Per Gustafson

Roots and routes: Exploring the relationship between place attachment and mobility

Social and behavioral science has often described place attachment and mobility as opposite and mutually exclusive phenomena, has regarded one as better or more important than the other, or has done both. This article presents findings from a qualitative interview study that suggest that people may regard place attachment and mobility, and the relationship between them, in several different ways. Some regard place attachment and mobility as contradictory and feel they have to choose between them; some regard them as opposites but try to find an equilibrium; some regard them as complementary and enjoy both. This article suggests a “roots/routes” perspective, investigating the perceived meanings of and relationships between place attachment and mobility, and argues that further research along these lines would contribute to current debates about the roles and meanings of place.

Tourism and seasonal retirement migration

Abstract This paper suggests that the investigation of tourism-induced seasonal retirement migration can shed new light on issues of anti-tourism, social distinction, and authenticity. Interviews conducted with Swedish retirees, spending their summers in Sweden and their winters in Spain, showed that anti-tourism may involve distinctions from devalued forms of tourism, and also distinctions based on different social roles and positions. The respondents attempted to create a social space for themselves between, on the one hand, tourists and tourism, and on the other hand, the Spanish, Spanishness, and norms of integration. These attempts also produced constructions of authenticity and normality, which challenge traditional conceptions within tourism research.

Work-Related Travel, Gender and Family Obligations

This article uses national travel surveys from Sweden to examine the relationship between family situation, sex and work-related overnight travel. The results indicate that family obligations have an impact on travel activity, but that women and men differ in this respect. Cohabiting men travel more than men living alone, whereas there is no such effect among women. Having young children reduces the travel activity of women, whereas there is no consistent such effect among men. However, regardless of family situation, men travel considerably more than women and this largely reflects women’s and men’s different positions in working life. It is therefore argued that the relationship between work-related travel and family obligations involves both individual adaptation and structural factors, such as a gender-segregated labour market and ‘gender-typing’ of travel as a predominantly male activity, all of which reflect traditional gender and family role expectations.

Transnationalism in retirement migration: the case of North European retirees in Spain

Abstract Most studies of migrant transnationalism have investigated the migration of workers or refugees. This paper examines to what extent and in what ways transnationalism is present in another form of migration – retirement migration from northern Europe to Spain. Relatively strong transnational characteristics are observed with regard to mobility, identities, social networks and cultural practices, whereas political transnationalism is much less developed and economic transnationalism is rather indirect. This general pattern, as well as the specific expressions of transnationalism that are found, reflects, in important respects, the migrants’ position as retirees. The paper discusses some implications of these findings for research on transnationalism and on international retirement migration. It also suggests a number of analytical dimensions of transnationalism that may be useful in other comparative studies.

Mobility and Territorial Belonging

Much existing research assumes that there is an opposition between mobility and territorial belonging, so that mobile persons tend to have a weak sense of belonging whereas persons with a strong sense of belonging are less willing than others to move. Some studies, however, suggest that mobility may coexist with or even reinforce territorial belonging. This article uses Swedish survey data to introduce two important qualifications to this discussion. First, it shows that different kinds of mobility—daily commuting, long-distance travel, residential mobility, and international migration—are differently related to peoples sense of belonging. Second, by examining local, regional, national, and European belonging, it shows that the relationship between mobility and belonging is to some extent a matter of territorial scale.

MORE COSMOPOLITAN, NO LESS LOCAL: The orientations of international travellers

ABSTRACT International business travellers are sometimes described as a cosmopolitan elite, with a strong international orientation but a low preference for local involvement and local obligations. This article uses Swedish survey data to investigate these claims, by comparing the orientations of persons who frequently travel abroad at work with the orientations of other workers. Frequent international travellers generally have more cosmopolitan orientations than others, but the local ties are not significantly weaker among frequent travellers than among occasional travellers or non-travellers. In some respects, notably social networks and associational activities, international travellers tend in fact to be more involved than non-travellers in all the four examined spheres – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Concerns among social theorists that highly mobile, locally disconnected elites are undermining social cohesion may therefore be exaggerated. Theoretically, the study suggests that localism and cosmopolitanism should not be treated as necessarily opposite and mutually exclusive phenomena, but that mobility in various forms may be used to combine local and cosmopolitan resources.

Globalisation, multiculturalism and individualism: the Swedish debate on dual citizenship

Since July 2001, Swedish citizenship law fully permits dual citizenship, whereas earlier legislation demanded that Swedish nationals, with some exceptions, should have only one citizenship. This paper analyses the arguments used in the debate preceding this new law. The opponents of dual citizenship usually defended a nation-state order, in which individuals should belong to one single nation-state and this belonging should be manifested in national citizenship. The proponents of dual citizenship, including the parliamentary majority, balanced the national perspective against, on the one hand, a global/international perspective and, on the other hand, an individual perspective. They frequently referred to globalisation, increasing international mobility, multiple national bonds and multiculturalism. They suggested that dual citizenship would facilitate the integration of immigrants in Sweden, whereas they moderated legal and political concerns, sometimes arguing that rights and obligations in todays society are increasingly dissociated from national citizenship. Finally, the national perspective was at times explicitly subordinated to an individual perspective, which emphasised the experiences and desires of migrants - immigrants as well as expatriate Swedes. This perspective framed dual citizenship as a matter of individual choice, and often regarded citizenship as a personal attribute to be used for the construction of self-identity and meaning.

Travel time and working time: What business travellers do when they travel, and why

Many business travellers today use some of their travel time as working time. However, interviews with frequent business travellers and travel managers in Sweden show that individual travellers differ very much in their attitudes and practices regarding travel time and working time, and that employers generally make no explicit demands about work during travel time. Also, although travellers often appreciate having good working conditions while travelling, the first priority for many frequent travellers is to minimize time spent away from home and family, rather than to make productive use of their travel time.

Business Travel from the Traveller’s Perspective: Stress, Stimulation and Normalization

Abstract For growing numbers of businesspeople, managers and public officials, work involves travel. This study investigates what business travel means to travellers. What are their experiences of travel and what are the consequences of travel for their professional and personal lives? Qualitative interviews with frequent business travellers and corporate travel managers show that travel may be both stressful and stimulating. It may be associated with physical and psychological strain, increased workloads and difficulties in balancing work and private life, but also with enriching experiences, social and professional status and a cosmopolitan identity. It may also promote travellers’ professional careers. However, in some respects, an ongoing normalization of travel seems to have moderating effects on both stress and stimulation among travellers. This normalization occurs on three different levels: the societal, organizational and individual.

International migration and national belonging in the Swedish debate on dual citizenship

This article uses a theoretical framework derived from migration studies to examine different understandings of migration and national belonging in the debate preceding Sweden’s full legal acceptance of dual citizenship in 2001. The empirical question concerns the place of nationally versus transnationally oriented conceptions of migration in the debate, and the analysis of a wide range of public documents demonstrates that both kinds of conceptions were present. Opponents of dual citizenship generally gave expression to a national understanding and considered migration a temporary deviation from a normality of undivided national belonging. Some proponents of dual citizenship, on the contrary, held a more transnational view of migration, and regarded mobility and the maintenance of dual or multiple national bonds as normal. However, there were also many proponents who, from a national perspective, treated migration as more or less problematic, but still advocated dual citizenship as a tool for reducing some of the individual and social problems that it brought about.