Project '(Re)moving Ties: Relatedness in Contemporary Mobile Work Regimes'

The duration of the project is 36 months, during which researchers will collect and analyse data from ethnographic field work that consist of semi-structured in-depth interviews, in-depth mobility case studies, qualitative content analysis, and digital ethnography. This will provide an in-depth understanding of the interaction between kinship and contemporary mobile work regimes that facilitate semi-permanent, periodic work mobility. The study will look at work mobility in academia (researchers) and public administration (military and diplomatic service employees), focusing not on individuals and their perspectives, but rather at bundles of relationships. The central question of the (Re)moving Ties project is how people's semi-permanent work mobility affects the fundamentally important networks of human relationships. The results that are obtained will further develop the understanding of the modern phenomenon of kinship and lay the foundations for empirically and theoretically based improvements in the working environment.

Project phases

The work plan of the project has been created in such a way that activities within the project develop in three phases in a logical sequence. During the first phase, the team will develop the necessary research tools, further widen their knowledge base, prepare and carry out the data-gathering as well as analyse the obtained data. During the second phase, the empirical findings will be synthesised to further develop relevant theoretical insights and on the basis of the acquired understanding, produce academic publications. During the third phase, the research results will be actively distributed domestically and internationally with an aim to have both academic and applied impact.

Conferences

Presentations at international conferences

Sedlenieks, K. 16.06.2022. Growing up in Europe: A Century of Theoretical Self-Deception. In: International Conference of the Society for the Anthropological Sciences: Old Discipline, New Trajectories: Theories, Methods and Practices in Anthropology. Vilnius, Lithuania

Western anthropologists invented the concept of kinship to describe the “other” which seemed to be integrated by kin ties. While Euro-pean (broadly speaking) kinship principles rested on the assumption that birth-related ties must be re-evaluated and replaced by choice-based  ones  during  the  process  of  growing-up,  the  societies  with  strong  “kin  ties”  seemed  to  be  lingering  in  social  childhood.  I  use  Western social theories not as sources of intellectual wisdom, but as ethnographic  artifacts  produced  by  the  intellectual  elites  of  the  so-cieties under scrutiny. Theoretical assumptions like status contract, Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft,  strong-weak  ties,  bonding-bridging  so-cial capital—all reiterate the same vision of social change where the past,  and  early  social  life  is  associated  with  ties  produced  through  birth and the future is associated with choice. A similar framework (flesh  vs  spiritual  kinship)  was  advocated  by  European  Christians  since early Medieval times. Many of these theories draw direct par-allels  with  (European)  assumptions  of  individual  development:  if  birth-related ties are not severed, pathology of sorts results. The fear (or prediction) of the constantly disappearing European family also is  a  part  of  the  general  narrative  of  growing  up  in  Europe.  I  argue  that we need to start looking at European kinship not via theory that was  developed  to  describe  the  “rest”  but  as  an  integral  part  of  Eu-ropean social fabric and consequently evaluate the stream of global theories  (e.g.,  proposing  ends  of  history)  in  a  world  where  Europe  heads towards the periphery.

Sedlenieks, K. 26.07.2022. Growing up in Europe: A Century of Theoretical Self-Deception. In: The 17th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Transformation, Hope and the Commons. Belfast, Northern Ireland

Western anthropologists invented the concept of kinship to describe the "other" which seemed to be integrated by kin ties. While European (broadly speaking) kinship principles rested on the assumption that birth-related ties must be re-evaluated and replaced by choice-based ones during the process of growing-up, the societies with strong "kin ties" seemed to be lingering in social childhood. I use Western social theories not as sources of intellectual wisdom but as ethnographic artefacts produced by the intellectual elites of the societies under scrutiny. Theoretical assumptions like status-contract, Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft, some of Durkheim's, Weber's, Freud's and Parson's ideas, Granovetter's strong-weak ties, Putnam's bonding-bridging social capital) reiterate the same vision of social change whereby the past, and early social life is associated with ties produced through birth and the future is associated with choice. Similar framework (flesh vs spiritual kinship) was advocated by European Christians since early Medieval time. Many of these theories draw direct parallels with (European) assumptions of individual development: if birth-related ties are not severed, pathology of sorts results. The fear (or prediction) of constantly disappearing European family also is a part of the general narrative of growing up in Europe. I argue that we need to start looking at European kinship not via theory that was developed to describe the "rest" but as an integral part of European social fabric and consequently evaluate the stream of global theories (e.g., proposing ends of history) in a world where Europe heads towards periphery.

Lulle, A. 31.08.2022. Privileged lives, privileged wives? Exploring stories of mobile spouses. In: Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society. Newcastle, England

In this paper, I explore self-published narratives and diaries of spouses who can be characterised as privileged migrants or ‘anchors’ at home, waiting for their mobile spouses. I focus on three groups: spouses of academic researchers, military personnel and athletes. The data draws on digital ethnography carried out in 2022 (ongoing) and covers 2010 to 2022. I review stories of spouses through the lenses of mobile spouse literature, liberal migration regimes and writings on privilege. I argue that all these strands of literature reveal versions of the family, which fall short compared to versions of the family-hood by narrators themselves. I aim to shed light on processes of individualisation, which erode notions of care, family and intimacy.

Puzo, I. 23.03.2023. Between Knowledge and Intimacy: Examining the Experiences of International Scholars in Japan and Latvia. In: International Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society. Rovaniemi, Finland

In this paper, I examine the tension between two contradictory factors shaping the (im)mobility of a specific group of transnationally mobile workers – namely, researchers. On the one hand, scholars face the demands of the dominant regimes of knowledge production that increasingly prioritize short-term employment contracts and expect unencumbered movements across borders from one position to another. On the other hand, the lived reality for many scholars is quite different, as they struggle to balance their work and personal lives and aim to build and maintain close relationships. Based on semi-structured interviews with international scholars in Japan and Latvia as well as other ethnographic data, I suggest that researchers consider personal relationships and kin ties – including hopes for creating them – an important factor when making decisions about their potential employment locales. As the narratives of my interlocutors reveal, researchers often make decisions to move to or, importantly, remain in places significant to their family members – and places that may enable the creation of new kin ties or the maintenance of already established ones. These choices, I suggest, destabilize the oft-accepted assumptions about the “ideal” research career path and “desirable” locales of knowledge production, highlighting the importance of intimacy-focused rationales when it comes to work-related decision-making.

Puzo, I. 07.06.–10.06.2023. What’s next? Examining the experiences of international scholars in Latvia. In: 16th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore: Living Uncertainty. Brno, Czech Republic

In this paper, I highlight and examine the uncertainties embedded in the work and personal lives of transnationally mobile research workers. All over the world, the dominant regimes of knowledge production increasingly prioritize short-term employment contracts, with the expectation that the “ideal” researcher would be ready for and even enthusiastic about movements across borders from one position to another. At the same time, the lived reality for many scholars is quite different, as they attempt to balance various aspects of their lives in the face of the multitude of uncertainties engendered by the contemporary regimes of knowledge production.

Based on semi-structured interviews with international scholars in Latvia as well as other ethnographic data, I examine how this kind of uncertainty is experienced by transnationally mobile scholars in research contexts that tend to be considered marginal. As one such locale, the Latvian research landscape is characterized by the unpredictability of research careers as well as the lack of funding and fierce competition for the available resources. How, then, do international scholars in the country make sense of their work and personal lives there—and how do they envision their future? I suggest that, while international scholars may arrive in Latvia with the hope of gaining a measure of certainty in their lives, the country’s research system compounds the already prevalent sense of uncertainty and pushes the researchers out in search of certainty elsewhere.

Sedlenieks, K. 07.06.–10.06.2023. Hidden exile: human life in the shadow of anthropological fieldwork and academic mobility. In: 16th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore: Living Uncertainty. Brno, Czech Republic

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).    

