“Switzerland doesn’t want me” Work, precarity and emotions for mobile professionals’ partners
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59670/ml.v16i2.660Keywords:
Domestic migration, small area estimation, life expectancy, smoothing methods, population ageingAbstract
A wide range of professions demands mobility as a requisite for “excellence”, success and “good performance”. At the same time, more precarious and flexible conditions, ranging from unemployment, to temporary, free-lance and self-employed occupations, now characterize the mobile trajectories of a large number of professionals and their partners. What is the emotional cost of these conditions in mobility? How do mobile professionals’ partners feel and deal with feeling rules regarding unemployment and job search when moving? The article examines the case of Switzerland, by exploring the experience of mobile professionals’ partners.Metrics
References
Ackers, L. (2005). Moving People and Knowledge: Scientific Mobility in the European Union1. International Migration, 43(5), 99–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2005.00343.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2005.00343.x
Agergaard, S., & Ungruhe, C. (2016). Ambivalent Precarity: Career Trajectories and Temporalities in Highly Skilled Sports Labor Migration from West Africa to Northern Europe. Anthropology of Work Review, 37(2), 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12096
https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12096
Al-Mohammad, H. (2012). A KIDNAPPING IN BASRA: The Struggles and Precariousness of Life in Postinvasion Iraq. Cultural Anthropology, 27(4), 597–614. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2012.01163.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2012.01163.x
Anderson, B. (2010). Migration, immigration controls and the fashioning of precarious workers. Work, Employment and Society, 24(2), 300–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017010362141
https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017010362141
Anderson, B. (2014). Precarious Pasts, Precarious Futures. In C. Costello & M. Freedland (Eds.), Migrants at Work: Immigration and Vulnerability in Labour Law (pp. 29–43). Oxford: Oxford University Press (New York, NY, US).
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198714101.003.0002
Berg, M. van den, & O'Neill, B. (2017). Introduction: Rethinking the class politics of boredom. Focaal, 2017(78), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2017.780101
https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2017.780101
Bernela, B. (2016). Géographie des carrières universitaires et construction des collaborations scientifiques : une étude de cas en mathématiques. Géographie, économie, société, 18(2), 235–256. https://doi.org/10.3166/ges.18.235-256
https://doi.org/10.3166/ges.18.235-256
Biglia, B., & Martí, J. B. (2014). Precarity. In T. Teo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology (pp. 1488–1491). Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_230
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_230
Bilecen, B., & Mol, C. V. (2017). Introduction: international academic mobility and inequalities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(8), 1241–1255. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300225
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300225
Boccagni, P., & Baldassar, L. (2015). Emotions on the move: Mapping the emergent field of emotion and migration. Emotion, Space and Society, 16, 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009
Bourdieu, P. (1999). Job Insecurity is Everywher Now. In Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market (pp. 81–88). New York: New Press, The.
Butler, J. (2006). Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (Reprint edition). London; New York: Verso.
Calhoun, C. (2004). Subjectivity and Emotion. In Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions (pp. 107–121). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press: Robert C. Solomon (Ed.).
Cangià, F. (2017). (Im)Mobility and the emotional lives of expat spouses. Emotion, Space and Society, 25, 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2017.10.001
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2017.10.001
Cangià, F. (2018). Precarity, Imagination and the Mobile Life of the "Trailing Spouse." Ethos, 46(1), 8–26.
https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12195
Cangià, F., Levitan, D., & Zittoun, T. (2018). Family, Boundaries and Transformation. The International Mobility of Professionals and Their Families. Migration Letters, 15(1), 17–31.
https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v15i1.343
Cangià, F., & Zittoun, T. (Eds.). (2018). Editorial: "When 'Expatriation' is a Matter of Family. Opportunities, Barriers and Intimacies in International Mobility." Migration Letters, 15(1), 1–16.
Cangià, F., Zittoun, T., & Levitan, D. (in press). Work and Geographical Mobility: The Case of the Male Accompanying Spouses. In P. Bendassoli (Ed.), Culture, work and psychology: Invitations to dialogue (Information Age Publishing, Vol. 3). Charlotte, NC.
