Entangled belonging: Barcelona-to-Melbourne professional transient migrants. Issue 1 (1st March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mejía, Glenda; Pink, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Transitions. Volume 1:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 85
• Page End: 100
• Publication Date: 2017-03-01
• Subjects: Migrant labor -- Periodicals; Migrant labor -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Foreign workers -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Immigrant students -- Periodicals; 331.544
• DOI: 10.1386/tjtm.1.1.85_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2397-7140

Abstract

The economic crisis in Europe has generated a context of increasing uncertainty along with new forms of globalization through a wave of migration from Europe to more thriving OECD economies, including Australia. This article examines how particular transnational senses of belonging are generated in this context through the example of how Catalan migrants generate what we refer to as an 'entangled sense of belonging' between Melbourne and Barcelona. In doing so, we draw on semi-structured interviews and photographic research methods undertaken with such migrants living in Melbourne. We argue that the transient nature of migration becomes contingent in this context. As such, it is not a measurable state or status, but something more qualitative and experiential, and therefore needs to be attended to through an approach that accounts for this.