Sedlenieks, K. 30.03.2023. Relatedness and the Long-Term Fieldwork in Anthropology. In: The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference PLACES. Riga, Latvia

Objectives
Since the dawn of cotemporary anthropology long term fieldwork has been treated as both initiation rite for an aspiring anthropologist and as a necessary methodological tool to do proper ethnographic analysis. However, while kinship and relatedness of the research subjects has been central in anthropological agenda, almost no attention has been paid to the ties of the researcher herself. In this presentation I argue that long-term fieldwork is more often than not antagonistic to relatedness-linked human ties in the personal and academic lives of the anthropologist.

Materials and Methods
The presentation is part of an on-going research and is based on series of in-depth (primarily online) interviews with antrhropologists across the globe.

Results
Interviews demonstrate that it is not always easy to reconsile fieldwork with personal life. Most fieldworkers enter their long-term fieldwork projects alone while their partners stay at home. This is often detremental for relationships. Another consequence of this is that the long-term fielwork is adjusted to the life-stage of the anthropologist - one does proper long-term fieldwork while young and single while in later stages this seems to be impossible or unnecessary. This in turn has also unintended methodological consequences where research is done on the basis of more short-term trips

Conclusions
1. The aspect of researcher’s personal kin ties should be integrated in curriculum of teaching anthropological method in order to prepare the researchers better for this “rite of passage” 2. Methodological consequences of the life-stages and long-term fieldworks should be theoretically explored.(this presentation is part of the side-event “Kinship and Relatedness”.

Puzo, I. 30.03.2023. Between Work and Family: Experiences of International Scholars in Japan and Latvia. In: The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference PLACES. Riga, Latvia

Objectives
In this presentation, I examine the tension between two contradictory factors shaping the (im)mobility of research workers. On the one hand, scholars face the demands of the dominant regimes of knowledge production, which increasingly prioritize short-term employment contracts and expect researchers to move across borders from one position and institution to another. On the other hand, many scholars struggle to balance their work and personal lives and consider the building and maintenance of close relationships important.

Materials and Methods
Semi-structured interviews with international scholars in Japan and Latvia as well as other ethnographic data.

Results
I suggest that researchers consider personal relationships and kin ties an important factor when making decisions about their potential employment locales. As the narratives of my interlocutors reveal, researchers often make decisions to move to or, importantly, remain in places significant to their family members—and places that may enable the creation of new kin ties or the maintenance of already established ones.

Conclusions
The findings described in the paper destabilize the oft-accepted assumptions about the “ideal” research career path and “desirable” locales of knowledge production, highlighting the importance of family-focused rationales when it comes to making decisions about one’s work life.

Kiščenko, D. 30.03.2023. Research Workers, Mobility and Relatedness in Research Performing Institutions in Latvia. In: The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference PLACES. Riga, Latvia

One of the first words that pops-up in the strategic documents of higher education institutions in Latvia is “excellence”. Institutions are striving for excellence in education and research. According Appelt et al. (2015), one of the main tools to ensure excellence in the academic world is to foster mobility – both across border and between institutions. But how does this pursuit of excellence, which includes idea of mobility as a driving mechanism, intersects with the lives of research workers and their important relationships (partners, children etc.)?

In this paper, I look at development strategy and gender equality policy documents of four research performing institutions in Latvia - Rīga Stradiņš University, University of Latvia, Riga Technical University, and Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technology. By analysing these documents, I try to understand, if and how kin ties and needs of research workers have been complied with the institutional striving for excellence, which might include semi-permanent periodic work mobility.

The analysis of strategics documents of four research performing institutions show that, on the one hand, organizations recognize the importance of mobility; on the other hand, there are no institutionalized support mechanisms regarding family life and other kin-maintaining responsibilities in the case of mobility. This contrasts with the other areas of work (diplomatic and military services), where are instruments to support the relocation of employees and their spouse and children in the case of mobility. Secondly, although the gender equality policy documents recognize the importance of work-life balance, the support instruments are mainly focused on immobile employees and mostly are related to their children (access to childcare at the premises of the institution, additional paid vacation days, leisure activities etc.).

