Privileged Mobilities

Locating the Expatriate in Migration Scholarship

Bibliographic Data

ID5696331
AuthorsSarah Kunz (0000-0002-6598-6320, University College London, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume10
Issue3
Pages89-101
Publication date2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeography Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-8198 • E-ISSN: 1749-8198
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/gec3.12253
OpenAlexW2340142043
LanguageEN
Citations received103
References cited68

Migrants who are privileged by citizenship, class or 'race' are largely still absent from mainstream migration research and theory; until recently, they were generally assumed to be adaptable and acceptable cosmopolites, positive drivers of cross-border transfers of knowledge and skills. This has been addressed by an emerging scholarship on 'expatriates'. This article offers a review and critical reading of that literature; it considers the instabilities and ambiguities of the term 'expatriate' and situates expatriate migrants within the global economy, before examining the gendered nature of expatriation and attending to migrants' incorporation in host contexts and expatriate negotiations of identity. The literature suggests that at the heart of these processes lie complex configurations of racialisation, gender, class and nationality, often involving problematic reproductions of the colonial past. This article argues that these issues are inherently related to the category's inconsistencies, rendering it difficult as a 'category of analysis'. Instead, rather than using the term as a pre-given conceptual frame, it needs to be treated as a 'category of practice' to be investigated in its own right. Especially as the subject becomes more established in migration studies, scholars need to reckon with the ongoing challenge that lies in studying the identity category 'expatriate' while resisting reproducing a reified understanding of it

Aesthetics · Expatriate · Mainstream · Migration studies · Mobilities · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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