Paper short abstract:

I elaborate on the experiences of children of skilled international professionals in Finland. Anthropological methods bring new knowledge on the phenomenon. Nuclear family and schools appear as particularly important, and "learning to befriend" here and now is crucial.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I elaborate on the views and experiences of children of skilled international professionals in Finland. I argue that with these mobile families, the nuclear family becomes particularly important. At the same time, the families often put much effort in trying to maintain relationships to larger kin but when years go by, it may become increasingly challenging. Moreover, in the children’s lives “learning to befriend” becomes crucial when they, and their classmates, change schools frequently. Yet, friendships here and now are crucial whereas maintaining ties with friends from previous places of residence is rare. Moreover, school becomes a particularly important location where ties are constructed as the repeatedly moving children do not necessarily get involved in many hobbies beyond school. I argue that ethnographic research methods provide important new knowledge on the phenomenon. Much of the existing literature is either based on quantitative methods or on reflections of young adults of their past experiences as internationally mobile children. Conducting anthropological research with children and teenagers here and now enables to gain first-hand insights on their lives. It is not enough to investigate how children and teenagers talk about their ties with kin and friends but we need to also see how those ties are constructed, maintained and dissolved in real-life practices.

Paper short abstract:

The experience of the privileged mobility of diplomatic children is characterized by a transnational lifestyle involving rapid moves between countries. How does this experience shape their worldview and notions of belonging while living between different countries throughout their childhood?

Paper long abstract:

Diplomatic families enjoy a distinct form of privileged mobility that grants them convenient movement, frequent transitions between countries, and facilitated access to the host country's services. Typically stationed in foreign embassies, these diplomats, often temporarily assigned, possess exclusive rights within the host country while maintaining a status separate from citizenship. Despite residing in a place where they are neither citizens nor migrants, the unique mobility of diplomatic families remains largely unexplored in mobility studies, which predominantly focuses on labor migration, skilled migrants, and refugees. The experience of diplomatic children is particularly noteworthy, characterized by a transnational lifestyle involving rapid moves between countries throughout their formative years. These children continually navigate the challenge of constructing and abandoning lives in different places. This presentation aims to shed light on some aspects of this transnational mobility experienced by diplomatic families' children, specifically delving into topics such as homemaking, identity formation, and acculturation. The research for this presentation draws insights from interviews with current adults who were once diplomatic children, supplemented by auto-ethnography based on the author's personal experiences of being within a diplomatic family.

Paper short abstract:

Approaching academic life-career mobility with intersectional theoretical sensitivity and with consideration of ambivalent mobility demands on the individual, yet class- and gender-bound biographies this paper provides a nuanced understanding of academics’ navigation throughout the life course.

Paper long abstract:

Seemingly privileged, often associated with cosmopolitanism and freedom of movement academic professionals today make most temporally, spatially fragmented, and geographically displaced hyper-mobile labouring subjects. They, like other mobile professionals, strive to synchronize personal life in an interplay with structural forces that dictate tempos and forms of mobility that in turn determine their career progress. The academic career is seen as predominantly infused with linearity, accumulation of experience and skills in terms of hierarchical development, or status and positionality. The imagined ideal straight path - from obtaining a doctoral degree to obtaining a full professorship - does not fit into the reality of the flexibly changing demands of the contemporary academic world of work as the accelerating tempos of careers are not always compatible with the rhythmicity of academic personal lives. Tackling this empirical conundrum, this paper aims to show the impact of mobility on the ability of academics to deal simultaneously with critical events in their private lives and career requirements taking into account personal circumstances such as academic career stage, age, dis/ability, gender, citizenship, etc. Anthropological research on the academic world of work that captures the relation between experienced mobility, its regulation and policy discourses, and the dynamic interaction between mobility and immobility over the life-career course is generally lacking. Approaching academic career trajectories with intersectional theoretical sensitivity and with consideration of complex and ambivalent demands on the individual, yet class- and gender-bound biographies yields a richer and more nuanced understanding of academics’ navigation through the academic life-career (im)mobilities.

Paper short abstract:

Based on 10 semi-structured interviews to Italian academics in the NW of England conducted during/after Covid, this paper examines family and friendship relationships at a critical time for socialization.

Paper long abstract:

European academics in the UK are skilled migrants who usually moved for professional reasons and report considering themselves a (relatively) privileged group (see Authors in prep). Our study presents a critical reflection on the socialisation practices and experiences of a group of Italian academics in the North-West of England through an emic lens, by engaging with rich qualitative data. Drawing on the Brain Drain project this study focuses on 10 semi-structured interviews carried out during/post-Covid. This paper offers a re-evaluation of Daniele’s (2019) study of Italian academics in Liverpool pre-Covid. Data collected after Covid show a further level of complexity: there is a “here” (the UK) a “there” (Italy); there is a “before” and there is an “after”. Furthermore, many academics moved to the UK from other countries than Italy (onward migration), or moved within the country prior to the interview and have a complex network of ties, thus resisting a simplistic UK/Italy contrast. Broadly couched within Discourse Analysis, this paper aims at highlighting the complexities in the family and friendship ties established by a small group of Italian academics working in the North-West of the England during Covid.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the complexities of forming and fostering relationships among Swiss and German migrants in the neighbouring country, shedding light on their unique experiences of building connections in a 'foreign place' despite shared cultural and geographical proximity.