Rācene-Riekstiņa, L. 30.03.2023. The Scope of Family in Latvian Laws and Why Does It Matter in the Context of Mobility. In: The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference PLACES. Riga, Latvia

Objectives
Firstly my intention is to demonstrate that the scope of legal norms is blurred and contrary to what is imagined does not provide an exact answer to the question what is a family in Latvia. Secondly I want to emphasize possible collisions which may occur in the context of mobility because of conservative scope of the existing legal system in Latvia which is built around and viewed through the lens of the nuclear family.

Materials and Methods
This research is based on a content analysis of legal texts.

Results
According to the oldest and some most recent legal acts the family in Latvia in the narrow sense of its definition is nuclear family - a heterosexual spouses and their children while they are still a part of a common household, but other legal acts use a broader scope of the family the boundaries of which are blurred. Sometimes the scope of the concept of family is clarified by naming each member of family, but at other times it is left open, and it can be replaced by synonyms such as close person (tuvinieks), relatives and household, and narrowly also by the institution of marriage, unless these synonyms are used in a different context that excludes their use as synonyms.

Conclusions
The conservative leading scope of the concept of family constructed by state and secure in laws creates challenges for Latvia as a host country, because in some cases people who are recognized as family in they home country will not be family in Latvia.

Siliņa, A. 30.03.2023. The Impact of Job Specifics on Social Ties of Professional Orchestral Musicians in Latvia. In: The 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference PLACES. Riga, Latvia

Objectives
Orchestral music performance creates an environment which consists of multi-directional social interactions. The relationships between the artist and the audience, among the musicians on stage, between the musicians and their music instruments. But this is only a part of networks that surround the lives of a professional orchestral musician. The other side, more personal - family, friends, colleagues - form a collective of relationships that both impact and are influenced by the musician’s work.

Materials and Methods
In this paper, I aim to examine the work experience of orchestral musicians in Latvia and how it affects their personal relationships and family life. Are there aspects of this profession that challenge family and friendship ties? If so, are these reasons specific to this type of work and are they influenced by education and employment system that orchestral musicians go through in Latvia?

Results
Currently collected data, through semi-structured interviews, show that majority of respondents have several other jobs besides their work in orchestra. The main reason for seeking additional work was irregular and inefficient income. Another impact on their personal lives was the work schedule that is not constant and often clashes with working hours of family members and friends who don’t work in this field. Important to note that all of the interviewed musicians had either studied or worked abroad at some time in their careers, or are still currently doing so. The reasons varied – for most, holding concerts or touring abroad is a recurring part of the job; studying to experience different modes of education; moving abroad to seek more opportunities and gain experience. These different movements were also mentioned as having a disruptive effect on relationships depending on duration and distance.

Conclusions
Thus these irregularities, uncertainties and constant movements can create disturbance in maintaining stable social connections in family and friendship circles.

Sedlenieks, K. 31.08.2023. Kinship as a product of state: the case of Latvia. In: The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) network on Anthropologies of the State (AnthroState) conference "Future States." Riga, Latvia

One of the conventions about the state is that it is a form of social organisation which is in competition with kinship. In this presentation I will follow the ways public govenance institutions (including state) have been engaged in shaping Latvian kinship since the time when the first written records appear in 13th century. Ultimately I argue that Latvian kinship is hardly separable from the state. It even makes sense to ask if Latvian kinship exists without the state. Moreover, the process of restitution of the independent state in early 1990s also demonstrated that the political and economic backbone of the state was directly derived from existing kin ties. Thus the dependence goes both ways. Most of the historic state-related processes of “kinship-building” in Latvia were closely related to legal and religious assumptions that were similar or directly borrowed from elsewhere in Europe. The presented arguments suggest rethinking the concepts of European kinship and its links to the state perhaps discarding the kinship/state division in favour of a reconfigured concept of kin-state.

Sedlenieks, K. 18.01.–19.01.2024. Childhood friends, colleagues and others: maintaining ties while being subjected to tie engineering. In: Mobile Professionals and Families - A Symposium. Tampere, Finland

Changing one’s place of residence inevitably affects interpersonal ties – some are shortened and strengthened, some are stretched to the limit, and some are severed. I use the concept of “tie engineering” to describe the process whereby various agencies (governments, private or public employees, bureaucracies etc) consciously manipulate human ties in order to achieve their intended goals. This may include pulling or pushing people together in order for them to “network” and “form webs” or pulling them apart in order to minimise the personal ties that might form (as is the case of some international aid organisations). This presentation is about the subjects of this tie engineering – the people who get entangled in periodic relocation related to their job and (at least partly) due to institutional policies. On the basis of a series of interviews with mobile scholars, diplomats and employees of international organisations I trace the way they maintain relationships with people around them, paying particular attention to how they refer to friendships and other important ties. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to maintain old friendships while one moves around. However, new friendships are also difficult to create and many of the people that I interviewed, do not even intend to start working on their relationships. In particular, if the relocation is to another country where the language is different. While some manage to develop deeper friendships with some of the colleagues and even neighbours, most refer to their childhood or early adulthood friends as the most important persons.

Sedlenieks, K. 23.07.–26.07.2024. Mobility and the tie engineering. In: The 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain

In this presentation I invite to look at the process of geographical relocation from the perspective of relations by introducing a concept of “tie engineering”, i.e., a conscious or semi-conscious effort to manipulate human ties through varying physical/geographical distance among the target group. In other words: people are put together or drawn apart in such a way that the ties among them are either strengthened or severed. Such tie engineering is incorporated in policies of various institutions and are more often than not based on the assumption that weak ties (vid. Granovetter) should be strengthened and strong ties must be weakened. There are some cases though (e.g., anthropological fieldwork) where the opposite may be the case, but also to a certain degree. The institutionalised tie engineering does not exist separately from the ideas circulating among the general public and the people that are subjected to tie engineering. So that while there is a purposeful effort at the level of institutional policies, there is no less purposeful effort at the individual and personal level. The empirical material that illustrates the processes of tie engineering come from interviews with mobile professionals in three areas: academic, diplomatic and international organisations. I demonstrate that depending on the institutional goals the tie engineering practices may vary, but often result in similar personal problems across the board.

Puzo, I. 23.07.–26.07.2024. “Sometimes there is more to life than science”: (Im)mobility decisions among international scholars in Japan and Latvia. In: The 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain

This contribution examines the tension between two contradictory factors shaping the (im)mobility of researcher workers: the demands of the dominant regimes of knowledge production and the importance of building and maintaining close relationships. At the discursive level, the “ideal” researcher is often portrayed as someone unencumbered by close personal ties and dedicating their life to science. The lived reality for many scholars, however, is quite different, as they struggle to balance their work and personal lives.

Based on semi-structured interviews with international scholars in Japan and Latvia as well as other ethnographic data, I suggest that personal considerations—relationships, kin ties, and the hope of creating them—constitute an important factor for research workers as they make decisions about their actual and potential employment locales. Rather than necessarily prioritizing the potentiality of movements to the “centers” of academic knowledge production, researchers often choose to cease the mobility expected of them by the contemporary regime of knowledge production and instead opt to remain in places significant in terms of personal ties—and places that may enable the creation of new relationships or the maintenance of already established ones. Turning the analytical lens to how mobility decisions are co-made by researchers and people close to them, opens a novel angle for examining the institutional and policy assumptions about academic mobility.

Žabicka, A. 23.07.–26.07.2024. Chasing the rainbow: how young American queers are moving “elsewhere.” In: The 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain

In addition to (precarious) work-based mobility that affects many young professionals in the United States, young queer professionals also evaluate potential political effects on their personal lives as queers: will they be able to form close romantic and/or kin relations? Will they feel safe on the streets? Will they be able “to be themselves”? Such alertness not only additionally affects career chances but also mobility paths.

