Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the impact of the UN employees on Geneva’s urban settings and spaces through the production of an expatriates’ ethnoscape. Global circulation of social and spatial forms and norms results in contested territories and oppositional identities.

Paper long abstract:

After having for long time been neglected by social anthropologists, cities are nowadays central in numerous researches, and more particularly in the field of migration and transnational mobility. However, studies of the impact of migrants on cities themselves remain insufficient. Based on ethnographic work within the United Nations office in Geneva, this paper argues that the impact of international civil servants on the city's settings and space lies in an expatriates' "ethnoscape" (Appadurai 1990) transforming Geneva's architecture, public space and patterns of sociability. The presence of highly mobile professionals in the city induces a circulation of global architectural forms and norms such as furnished apartments, luxury penthouses or "expat bars" where "UN Drinks" are held. The impact of UN employees in Geneva is also characterized by the frequent use of English in public spaces or in media productions. The paper also analyses in what terms these urban mutations get contested in a central neighbourhood where inhabitants criticize gentrification, the rise of rental prices and eviction. Not only do the results of this study shed light on the process through which the presence of the UN office transforms Geneva in a global city, but they also show how such transformations of the urban space may produce symbolic boundaries and contested territories that bring inhabitants to negotiate oppositional identities.