A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study

Migration Letters, 2018

Two dominant images of mobile professionals, also known as "expats", have long been common in the social sciences: on the one hand, they were described as super-mobile individuals, who easily move between places with no time frame in mind, with the openness to engage with diversity; on the other hand, more recent studies challenged the idea of "expat" cosmopolitanism, and investigated the boundaries constituted by these people in the course of their everyday life. The present article brings to the fore the complexity of these individuals' and their families' experiences of international mobility from a combined socio-cultural psychological and sociological perspective. We draw on qualitative research conducted in Switzerland in order to reflect on the role of family in the way these people make sense of diversity across time and space, make and un-make symbolic boundaries between themselves and others, and understand personal and their families' transformation.

2012 - Special Issue: Imagined Families in Mobile Worlds, 2012

Migration Letters, 2018

This special issue aims at understanding " expatriate " mobility with a special focus on the role of family and intimacy, and brings together different case studies, built through different theoretical perspectives. These allow approaching " expatriate " family mobility along two main lines: as part of the making of life trajectories, and as shaped by, and shaping, professional trajectories. This editorial highlights the contributions of the various articles, before addressing a series of emerging issues. Among these, it questions the very notion of " expatriate " in the light of family life, shows the evolution of families and family relations in repeated mobility, and brings to the fore the importance of temporality and timing in family mobile life, as well as that of reflexivity in mobility. As a whole, the various contributions of this special issue complement each other in illustrating the complexities of expatriates' migration and family life in times of increasing global mobility, but also, they raise theoretical discussions, point to possible empirical implications, and suggest avenues for further investigations. Expatriates and Family Migration The geographical mobility of the so-called " expatriates " , also known as expats, represents a significant component of contemporary migratory flows. These people include individuals who need or choose to move internationally for their career or life trajectories, professionals who change residence often for work-related reasons (e.g., employees at international organizations and multinational Acknowledgement: This Special Issue is the result of a stimulating dialogue initiated on the occasion of a panel entitled " Friction-less and Root-less Mobilities? Opportunities, Barriers and Intimacies in Expatriate Migration " , which was organized for IMISCOE and NCCR on-the-move Annual Conference in Geneva on June 2015. During the panel, some of the contributors of this issue discussed the different opportunities and possible constraints faced by mobile professionals and their families by drawing on their ongoing research studies. Afterwards, other scholars engaged in similar researches were also involved in order to enlarge the scope of the issue and its interdisciplinary character.

MIGRATION LETTERS, 2018

This special issue aims at understanding “expatriate” mobility with a special focus on the role of family and intimacy, and brings together different case-studies, built through different theoretical perspectives. These allow approaching “expatriate” mobile families along two main lines: as part of the making of life trajectories, and as these are shaped by, and are shaping, professional trajectories. This editorial highlights the contributions of the various articles, before addressing a series of emerging issues. Among these, it questions the very notion of “expatriate” in the light of family life, shows the evolution of families in repeated mobility, and brings to the fore the importance of temporality and timing in these family lives, as well as that of reflexivity in mobility. As a whole, the various contributions of this special issue complement each other in illustrating the complexities of expatriates’ migration and family life in times of increasing global mobility, but als...

Mäetagused, 2014

The article analyses, using material collected through interviews, how members of transnational families talk about their own or their family members' experiences of migration and of crossing different borders. It also looks at the transnational family and the mechanisms of family formation from the perspective of both mobile and settled family members.

2008

One of the key phenomenon we face in the contempora ry world is increasing demand on mobility and flexibility of persons and institutions. The de mographic, economic and political changes create new constraints and opportunities, resulting in a g rowing flow of people who are constantly on the move. Moreover, the demand to become and stay mobil e increasingly concerns women. In the less developed countries, women are “pulled” abroad by t he deficit of care in the ageing wealthy societies (e.g. it is estimated close to 1 Mio wome n of the “caring” professions have left Poland over the last few years). In the developed economie s, women are faced with the spatial mobility requirements as the condition of a gainful career. As a consequence, new patterns of contingency and constancy, movement and integration, work and f mily are emerging. The research conducted in the 6 Framework Programme (Priority 7), “Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe. Modern Mobile Living and its Relation to...

2016

In book: Handbook of Migration and Globalisation, Chapter: 25, Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing, Editors: Anna Triandafyllidou, 2018

As a result of the dominance of highly individualised, economistic and gendered analyses of migration and globalisation processes, family life has often been relegated to the 'back stage' of research on globalisation and migration. However, a number of closely linked developments in both fields are raising awareness of the critical position that family occupies in the relationship between migration and globalisation, pushing analyses of family life to the 'front stage' of research. In this chapter, we examine the relationship between family, globalisation and migration through the lens of care, focusing specifically on the experiences of transnational families. We begin by examining how uneven globalisation processes produce 'crises of care', which migration can help alleviate. We move on to explore the transnational care strategies migrants and their kin members in the country of origin develop to maintain familyhood across borders, including when trapped in immobility. In such a context, the opportunities provided by ICTs to maintain connections and to care across distance have become especially important. We conclude by arguing that mobility and internet access are thus key features of globalisation that require careful policy attention at both national and transnational levels.

2011

New Diversities Journal, 2017

Departing from ongoing fieldwork in China and Northern Europe among Swiss nationals, the aim of this article is to contribute towards clarification of the often somewhat unreflected use of concepts within the 'migration-mobility continuum.' We sketch a mobilities-informed and data-grounded ethnographic research approach and investigate the various forms, meanings and outcomes of mobility and migration throughout three life stories. In conclusion, we argue for an empirically grounded, sophisticated usage of theoretical frameworks and concepts, and we discuss how this can contribute to a more critical, differentiated research about mobility and migration. This article is based on research funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.