ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two key assistance services aimed at migrants in the host country (Thailand). Based on ethnographic research on hotlines and outreach services, the chapter elucidates their bureaucratic allure as well as their divergent effects. The chapter shows that although multiple counter-intentional effects stem from hotlines and outreach work (e.g. hotline calls intended to assist migrants result in deportation), many of these interventions can nonetheless be considered “success” within a safe migration aid habitus. The chapter delineates ethnographically how these interventions relativise spatial and temporal dimensions of policy, thereby widening the operational field for aid programs. Whereas hotlines comprise a totalising allure (as a de-territorial mode of assistance, a hotline can in principle be reached from anywhere), they also individuate as they enable direct contact between migrants and aid organisations. The chapter considers how this is achieved due to the informal dimensions of assistance work as opposed to the formal self-definition of aid agencies.
