, I might as well just bear with it and stay – if I don’t get [the Middle East].

Grace’s narrative highlights how a lifetime of expatriate teaching had effectively narrowed her mobility options as she reached her near-retirement life stage. Despite her wealth of teaching experience, her age now worked against her employability in the international teaching circuit. Moreover, having enjoyed a lifetime of expatriate teaching, her prolonged absence from the United Kingdom also worked against her ability and desire to return to her home country. This ironic predicament corresponds to Tarc et al. (2019) finding that teacher expatriates with extensive global mobility and international teaching experience are disadvantaged in securing teaching jobs in their home country, as they lack local teaching experience and networks. While this situation is not entirely surprising, I argue that later-life teacher expatriates such as Tom, Alice, and Grace are doubly disadvantaged in their capacities to cope with disruptions to their geographic arbitrage projects as they are single. Unlike married teacher expatriates, they cannot move to a new destination as a trailing spouse — a strategy that worked for many respondents who found jobs after they trailed along their spouses’ expatriation.

Discussion and Conclusion

This article has presented findings from research with Anglo-Western later-life teacher expatriates in Brunei. As it shows, when the geographic arbitrage project was disrupted by unexpected turn of events, individuals had differential capacities of coping due to their varied circumstances. Generally, those who had kickstarted their geographic arbitrage projects in an earlier period of economic growth and welcoming immigration policies in Brunei found that they were buffered from the current changes. They typically had accumulated sizable savings from multiple expatriate contract packages in Brunei and/or accumulated local experience and social networks that could assist them in securing out-of-the-norm contract renewals beyond Brunei’s official retirement age. On the other hand, those whose middle-age or near-retirement expatriation to Brunei coincided with the shrinking economy and more restrictive policies found themselves unexpectedly facing the prospect of becoming mobile again during later life, a reality that was not in their original plans.

Apart from the temporality of geographic arbitrage, factors such as household circumstances (e.g., marital status, partner’s age and profession, children’s age), a niche skill set, a job waiting at home, and wealth and assets in the home country shaped individual later-life expatriates’ differential capacities to cope with unexpected changes. Those who were unmarried singles may not have had a wage-earning partner or adult children to rely on for financial assistance and may well have had to extend a few more years of expatriation elsewhere — in fact, anywhere — to make ends meet. By contrast, those who had a marketable niche skill set or a job waiting at home had the confidence and security that they would likely find a job elsewhere or at home. Those who had built a comfortable retirement nest egg in the form of financial wealth and property assets had the assurance of returning home, should their geographic arbitrage project come to an unexpected earlier end. It is those who were the least prepared — perhaps because they had expected a relatively guaranteed life of geographic arbitrage during their remaining working-age years before retirement — who found themselves caught in a situation where geographic arbitrage was increasingly challenging to actualize.

The expatriate teacher life in Brunei was good while it lasted, but it could not last forever, not least because of Brunei’s restrictive immigration and labor policies. As Azim (2002, 50) observed, most foreign workers in Brunei “live there for a temporary period; they leave before retirement age, to be replaced by younger migrants.” Used and easily disposed of when the time comes, these teachers faced the burdens of impending unemployment in later life and the lack of sufficient pension funds (which is an indirect result of being employed on expatriate teaching contracts without social security contributions). Perhaps, as the neoliberal individuals that the international teaching industry expects them to be, they should have taken seriously the non-guaranteed and inconsistent nature of contract renewals in Brunei in planning ahead and making better preparations. However, they cannot be entirely blamed as being on the international teaching circuit presupposes that they had traded sedentary security for a chance at geographic arbitrage. While it might be tempting to explain their predicament as an instance of risk miscalculation, I argue that it is also important to critically examine the international teaching industry’s labor structure (see Bunnell 2016) and mobility imperative that (in)directly shape individuals’ differential capacities in coping with their disrupted expatriation projects, especially in later life.

Overall, this group of middling later-life migrants embarked on expatriation in the hopes of capitalizing on geographic arbitrage, even if they themselves may not have realized or explicitly articulated their intentions. Using the cases of later-life teacher expatriates who faced unexpected disruptions to their expatriation projects, this article advances the emerging literature on geographic arbitrage by calling attention to individual circumstances and differential capacities of coping. While Hayes and Pérez-Gañán (2017, 129) argue that geographic arbitrage seekers “are able to escape to a global safe haven, where their lives can play out as before, with relatively minor disruptions,” this article found that the ability to escape and to live a life with minor or no disruptions may not be universally true. Later-life teacher expatriates may have once enjoyed relative privilege during their prime expatriating lives. When their expatriate shelf life came to an unexpected and premature end, however, some lacked the capacity to find viable alternatives.

