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Migrants’ Social Positioning Strategies in Transnational Social Spaces

Author

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  • Inka Stock

    (Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany)

  • Joanna Jadwiga Fröhlich

    (Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany)

Abstract

This article examines the nexus of spatial and social mobility by focusing on how migrants in Germany use cultural, economic and moral boundaries to position themselves socially in transnational social spaces. It is based on a mixed-methods approach, drawing on qualitative interviews and panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey. By focusing on how people from different origins and classes use different sets of symbolic boundaries to give meaning to their social mobility trajectories, we link subjective positioning strategies with structural features of people’s mobility experience. We find that people use a class-specific boundary pattern, which has strong transnational features, because migrants tend to mix symbolic and material markers of status hierarchies relevant to both their origin and destination countries. We identify three different types of boundary patterns, which exemplify different ways in which objective structure and subjectively experienced inequalities influence migrants’ social positioning strategies in transnational spaces. These different types also exemplify how migrants’ habitus influences their social positioning strategies, depending on their mobility and social trajectory in transnational spaces.

Suggested Citation

  • Inka Stock & Joanna Jadwiga Fröhlich, 2021. "Migrants’ Social Positioning Strategies in Transnational Social Spaces," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 91-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:91-103
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2008. "What Is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    2. Philip Kelly & Tom Lusis, 2006. "Migration and the Transnational Habitus: Evidence from Canada and the Philippines," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(5), pages 831-847, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Faist & Joanna J. Fröhlich & Inka Stock & Ingrid Tucci, 2021. "Introduction: Migration and Unequal Positions in a Transnational Perspective," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 85-90.
    2. MinSoo Kim-Bossard & Pauli Badenhorst, 2023. "Racialized Language and Social Complexity: The Multilayered Plurilingual Lives of Filipina Migrants in South Korea," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 91-109, March.

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