Castel, R. (Ed.). (2002). From Manual Workers to Wage Laborers: Transformation of the Social Question (1 edition). New Brunswick, N.J: Routledge.
Cole, N. D. (2011). Managing global talent: solving the spousal adjustment problem. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(7), 1504–1530. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.561963
https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.561963
Cooper, M. (2014). Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Della Porta, D., Hänninen, S., Silvasti, T., & Siisiäinen, M. (2015). The New Social Division: Making and Unmaking Precariousness. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137509352
Doogan, K. (2015). Precarity – Minority Condition or Majority Experience? In The New Social Division: Making and Unmaking Precariousness (Della Porta et al. (Eds)., pp. 43–62). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ellis, C. (2003). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Ettlinger, N. (2007). Precarity Unbound. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 32(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540703200303
https://doi.org/10.1177/030437540703200303
Forsey, M. G. (2010). Ethnography as participant listening. Ethnography, 11(4), 558–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138110372587
https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138110372587
Fudge, J., & Strauss, K. (2013). Temporary Work, Agencies and Unfree Labour: Insecurity in the New World of Work. London; New York: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1956). Embarrassment and Social Organization. American Journal of Sociology, 62(3), 264–271.
https://doi.org/10.1086/222003
Guth, M. J., & Gill, B. (2008). Motivations in East–West Doctoral Mobility: Revisiting the Question of Brain Drain. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(5), 825–841. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830802106119
https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830802106119
Harvey, M. G. (1995). The impact of dual-career families on international relocations. Human Resource Management Review, 5(3), 223–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/1053-4822(95)90003-9
https://doi.org/10.1016/1053-4822(95)90003-9
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional Contagion. Cambridge England ; New York : Paris: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174138
Hercog, M., & Sandoz, L. (2018). Highly Skilled or Highly Wanted Migrants? Conceptualizations, Policy Designs and Implementations of High-skilled Migration Policies. Migration Letters, 15(4), 453–460. https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v15i4.534
https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v15i4.534
Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85(3), 551–575.
https://doi.org/10.1086/227049
Hockey, J., & Forsey, M. (2012). Ethnography is not Participant Observation: Reflections on the Interview as Participatory Qualititative Research. In The Interview: An Ethnographic Approach (Jonathan Skinner, pp. 69–88). London, New York: Berg.
Jasper, J. (2014). Emotions, sociology, and protest. In C. von Scheve & M. Salmella (Eds.), Collective Emotions (pp. 341–355). OUP Oxford.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659180.003.0023
Jasper, J. M. (1998). The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in and around Social Movements. Sociological Forum, 13(3), 397–424.
https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022175308081
Kesisoglou, G., Figgou, E., & Dikaiou, M. (2016). Constructing Work and Subjectivities in Precarious Conditions: Psycho-Discursive Practices in Young People's Interviews in Greece. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 24–43. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.494
https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.494
Lauring, J., & Selmer, J. (2010). The supportive expatriate spouse: An ethnographic study of spouse involvement in expatriate careers. International Business Review, 19(1), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2009.09.006
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2009.09.006
Lempiäinen, K. (2015). Precariousness in Academia: Prospects for University Employment. In The New Social Division: Making and Unmaking Precariousness (D. della Porta et al. (Eds)., pp. 123–138). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Levitan, D. (2018). The Art of Living in Transitoriness: Strategies of Families in Repeated Geographical Mobility. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9448-4
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9448-4
Levy, R. I., & Wellenkamp, J. C. (1989). Methodology in the Anthropological Study of Emotion. In In Emotion: Theory, Re- search, and Experience. Vol. 4: The Measurement of Emotions. R. Plutchik and H. Kellerman, eds. (pp. 205–232). New York: Academic Press. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780125587044500141
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-558704-4.50014-1
Lewis, H., Dwyer, P., Hodkinson, S., & Waite, L. J. (2014). Hyper-precarious lives? Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North. Progress in Human Geography, (10.1177/0309132514548303). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132514548303
https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132514548303
Lindquist, K. A. (2013). Emotions Emerge from More Basic Psychological Ingredients: A Modern Psychological Constructionist Model. Emotion Review, 5(4), 356–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073913489750
https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073913489750
Lutz, C. A., & White, and G. M. (1986). The Anthropology of Emotions. Annual Review of Anthropology, 15(1), 405–436. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.15.100186.002201
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.15.100186.002201
McKenzie, L. (2018). Invisible anger: Intergenerational dependence and resentment among precarious academics. Intergenerational Responsibility in the 21st Century, 33–54.