The geographic arbitrage thesis examined here offers a helpful lens to understand mobility inequalities between Global North and Global South migrants at the macro-scale. For example, using this approach, we can see that North-South inequalities have enabled Global North migrants to partake in North-South migration where they could achieve social maintenance or advancement. Conversely, the same set of North-South inequalities may have the opposite effect for Global South migrants as South-North migration is likely to be more costly and less “profitable” for them in terms of social maintenance or advancement. However, no form of migrations, including so-called “privileged” types such as later-life geographic arbitrage, “exist[s] outside the purview of state sovereignty” (Croucher 2012, 9) or the structural reaches of the shifting global capitalist economy, which may produce in-group mobility inequalities at the micro-scale. Centering on individual circumstances, this article has examined how individual geographic arbitrage-seekers coped with unexpected disruptions to their mobility projects in later life, to different degrees of success. In doing so, it offers a more nuanced and textured understanding of individuals’ actualization of geographic arbitrage that extends beyond a snapshot perspective.

I have argued that later-life teacher expatriates constitute an under-researched group in the (teacher) expatriate migration literature. My findings suggest that this group of relatively privileged migrants, after a life of “forced transnationalism” (Piper and Withers 2018) in the international teaching circuit (largely due to industry- and country-specific factors), find themselves having to be mobile again close to retirement. My findings also suggest that teacher expatriates move through certain circuits of countries. Future research could examine industry-specific structures and discourses or identify similar policy constellations in the countries constituting the international teaching circuit that have led to teacher expatriates’ “institutionalized transience” (Amit-Talai 1998, 42). Such research could shed light on the systematic production of teacher expatriates’ “permanent temporariness” (Bailey et al. 2002) in the international expatriate circuit, as well as the “temporary permanence” (Dunn 2010, 7) in each of their pit stops on the circuit. This line of inquiry could critically reflect on the mobility imperative for teacher expatriates and its life-course consequences. Such an inquiry is especially pertinent, given the rapidly expanding international teaching market that is expected to absorb growing numbers of teacher expatriates who will, one day, grow old on-the-move. A better understanding of this migrant population could contribute to better and more equitable social policies, in both the sending and host contexts, that can support them.

Although teacher expatriates are relatively privileged migrants who can partake in geographic arbitrage, they are also vulnerable and subjected to structural conditions beyond their control, especially in later life. In this milieu of widespread neoliberalism, rising economic uncertainties, and increased migration securitization globally, relatively privileged migrants, especially in their later-life stage, may be facing rapidly constrained possibilities to hedge their livelihoods on geographic arbitrage. More needs to be done to fully understand how structural conditions and the life stage shape later-life migrants’ capacities to cope with mobile livelihoods.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editor and three reviewers for their insightful suggestions. A much earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Multinational Migrations: Onward Migration Patterns and Possibilities in Asia and Beyond” workshop at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, September 27–28, 2018. I thank the workshop organisers and participants for their helpful comments. Thanks also to Menusha De Silva and Susan Leong for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sin Yee Koh

Notes

References

Amit-Talai

1998 “Risky Hiatuses and the Limits of Social Imagination: Expatriacy in the Cayman Islands.” In Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement, edited by Rapport

Dawson

, 41–59. Oxford: Berg.

Anamam

K. A.

2003. “Analysis of the Aggregate Demand of Labour in Brunei Darussalam Using Dynamic Econometric Models.” In Applied Economic Analysis in Brunei Darussalam: Evaluation of Economic Growth and Trade, Microeconomic Efficiency and Analysis of Socio-economic Problems, edited by Anamam

K. A.

Duraman

, 24–46. Bandar Seri Begawan: Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Asato

2019. “Brunei Darussalam: Female Labour Force Participation and Foreign Domestic Workers.” In International Labour Migration in the Middle East and Asia, edited by Lian K

Hosoda

Ishii

, 115–141. Singapoer: Springer.

Azim

2002. “The Ageing Population of Brunei Darussalam: Trends and Economic Consequences.” Asia-Pacific Population Journal 17(1): 39–54.

Bailey

A. J.

Wright

R. A.

Mountz

Miyares

I. M.

. 2002. “(Re)producing Salvadoran Transnational Geographies.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92(1): 125–144.

Barry

2011. “English Language Teaching in Brunei: A View through a Critical Lens.” RELC Journal 42(2): 203–220.

Bell

2017. “‘We Feel Like the King and Queen’: Western Retirees in Bali, Indonesia.” Asian Journal of Social Science 45(3): 271–293.

