Helena Pettersson

Research Cooperation, Learning Processes, and Trust among Plant Scientists: Fictive Kinship, Academic Mobility, and Scientists’ Careers

Career paths among academics and the construction of academic research communities are central topics in current research politics at a global as well as local level. The discourse about the research society as a cosmopolitan community puts forward a ‘taken for granted’ perspective that mobility is good for its own cause. On the other hand, ideas concerning stability, ‘home’, and ‘roots’, having a geographical focal point in life, are still valued as life quality factors. These contradictory ideals and values make the combination of transnational mobility with family life and the feeling of being at home complicated.2