Anna Amelina

Hierarchies and categorical power in cross-border science: analysing scientists’ transnational mobility between Ukraine and Germany

Using the results of qualitative research in Germany and Ukraine, the article provides evidence to how the short-term and circular geographic mobility of Ukrainian natural scientists between Ukraine and Germany contributes to the formation of a cross-border scientific field. Combining Bourdieu’s field theory with the transnational field approach and the intersectional perspective, the article indicates how unequal access to scientific reputation is structured across borders. In sum, the complex interplay of ethnicity-, class- and gender-related categorizations pushes mobile scientists to define themselves as an exploited elite. At the same time, female mobile scientists are identified as having the most disadvantaged positions in the transnational academic hierarchy.

Migration and Social Transformation: Interdisciplinary Insights and European Perspectives

Over the past few decades both migration policies and practices of migration and mobility have undergone significant changes. This introductory chapter argues for a social-transformation perspective to contextualize and analyze these dynamics. The chapter emphasizes the manifold ways in which migration and borders are linked to changing political-economic constellations, to orders of power and inequality, to political discourses, and to institutional contexts. It introduces the four main parts of this volume that in their interplay reflect the complexity that this understanding entails. First, from this perspective, the analysis of migration requires a profound anchoring in social theory. Second, the social-transformation-approach forces us to take into account shifts in the political regulation of migration and borders. Third, the social-transformation perspective points to dynamic changes of individual migration patterns themselves and to the agency of mobile subjects. Finally, it leads us to consider how both policies and practices of migration are linked to struggles over identity and belonging. Furthermore, the chapter provides insights into manifold ways, in which the chapters collected in this volume, reflect on the European project, which on its part is embedded in profound societal transformation processes.

An Intersectional Approach to the Complexity of Social Support Within German–Ukrainian Transnational Space

Purpose – Analyzing support strategies (such as childcare, elderly care, nursing, and remittances) of Ukrainian migrants living in Germany, the chapter addresses the interrelationship of social inequality and migration. First, it explores mechanisms influencing the unequal distribution of financial and care support within Ukrainian transnational families. Second, it examines how the unequal distribution influences migrants’ social mobility in Germany. Methods – Building on the intersectionality approach the chapter indicates class, ethnic, and gender-specific categorizations as being important determinants of unequal support distribution. Conducting 28 semi-structured interviews the author used the multisited research methodology including the sending (Kiev, Rogosin near Lviv, Poltava and Ivano-Frankovsk) and the receiving (Bielefeld) localities. Findings – The research results point out how correspondent gender narratives, self-ethnicization and migrants’ strategies of status representation structure the unequal support distribution. First, marital status regulates quantities of migrant womens support, which encourages the self-exploitation of married migrant women, in contrast to single mothers. Second, the quantities of migrant mens social support are influenced by their educational achievements in Germany. In sum, migrant men and single mothers are generally sooner integrated into the formal labor market than married migrant women. Limitations – The interpretation of research results is limited to a number of qualitative interviews and should not be over-generalized in a quantitative manner. Nevertheless, it provides insights into how the transnationally organized reproductive sector influences migrants’ social mobility in the country of destination.

Coming Out within Transnational Families: Intimate Confessions under Western Eyes

ABSTRACT This article is about ‘coming out’ and the process of disclosure of queer migrants within their transnational families. Despite debates about the decreasing relevance of coming out in contemporary western societies, we argue that the process of coming out continues to be a central mode of belonging and identity construction for queers in the context of transnational migration. Interviews with migrants from Poland, Russia and Turkey in Germany on their coming out experiences show that people rely on a variety of boundaries, i.e. gender, class and ethnicity, to construct a desired way of life. Theoretically, these insights indicate the need to reframe post-structuralist theories on power, most prominently advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, from an intersectional perspective. The findings in this paper pinpoint to the challenges of transnational social life queer migrants are confronted with through empirical illustrations of perceptions of differences and ambiguities between immigration and emigration contexts. Furthermore, we advocate that sexuality is a crucial dimension of migration processes determining self-definition in relation to people and places, which makes their stories of coming out always also stories of ‘coming home’.

Egozentrierte Netzwerkanalyse in der Biographieforschung: Methodologische Potenziale und empirische Veranschaulichung

Dieser Beitrag schlagt die Erweiterung der Biographieforschung um die soziale Netzwerkanalyse (SNA) vor. Wir pladieren dafur, biographische Narrationen nicht isoliert von interpersonellen Beziehungen zu betrachten. Die egozentrierte Netzwerkanalyse, eine Spielart der sozialen Netzwerkanalyse, gibt uns das methodische Instrumentarium an die Hand, interpersonelle Beziehungen der Biograph*innen mit zu berucksichtigen und fur die Kontextualisierung biographischer Narrative zu nutzen. Eine kombinierte Anwendung der egozentrierten Netzwerkanalyse und biographischer Verfahren wird am Beispiel einer empirischen Studie zur transnationalen Migration zwischen der Turkei und Deutschland illustriert.

Jenseits des Homogenitätsmodells der Kultur

In den letzten 15 Jahren wurde die internationale Migrationsforschung mit der Entwicklung eines neuen Forschungsprogramms konfrontiert: Die transnationale Perspektive auf die geographische Mobilitat (Basch/Glick Schiller/Szanton Blanc 1994; Portes 2001; Vertovec 1999) entwickelte sich zu einem angesehenen Forschungsprogramm der Transnational Studies (Faist 2000; Pries 2008a; 2008b; Khagram/Levitt 2008).

Scaling Inequalities? Sociology of Space and of Social Boundaries in Studies on Migration and Social Inequalities

In social sciences dominant discourses on migration mainly address the subject of migrants’ social mobility within the receiving context. They particularly focus on the complex interrelation between the ethnic and class divisions that encourage the economic and political inequality in the country of destination (Alba/Nee 2003; Portes/Rumbaut 2006).

Evolution der Medien und der Medienkontrolle im postsowjetischen Russland

The political influence of media practices in post-Soviet Russia is very much related to the ongoing change of media control. Thus, it is highly important to examine the question concering societal and media pre-conditions of such a development in media. Exemplifying the evolution of television structures in the (post-) Soviet Russia between 1970 and 2006, one can show in which ways the typical forms of propaganda communication of the Soviet Union (commencing 1985/86), were replaced by new forms of media communication. The empirical data illustrates that not only media structures but also the forms of media control are changing. The macro-sociological perspective of this paper focuses on the connection between the media evolution and the societal formation of the former Soviet Union.