Paper long abstract:

Despite the increase in highly skilled migration in the last two decades, the social relations of these migrants, especially within Europe and between culturally and geographically close countries, have received little attention. This paper examines the multiple dynamics of relationship formation and retention among highly skilled German and Swiss transnational migrants in the respective neighbouring country.

A dual perspective emerges. On the one hand, migrants navigate the complex process of building new relationships as adults in a new environment. On the other hand, they bring forth narratives of cultural difference, highlighting the challenges and unique dynamics these migrants face in forming and maintaining meaningful relationships - even when the socio-cultural backgrounds are remarkably similar. While German migrants in Switzerland have been the target of controversial public discourse over the past two decades, Swiss migrants represent a largely overlooked but well-received minority. Positive and negative stereotypes add an additional layer of complexity to the social integration of migrants in this context.

Through biographical life course interviews with migrants who have lived in the host country for an average of more than ten years, the paper aims to unravel the migrants' narratives that influence not only their relationship with their home community and host country, but also their future prospects. The study captures the perspectives of migrants who, despite shared cultural and geographical proximity, grapple with the complexities of establishing and maintaining meaningful connections.

Paper short abstract:

Based on semi-structured interviews, this paper examines the overlapping between professional and personal life among self-initiated skilled Western migrants in China. It focuses on the role of interracial friendship and family ties in the accumulation of white mobility capital in China.

Paper long abstract:

With the rise of China’s economy, more and more white Westerners are moving to China for better job or business opportunities. In addition to the so-called transnational elites, there is an increasing number of self-initiated migrants from the Western world. However, China’s restrictive immigration policy, draconian Covid-19 control, and increasingly competitive job market, have posed significant challenges to the social mobility, job security, and personal life for white migrants who used to be considered as a privileged group. Based on twenty-four semi-structured interviews between 2019 and 2023, this paper examines the overlapping between professional and personal life among self-initiated skilled Western migrants in China. It focuses specifically on the role of interracial friendship and family ties with diaspora and local Chinese in the accumulation of white mobility capital in China. Scholars have conceptualized white capital as an embodied form of cultural capital that is linked not only with physical appearance, but with citizenship, linguistic and educational background, and white-supremacist ideology as a global power structure. This paper moves beyond an essentialized understanding of white capital and reconceptualizes it as a dynamic construction that is reassembled and reproduced through migrants’ active engagements with multiple groups of institutional and social actors in China. It argues that interracial friendship and family ties not only contribute to social mobility opportunities for Western migrants in China, but add complexity to their racialized and gendered subjectivities in the context of rising nationalism and xenophobia in China’s market economy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores sociability practices developed to maintain relationships when everyday life is no longer shared due to work-related mobility. This involves maintaining a presence in local social networks during temporary periods on the territory, but also being present when physically absent.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic research conducted in rural southwest France, this paper explores sociability practices developed to maintain relationships when everyday life is no longer shared due to work-related mobility. Rather than focusing on relationships in the new place of residence, we aim to examine the maintenance of ties in the place of origin (which consequently affects the new relations).

In this rural area, mobility involves daily commuting, but also longer discontinuities. This is the case of skilled professionals who have moved to distant places (transnationally and nationally) that do not allow for frequent returns, but who have the resources to return several times a year. We focus specifically on those who intend to stay close to local sociability networks that they can no longer frequent daily. The aim is to examine how they symbolize the ties that bridge the discontinuity of their presence.

Maintaining a presence in the associative milieu that traditionally structures local social activity (football team, events committee, etc.) and in major social events (village festivities, weddings, etc.), places them in the same spaces of sociability with those remaining. These practices are a way of demonstrating a collective past, but also of continuing to share a lifestyle with friends and family.

Besides the temporary moments of presence on the territory, it's also possible to observe how bonds are nurtured during their physical absence. This includes being present despite the distance (as in virtual social networks), but also remaining present in conversations, objects, etc., recalled by those who remain.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the mobility paths to “elsewhere” of young queer professionals who are trying to align their career prospects and economic security to their personal life in the contemporary United States with ever-changing conservative politics that affect LGBTQA+ people.

Paper long abstract:

In addition to (precarious) work-based mobility that affects many young professionals in the United States, young queer professionals also evaluate potential political effects on their personal lives as queers: will they be able to form close romantic and/or kin relations? Will they feel safe on the streets? Will they be able “to be themselves”? Such alertness not only additionally affects career chances but also mobility paths.

Based on in-depth interviews, I follow my interlocutors’ mobility paths from “red” (republican and/or conservative) states, cities, and towns to “blue” (democratic and/or liberal) states, cities, and “hubs” that lead to usually well-planned, although temporary “elsewheres” that provide a safe space and queer or queer-friendly community. Thus, in this paper, I explore the “elsewhereness” as in-betweenness that comes into being through hope for a place providing togetherness, a sense of belonging, very tangible safety, and “being oneself” combined with job offers or chances for education. In contemporary ever-changing political circumstances that affect LGBTQA+ people, “elsewhereness” becomes as much a process from “here” to “there”, as it is a state of “not-here/not-yet-there” that stems from enforced temporariness based on ever-present political alertness. “Elsewhereness” – that does and does not exist – becomes an imagined escape route within a country that is full of pockets of inequality and marginality.