Being called “skilled”: a multi-scalar approach of migrant doctors’ recognition

This article highlights the way the specific configuration of migrants’ skills relies on the relation between admission and inclusion policies, which involves several actors, time-frames and a multi-scalar integrative approach. It builds on a qualitative study which reports different scales of analysis for enhancing different actors participating in the recognition process of being called “skilled”. The study investigates how the “skilled migration” category is socio-institutionally constructed and how it corresponds to a recognition process that interplays with different scales (macro, meso and micro scales) and the corresponding actors (regulatory actors, civil society organisations and migrants). The main argument of this article is that the regulatory framework (e.g. admission policies, academic institutions’ procedures, professional bodies’ rules), organised civil society interventions and networks of power are key factors for the development of an “ascribed qualified migrant” into a de facto “achieved skilled professional”, and therefore the recognition of migrants as visible – and valued – “skilled professionals”.