Milton, K. (2002). Loving Nature: Towards an Ecology of Emotion (New. edizione). London ; New York: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203421413
Murgia, A. (2010). Dalla precarietà lavorativa alla precarietà sociale. Biografie in transito tra lavoro e non lavoro. Bologna: I Libri di Emil.
Neilson, B., & Rossiter, N. (2005). From Precarity to Precariousness and Back Again: Labour, Life and Unstable Networks. The Fibreculture Journal, Issue 5. Retrieved from http://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-022-from-precarity-to-precariousness-and-back-again-labour-life-and-unstable-networks/
Neilson, B., & Rossiter, N. (2008). Precarity as a Political Concept, or, Fordism as Exception. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7–8), 51–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408097796
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408097796
Nussbaum, M. C. (2003). Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pugh, A. J. (2015). The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity (1 edition). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Ravasi, C., Salamin, X., & Davoine, E. (2013). The challenge of dual career expatriate management in a specific host national environment: An exploratory study of expatriate and spouse adjustment in Switzerland based MNCs. Université de Fribourg. Retrieved from http://doc.rero.ch/record/208749
Ria-o, Y., & Baghdadi, N. (2007). Understanding the Labour Market Participation of Skilled Immigrant Women in Switzerland: The Interplay of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender. Journal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l'integration et de La Migration Internationale, 8(2), 163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0012-1
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-007-0012-1
Schaer, M., & Dahinden, J. (2017). Jeunes chercheurs académiques. La mobilité comme mode de vie. Terra Cognita, 31, 28–31.
Schaer, M., Dahinden, J., & Toader, A. (2017). Transnational mobility among early-career academics: gendered aspects of negotiations and arrangements within heterosexual couples. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(8), 1292–1307. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300254
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300254
Schierup, C.-U., Munck, R., Likic-Brboric, B., & Neergaard, A. (2015). Migration, Precarity, and Global Governance: Challenges and Opportunities for Labour. OUP Oxford.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728863.001.0001
Smith, M. P., & Favell, A. (2006). The Human Face of Global Mobility: International Highly Skilled Migration In Europe, North America And The Asia-Pacific. New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Smith, V. (1997). New Forms of Work Organization. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 315–339.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.23.1.315
Solomon, R. C. (1993). The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Solomon, R. C. (Ed.). (2004). Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Standing, G. (2014). The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Reprint edition). London, UK; New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
Steiner, I., & Wanner, P. (2015). Towards a New Data Set for The Analysis of Migration and Integration in Switzerland 2015 (nccr on-the-move Working Paper). Retrieved from https://nccr-onthemove.ch/publications/towards-a-new-data-set-for-the-analysis-of-migration-and-integration-in-switzerland/
Stewart, K. (2012). Precarity's Forms. Cultural Anthropology, 27(3), 518–525. https://doi.org/10.14506/
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2012.01157.x
Toader, A., & Dahinden, J. (2018). Family configurations and arrangements in the transnational mobility of early-career academics: Does gender make twice the difference? Migration Letters, 15(1), 67–84.
https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v15i1.339
Waite, L., & Lewis, H. (2017). Precarious irregular migrants and their sharing economies: A spectrum of transactional labouring experiences. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, (10.1080/24694452.2016.1270188). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1270188
https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2016.1270188
Waite, Louise. (2009). A Place and Space for a Critical Geography of Precarity? Geography Compass, 3(1), 412–433. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00184.x
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00184.x
Worth, N. (2015). Feeling precarious: Millennial women and work. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775815622211
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775815622211
Zittoun, T., Levitan, D., & Cangiá, F. (2018). A sociocultural approach to mobile families: A case study. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(4), 424–432. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000313
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