Based on in-depth interviews, I follow my interlocutors’ mobility paths from “red” (republican and/or conservative) states, cities, and towns to “blue” (democratic and/or liberal) states, cities, and “hubs” that lead to usually well-planned, although temporary “elsewheres” that provide a safe space and queer or queer-friendly community. Thus, in this paper, I explore the “elsewhereness” as in-betweenness that comes into being through hope for a place providing togetherness, a sense of belonging, very tangible safety, and “being oneself” combined with job offers or chances for education. In contemporary ever-changing political circumstances that affect LGBTQA+ people, “elsewhereness” becomes as much a process from “here” to “there”, as it is a state of “not-here/not-yet-there” that stems from enforced temporariness based on ever-present political alertness. “Elsewhereness” – that does and does not exist – becomes an imagined escape route within a country that is full of pockets of inequality and marginality.

Panels at international conferences

Lulle, A., Cela, E. 29.06.–01.07.2022. Panel: Return migration and ageing. In: The 19th Annual Conference of the International Migration Research Network: Migration and Time. Oslo, Norway

Return migration is on the rise. The pandemic and Brexit are among the significant immediate reasons. However, we also need to pay attention to the temporality and dynamics of policies and political events across the globe, which literally, encourage ageing people to move. For example, in the case so-called free EU mobility, especially in the case of Eastern and Central Europe, many of those who emigrated in the 2000s have entered their middle adulthood and are ageing. While the debates on return migration often focus on brain gain, attention to older returnees remains scarce. We want to shift the attention to more diverse and inclusive realities of return in older age in Europe and beyond. We seek to extend debates in theory and practice of return in older age. Cerase (1974) claimed that retirement is a common reason for return; Cassarino (2004) modified the theory by laying the ground for studying how people prepare their return and what capabilities play a role to make it happen. Further research on return migration emphasised its relatedness to other forms of mobilities, especially the co-existence of transnationalism and return. A specific focus on return migration in later life has further scrutinised why people return instead of engaging in transnational travel and home-making while they can still be internationally mobile (Hunter 2011; Percival 2013; Walsh and Näre). To engage with the current realities of ageing and return, we welcome globally relevant papers who address but are not limited to the following topics:

• Role of politics in return migration decisions in older age;
• Social welfare and wellbeing of return migrants;
• Return migration for work in older age;
• Role of social networks in return migration;
• Return in so-called ‘third age’ – healthy and active years around and after retirement versus return in frail age.

Lulle, A. 31.08.2022. Panel: Families and ‘privileged’ work mobilities: conflicts, disruptions, connections and recovery. In: Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society. Newcastle, England

This session (re)examines the relationship between family ties and transnational work migration by focusing on the movements of relatively privileged groups. Relatively privileged migrants are often associated with an ease of mobility because they are considered “highly skilled” and, as such, “desirable” workers in the contemporary knowledge economy. However, accounts of the ease of movement are contested by accounts of migration that consider the wider influence of the family.    

Our session invites an investigation into the consequences and lived realities of family ties in transnational work migrations.  Such groups may include academics, IT professionals, employees in multinational corporations, diplomats, military personnel, those working for charities and NGOs, students and others. Pandemic further disrupted work and home relations, and people introduced new ways of recovering balance between work and family across borders. To examine the tension between the institutional push towards transnational mobility and the importance of rootedness and family ties, this session invites presentations that explore among others, one or several of the following themes:

• How do regular semi-permanent long-distance mobility interact with family ties?
• How do various institutional settings envision and treat family relations?
• How are the networks of relatedness influenced by different provisions (or lack of) for the employees’ family needs?
• How mobility experienced by ‘accompanying’ spouses, children and other relatives?

