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- Convenors:
-
Mari Korpela
(Tampere University)
Poulamee Guha (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Mobilities
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
International mobility of skilled professionals is governed by various rules and policies, posed by the sending and receiving states and by the organisations where the professionals work. This panel discusses the phenomenon from the point of view of the accompanying children and spouses.
Long Abstract:
Increasing numbers of skilled professionals lead international careers where they work, either temporarily or permanently, abroad. Often, these experts, sometimes called career expatriates or corporate elites, are accompanied by their spouses and children. International labour mobility is governed by various rules and policies, posed on by the sending and receiving states as well as by the companies and organisations where the mobile professionals work. In this panel, we discuss the phenomenon from the point of view of the accompanying children and spouses. Which rules do they obey or transgress? How do the accompanying spouses negotiate and navigate the various rules, norms and practices that concern them? Which kinds of rules, norms and practices affect the children and how do they navigate those in their everyday lives? Which kinds of rules and practices become constructed within the families or among the children? How are the family dynamics formed when living in a foreign country? How is power negotiated in expatriate families? The panel welcomes both empirical and conceptual papers discussing the rules, practices, power, participation and transgression among expatriate families.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The paper elaborates on how 9-11-year-old children navigate their way among the rules and practices in a Finnish international school. It discusses the children's positions of power, powerlessness and their agency. The paper is based on an extensive ethnographic study.
Paper long abstract:
Finland, among many other countries, wants to attract skilled professionals from abroad. Very often, these expatriates stay in the country temporarily, and they are accompanied by their children and spouses. This paper focuses on 9-11-year-old expatriate children’s views and experiences in Finland. There are several international schools in Finland but unlike in many other parts of the world, most of them are public schools; they are free, and they follow the Finnish curriculum although the language of tuition is English. In this paper, I discuss how expatriate children view the Finnish schools, how they get adjusted there and how they navigate their way among the rules and practices there. I also ask what kind of agency the children have. I argue that on the one hand, the children enjoy the greater freedom that they have in Finland compared with some previous places where they have lived. At the same time, the Finnish emphasis on children’s independence can be a challenge for some children. Moreover, the academic requirements and the variety of subjects are different.
The paper is based on an extensive ethnographic study among children in an international school in a Finnish town. With empirical examples, I elaborate on how the children negotiate and navigate various rules and practices in their everyday lives in a Finnish international school. I also discuss the children’s positions of power and powerlessness as well as their agency. In addition, I reflect upon the challenges when a child moves from one school system to another.
Paper short abstract:
“Third Culture Kids” face possible barriers to their legal rights in cases of neglect or abuse within their family. Affluence and high mobility can cause them to be “invisible” and “unreachable” to Child Welfare Services. Legal immunity makes diplomat children "untouchable cases".
Paper long abstract:
“Third Culture Kids” (TCKs), children of middle-class or affluent families, who live overseas due to their parents’ globally mobile careers, have received little attention from a Child Welfare perspective. The article addresses this research gap by exploring what can be the barriers to how TCKs can realise their legal rights if they are subjected to neglect of care or abuse within their own family. The study is based on 43 retrospective autobiographies of former Norwegian Foreign Service children, as well as an analysis of two internationally known family child abuse cases of diplomat children. Despite TCKs being a diverse group of children, the results of our analysis show how the typical characteristics of affluence and high mobility can cause TCKs to be “invisible” to Child Welfare Services. In addition, the fact that TCKs live overseas make them “unreachable” to the Child Welfare Services in their country of citizenship. A specific paradox was identified for children whose parents have diplomat status. Although legal immunity may save the child from outside threat, it leaves cases of child neglect or abuse within diplomat families “untouchable” for local authorities and family courts. Preventive measures are presented both for TCKs in general, and for diplomat children in particular.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ongoing fieldwork among German expatriate families in Tokyo, this paper focuses on the negotiation of interfamilial power in families with ‘reversed’ gender roles: how do female lead expatriates and their trailing families ‘do family’ and (re)negotiate power?
Paper long abstract:
Transnational professionals and their families, often called ‘expatriate families’, can mostly be described as an embodiment of a nuclear heterosexual family with a male breadwinner and a female homemaker (Wilding, 2014). However, the number of female lead migrants with trailing husbands and child(ren) is on the rise. Following a multi-perspective approach and drawing on interviews with female lead expatriates and their families as well as on ongoing fieldwork among German transnational, mostly expatriate families in Tokyo, this paper addresses the following questions: How do families with ‘reversed’ gender roles ‘do family’ in a rather conservative, but highly mobile, transnational context (Morgan 2013)? How do the spouses perceive their role and status, in the family as well as in relation to the ‘community’? And how do they (re)negotiate gender relations and interfamilial power? The findings reveal that families with ‘reversed’ gender roles encounter specific problems, like the reluctance of the husbands to socialize in motherly activities, self-doubts of some men, (perceived) prejudices and institutional rules and hurdle; a context, that forces the spouses to constantly (re)negotiate their gender roles, relations and interfamilial power structures.
Paper short abstract:
Rapid globalization has resulted in large scale migration from India, over the last decade. The paper aims to explore the high skilled migration from India and the dynamics of privileges and problems of skilled professional migrants and their families.
Paper long abstract:
Conradson (2005) defined the term ‘middling migrants’ as a diverse category of mobile migrants who can be categorized as skilled immigrants in a higher income category. The gendered dimension to the phenomenon is less explored and the spouse women in this process of migration remain largely invisible (Raj, 2000).
As wives of professional Indian migrant men, the spouses are themselves often professionals and highly educated but following migration, their professional life often faces a disruption or change in their professional identities creating a strong undercurrent of disaffection, with distinct implications for their wellbeing. As the changes occur within a global context, these ‘spouses’ occupy a contradictory gendered positioning within the Indian diaspora, creating complex intersectionality.
Are they global mascots of gender role ideal and cultural continuity of a nationalist ideal? Or is their invisibility hiding gendered and neo-racial connotations affecting their lives, overshadowed by class empowered position? Its implications are an area worthy of further study.
The presentation aims to explore the fragmented identity construction within the Indian diaspora through existing literature and collected data on Indian female trailing spouses exploring the relevance of identifying gaps and establishing the need for understanding of this phenomenon. The study aims to understand the complex post-colonial intersectionality hidden in the situation via a critical feminist epistemological framework. A qualitative transnational study employing in-depth interviews and narrative methods for data collection has been conducted as part of this doctoral thesis to explore this phenomenon.