Bense

2016. “International Teacher Mobility and Migration: A Review and Synthesis of the Current Empirical Research and Literature.” Educational Research Review 17: 37–49.

Benson

O’Reilly

. 2018. Lifestyle Migration and Colonial Traces in Malaysia and Panama. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

10.

Bolzman

Kaeser

Christe

. 2017. “Transnational Mobilities as a Way of Life among Older Migrants from Southern Europe.” Population, Space and Place 23(5): e2016.

11.

Botterill

2017. “Discordant Lifestyle Mobilities in East Asia: Privilege and Precarity of British Retirement in Thailand.” Population, Space and Place 23(5): e2011.

12.

Brunei Nationality Act. 1962. http://www.agc.gov.bn/AGC%20Images/LAWS/ACT_PDF/cap015.pdf

13.

Bunnell

2016. “Teachers in International Schools: A Global Educational ‘Precariat’?” Globalisation, Societies and Education 14(4): 543–559.

14.

Bunnell

2017. “Teachers in International Schools: A Neglected ‘Middling Actor’ in Expatriation.” Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of Expatriate Management Research 5(2): 194–202.

15.

Cairns

Cuzzocrea

Briggs

Veloso

. 2017. The Consequences of Mobility: Reflexivity, Social Inequality and the Reproduction of Precariousness in Highly Qualified Migration. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

16.

CfBT Education Services (B) Sdn Bhd (CfBT). 2006. CfBT Brunei Darussalam: Overview. http://cfbt.org/bn/openfile.asp?file=content/Teacher_Recruitment/files/CfBT_Overview_2006.PDF

17.

Ciobanu

R. O.

Fokkema

Nedelcu

. 2017. “Ageing as a Migrant: Vulnerabilities, Agency and Policy Implications.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43(2): 164–181.

18.

Ciobanu

R. O.

Hunter

. 2017. “Older Migrants and (Im)mobilities of Ageing: An Introduction.” Population, Space and Place 23(5): e2075.

19.

Codó

2018. “The Intersection of Global Mobility, Lifestyle and ELT Work: A Critical Examination of Language Instructors’ Trajectories.” Language and Intercultural Communication 18(4): 436–450.

20.

Collins

F. L.

2014. “Teaching English in South Korea: Mobility Norms and Higher Education Outcomes in Youth Migration.” Children’s Geographies 12(1): 40–55.

21.

Collins

F. L.

Shubin

. 2015. “Migrant Times beyond the Life Course: The Temporalities of Foreign English Teachers in South Korea.” Geoforum 62: 96–104.

22.

Conradson

Latham

. 2007. “The Affective Possibilities of London: Antipodean Transnationals and the Overseas Experience.” Mobilities 2(2): 231–254.

23.

Cresswell

2012. “Mobilities II: Still.” Progress in Human Geography 36(5): 645–653.

24.

Croucher

2012. “Privileged Mobility in an Age of Globality.” Societies 2(1): 1–13.

25.

Dunn

2010. “Embodied Transnationalism: Bodies in Transnational Spaces.” Population, Space and Place 16(1): 1–9.

26.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). 2010. Up or Out: Next Moves for the Modern Expatriate. London: EIU.

27.

Escrivá

Á.

Vianello

F. A.

. 2016. “Later-career International Migrations and Reproductive Work: A Comparison between Peruvian and Ukranian Women in Southern Europe.” investigaciones Feministas 7(1): 89–113.

28.

Faist

Bilecen

Barglowski

Sienkiewicz

J. J.

. 2015. “Transnational Social Protection: Migrants’ Strategies and Patterns of Inequalities.” Population, Space and Place 21(3): 193–202.

29.

Fechter

A.-M.

2007. Transnational Lives: Expatriates in Indonesia. Aldershot: Ashgate.

30.

Fechter

A.-M.

Walsh

. 2010. “Examining ‘Expatriate’ Continuities: Postcolonial Approaches to Mobile Professionals.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 36(8): 1197–1210.

31.

Gambold

2013. “Retirement Abroad as Women’s Aging Strategy.” Anthropology and Aging Quarterly 34(2): 194–199.

32.

Gehring

2017. “Pensioners on the Move: A ‘Legal Gate’ Perspective on Retirement Migration to Spain.” Population, Space and Place 23(5): e2007.

33.

Hayden

M. J.

2012. “Mission Statement Possible: International Schools and Cosmopolitanism.” The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives 11(2): 5–26.

34.

Hayes

2014. “‘We Gained a Lot over What We Would Have Had’: The Geographic Arbitrage of North American Lifestyle Migrants to Cuenca, Ecuador.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(12): 1953–1971.

