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Paper short abstract:

Academic mobility and long-term antrhopological fieldwork can be seen as a form of hidded exile with all or most of the same prolems. I explore data from interviews paying attention to human life of academics who need to live with periodic exiles due to neoliberal policies or academic tradition

Paper long abstract:

All exiles start short: they are supposed to last only while the war/unrest/political problems would end and then the refugee would certainly rejoin the original country. That is what differs exile from emigration. Exile grows into emigration when the refugees relocate their networks and roots more permanently to the new locality. In this presentation I explore situations where one needs to "start anew" again and again simply due to "normal" expectations of policy or academic tradition - an exile that is not seen as exile. Regular micro-to-medium-length mobilities that researchers in general are subject to due to neoliberal approaches to academia, are part of this kind of hidden exile. I am interested in the problems that arise not from the short business trips of a week or so, but what happens when one engages in academic mobility for half a year or longer? In contrast to other fields, academics often are supposed to relocate alone, universities and grants rarely care for families of the researchers as a serious aspect of human life. This tends to invoke very existential decisions about one's personal life. The medium-term mobility also means that one is unable to create a meaningful human network locally. Anthropological career where the "long-term fieldwork" is still often treated as an ideal rite of passage or even regular engagement, often render the personal life of a researcher disembedded and broken. This is a work-in-progess report on results from ongoing interviews with academics (including anthropologists).