Sedlenieks, K., Korpela, M. 23.07.–26.07.2024. Panel: To tie or not to tie: skilled professionals, transnational mobility, family and friends [Anthropology and Mobility (AnthroMob)]. In: The 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain

Increasing numbers of skilled professionals move transnationally for career reasons. Often, they do not settle down in the destination permanently but move on after a few months or years. While many countries welcome these “career expatriates”, national immigration policies and multinational employers tend to focus on the individual worker, detached from family relations and personal friendships. Moreover, much of the literature on mobile international professionals is published in the field of management studies and many studies use quantitative methodology. Migration studies tend to ignore these “privileged migrants” too. In this panel, we want to widen the focus from work-related issues to the mobile professionals’ personal lives, including the making and un-making of familial ties and friendships. How is work-related mobility reconciled with the human practices of maintaining kin, or friendship ties? How can an anthropological approach enrich the field? Which anthropological concepts or theories are useful when investigating the familial and personal ties of mobile professionals? Which methodological approaches enable us to reach insights to the phenomenon (the “natives’ point of view) that is often invisible on policy level but highly visible online with the abundance of self-help pages and peer support communities? We are also interested in the instrumentalisation of mobility when it is made into a policy that purposefully manipuates with human tendency to associate in groups (e.g., the academic mobility which supposedly is one of the cornerstones of the European academic policy).

Puzo, I., Mata Codesal, D. 23.07.–26.07.2024. Panel: Shaping futures: doing and undoing mobility through an anthropological lens on immobility [Anthropology and Mobility (AnthroMob)]. In: The 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain

In the current era, often portrayed as one of accelerated mobility, who is perceived as being immobile, and what does it mean? How do people make sense of immobility? How can we account for the experience of immobility in a time that appears to value (hyper)mobility? This panel aims to offer a nuanced perspective on immobility that transcends the mere absence of movement. We will discuss the complex interplay of structural, personal, social, and political factors that shape the experience of immobility.

We invite contributions that focus on immobility and its implications and offer insights into the complexities of human and non-human im/mobilities. We are particularly interested in emic understandings of immobility as practice, experience, discourse, and/or ideology. This may include experiences of being or feeling "stuck", structures enabling immobility, stances of waiting, and mobilities perceived as “slow”. We also aim to question the “mobilitarian ideology” (Mincke, 2016) that prescribes mobility as an almost universal value. We welcome proposals that identify counter-hegemonic narratives of immobility, such as calls and demands for slowing down and the right to remain/stay put. This will allow us to track normative contestations and discursive challenges to mobility biases and mobilitarian ideologies.

By examining im/mobile subjectivities, emic understandings of immobility, experiences, and practices of immobility, we aim to foster a polylogue to explore how the anthropological study of immobility can lead to practical interventions regarding mobility justice and invigorate anthropology as a discipline with direct impact on people's lives.

Organization of international conferences

30.03.2023. The 3rd International Conference PLACES. Rīga, Latvia

As part of the 3rd International Conference PLACES, RSU social anthropologists organized a one-day conference on the interaction between labour mobility and kinship / intimacy.

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30.08.–31.08.2023. The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) network on Anthropologies of the State (AnthroState) conference “Future States”. Rīga, Latvia

A two-day international anthropological conference on the state featured presentations by nearly thirty social anthropologists from European and U.S. universities. The central event was a presentation by Prof. Rebecca Bryant of Utrecht University, titled The Unbecoming State: Thinking Sovereignty through the Governance of Time.

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10.10.–11.10.2024. The Getaway Conference: Mobilities, Societies, the State, and Detoxing. Riga, Latvia

A two-day international anthropological conference focused on the breaking, making, and maintaining of social ties among so-called mobile professionals. The central event was a presentation by Prof. Louise Ryan of London Metropolitan University and Director of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre, titled "You Need a Network": How Highly Qualified Refugees Rebuild Social Networks to Convert Cultural Capital and Reclaim Professional Identities.

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Project info

• Project/agreement No.: lzp-2021/1-0213
• Project funding: 299 960,00 EUR
• Project manager: asoc. prof. Klāvs Sedlenieks
• Project realization: 01.01.2022.–31.12.2024.