Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

441

In-Mobilities: Migration and Social Mobility in the Age of Globalization. Part I

RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)

Language: English

In their classic, Pathways to Social Class. A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility (1997), Daniel Bertaux and Paul Thompson called for research approaches on social mobility beyond pure statistics. They suggested the use of qualitative methods such as life stories and family case studies in order to examine the complex dynamics of social mobility in a more profound way. Almost twenty years later, it can be asked what has changed in the empirical understanding and theoretical conceptualization of social mobility. 
In our session, we would like to continue the methodological discussion started by Bertaux and Thompson and deepen it by the question of how qualitative approaches in general as well as biographical approaches in specific can help us to understand social mobility processes in the area of globalization and transnationalization. 
The following questions should be discussed: 

• How can social mobility be conceptualized beyond the nation-state borders? 
• How can we understand social mobility from a transnational perspective?
• Are there some specific gendered and generational patterns of social (im)mobility in (transnational) migration contexts?
• What does it mean to speak about social mobility from an intersectional perspective?
• How are social mobility and social immobility linked with each other?
• What kind of subjectivities are produced through the processes of social (im)mobility?

We invite papers that discuss the question of social (im)mobility from a biographical perspective in different migration contexts. We particularly welcome contributions that combine a biographical approach with different theoretical approaches like that of transnationalism, intersectionality and post-colonialism.

Posters: