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

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Young Skilled Migrants: Hopes and Struggles in New Global Trends

RC34 Sociology of Youth (host committee)
RC31 Sociology of Migration

Language: English

Young people in many societies have to choose their lifestyles among uncertainties and complexity brought by social processes such as globalization or individualization. One of the options in these conditions became migration, yet a one that is increasingly harder to explain within existing categories and concepts. Some recent studies focused on such young migrants who are often from highly developed regions and of middle-class origin, in possession of different forms of capital of which some is transferable through their migration, and their migration decisions or directions are often in discord with predictions of mainstream theories. 
This distinguishes them from both apexes of traditional migration subjects, i.e. low- and high-skilled migrants, and positions them between the pictures of discriminated, marginalized migrants and privileged, transnational elites. It is this ambiguous position of young skilled migrants that we want to focus on in this session. 
More particularly, we welcome papers that address both the privileges stemming from their national, racial or ethnic origin, possession and transferability of human, cultural or social capitals, or gender, and at the same time disadvantages and problems these individuals have to face as migrants and young adults in terms of family, career building, limits on capital transferability, legal constraints such as visas, or strategies of their employers, and thus depict the complex situation in which the young skilled migrants are placed to survive. 
We welcome papers addressing different forms, regions and flows of skilled migration based on empirical research or aiming theoretical developments in this field. Posters: