The Identities, Citizenship, Equalities and Migration research Centre (ICEMIC) is pleased to introduce its Alumni Research Seminar Series.
About the series
The seminar series will feature speakers who have completed their doctoral studies at the School of Sociology and Social Policy. The series will showcase their current and ongoing research, followed by a Q&A chaired by some of their former PhD supervisors.
We are pleased to announce that our first speaker is Dr Inka Stock whose talk will take place on Wednesday 17 November 2021, 1 to 2pm via Teams.
Join the meeting
Biography
Dr Inka Stock is researcher at the Bielefeld University, Germany. She obtained her PhD at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, Nottingham University, in 2013. Her doctoral research centred on the effects of increasingly restrictive migration policies on the lives of Sub-Saharan African migrants in Morocco. She used theories of time to explain migrants' altered sense of self and community life in situations of forced immobility. Her supervisors were Professor Julia O'Connell Davidson and Dr Elisabetta Zontini.
At Bielefeld University, Inka has continued to research on migration related issues, with a particular focus on transnationalism, gender and migration, and the nexus between migration and social inequality.
Talk
The effects of class and mobility trajectories on migrants’ transnational social positioning strategies
My current research looks at the influence of class on migrants’ social positioning strategies in transnational social spaces. It thus contributes to debates about the processes of transnational class making and class formation. Based on qualitative interview data from migrants in Germany, I analyse the ways in which migrants assess their social position over time and in different places, showing that not only the migrants’ pre-migratory position in national class structures, but also their mobility trajectories shape their own perspective on the transnational dimensions of social class positions and social mobility.
The research contributes to a growing literature on middle class migration (Scott, 2019) and its transnational features, thereby contrasting with the hitherto more prominent analysis of the transnational activities of elite, low skilled and forced migrants. It further addresses important debates in social inequality research which go beyond an analysis of class in socio-economic terms by focusing also on social recognition and prestige as relevant factors in social positioning strategies. My data suggests that class consciousness is shaped by migration experiences and at the same time influences peoples' views on migration and different transnational lifestyles.