35.

Hayes

Pérez-Gañán

. 2017. “North–South Migrations and the Asymmetric Expulsions of Late Capitalism: Global Inequality, Arbitrage, and New Dynamics of North–South Transnationalism.” Migration Studies 5(1): 116–135.

36.

Koh

S. Y.

Sin

I. L.

. 2020. “Academic and Teacher Expatriates: Mobilities, Positionalities, and Subjectivities.” Geography Compass 14(5): e12487.

37.

Kunz

2016. “Privileged Mobilities: Locating the Expatriate in Migration Scholarship.” Geography Compass 10(3): 89–101.

38.

Kunz

2020. “Expatriate, migrant? The social life of migration categories and the polyvalent mobility of race.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 46(11): 2145–2162.

39.

Lam

L. S. T.

2013. “Hong Kong-based TEFL/TESOL Global Academics: Life, Culture, Mobility, Globalisation and Cosmopolitanism.” Globalisation, Societies and Education 11(1): 85–107.

40.

Lulle

King

. 2016. Ageing, Gender, and Labour Migration. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

41.

Maxwell

A. R.

2001. “Malay Polysemy and Political Power: Census Categories, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in Brunei Darussalam.” South East Asia Research, 9(2): 173–212.

42.

Merriman

2020. International School Market has Grown 10X Since 2000: What Does that Herald for Investment Migration? https://www.imidaily.com/industry-trends/international-school-market-has-grown-10x-since-2000-what-does-that-herald-for-investment-migration/.

43.

Ministry of Education (MoE) Brunei Darussalam. 2013. The National Education System for the 21st Century SPN21. Bandar Seri Begawan: MoE.

44.

Neilsen

2009. Traveller’s Tales: The Expatriate English Language Teacher in the New Global Culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

45.

Oliver

2008. Retirement Migration: Paradoxes of Ageing. London: Routledge.

46.

Ormond

Toyota

. 2016. “Confronting Economic Precariousness through International Retirement Migration: Japan’s Old Age “Economic Refugees” and Germanny’s “Exported Grannies.”“ In Tourism and Leisure Mobilities: Politics, Work and Play, edited by Rickley-Boyd

J. M.

Hannam

Mostafanezhad

, 134–146. New York: Routledge.

47.

Oxford Business Group. 2016a. Brunei Darussalam’s Property Market Set to Ease. http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/brunei-darussalam%E2%80%99s-property-market-set-ease.

48.

Oxford Business Group. 2016b. Subsidies Have Long Been a Staple, but Brunei Darussalam is Encouraging Its Citizens to Reduce Consumption. http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/brunei-darussalam%E2%80%99s-property-market-set-ease.

49.

Phan

L.-H.

2016. Transnational Education Crossing “Asia” and “the West”. London: Routledge.

50.

Piper

Withers

. 2018. “Forced Transnationalism and Temporary Labour Migration: Implications for Understanding Migrant Rights.” Identities 25(5): 558–575.

51.

Poole

2020. “Internationalised School Teachers’ Experiences of Precarity as Part of the Global Middle Class in China: Towards Resilience Capital.” The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher 29(3), 227–236.

52.

Sampaio

2018. “A Place to Grow Older…Alone? Living and Ageing as a Single Older Lifestyle Migrant in the Azores.” Area 50(4): 459–466.

53.

Somjee

A. H.

Somjee

. 1995. “Brunei: Affluent Welfare State, Traditional Norms, Undeveloped Political Process.” In Development Success in Asia Pacific: An Exercise in Normative-pragmatic Balance, 195–204. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

54.

Stainton

2018. “TEFL Tourism: The Tourist Who Teaches.” Tourism Geographies 20(1): 127–143.

55.

Statelessness Network Asia Pacific, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, The Brunei Project, and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. 2018. Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 33rd Session of the Universal Periodic Review: Brunei Darussalam. https://equalnationalityrights.org/images/zdocs/GCENR--UPR-Submission-Brunei-Darussalam.pdf

56.

Tarc

Mishra Tarc

. 2019. “Anglo-Western International School Teachers as Global Middle Class: Portraits of Three Families.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40(5): 666–681.

57.

Taylor

2009. Interesting Company: CfBT Education Trust since the 1960s. Reading: CfBT Education Trust.

58.

Walters

W. H.

2002. “Later-life Migration in the United States: A Review of Recent Research.” Journal of Planning Literature 17(1): 37–66.

59.

Warnes

A. M.

Williams

. 2006. “Older Migrants in Europe: A New Focus for Migration Studies.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32(8): 1257–1281.