The migration of professionals is widely seen as a paradigmatic representation and a driver of globalization. The global elite of highly qualified migrants—managers and scientists, for example—are partly defined by their lives’ mobility. But their everyday lives are based and take place in specific cities. The contributors of this book analyze the relevance of locality for a mobile group and provide a new perspective on migrant professionals by considering the relevance of social identities for local encounters in socially unequal cities. Contributors explore shifting identities, senses of belonging, and spatial and social inequalities and encounters between migrant professionals and ‘Others’ within the cities. These qualitative studies widen the understanding of the importance of local aspects for the social identities of those who are in many aspects more privileged than others.

In today’s global knowledge economy, competition for the best and brightest workers has intensified. Highly skilled workers are an asset to companies, knowledge institutions, cities, and regions as they contribute to knowledge creation, innovation, and economic growth and development. Skilled migrants cross, and many times straddle, international borders to pursue professional opportunities. These spatial relocations provide opportunities and challenges for migrants and the cities and regions they inhabit. How have international skilled migratory flows been formed, sustained, and transformed over multiple spaces and scales? How have these processes affected cities and regions? And how have multiple stakeholders responded to these processes? The contributors to this book bring together perspectives from economic, social, urban, and population geography in order to address these questions from a myriad of angles. Empirical case studies from different regions illuminate the multiscaled processes of international skilled migration. In particular, the contributions rethink skilled migration theories and provide insights into: the experiences of highly skilled labor migrants and international students; issues related to transnational activities and return migration; and policy implications for both immigrant source and destination countries. It also charts a future research agenda for international skilled migration research. Rethinking International Skilled Migration provides a comparative perspective on the experiences of skilled migrants across the local, regional, national, and/or global scale, paying particular attention to spatial and place-based dimensions of international skilled migration. It will be of interest to scholars and professionals in international migration, regional and national development policymakers, international businesses, and NGOs.

Concerns about the position and function of nation-states in the international arena have led to a growing interest in the role of cities in international relations. This timely book advances the argument that cities are becoming active and informal actors in international law-making, indicating the emergence of a ‘third generation’ of multi-level governance.

This volume investigates new migration patterns in the Americas addressing continuities and changes in existing population movements in the region. The book explores migration conditions and intersections across time and space relying on a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach that brings together the expertise of transnational scholars with diverse theoretical orientations, strengths, and methodological approaches. Some of the themes this edited volume explores include main features of contemporary migration in the Americas; causes, composition, and patterns of new migration flows; and state policies enacted to meet the challenges posed by new developments in migration flows.

Drawing on an extensive study with young individuals who migrated to Singapore and Tokyo in the 2010s, this book sheds light on the friendships, emotions, hopes and fears involved in establishing life as Europeans in Asia. It demonstrates how migration to Asian business centres has become a way of distinction and an alternative route of middle-class reproduction for young Europeans during that period. The perceived insecurities of life in the crisis-ridden EU result in these migrants’ onward migration or prolonged stays in Asia. Capturing the changing roles of Singapore and Japan as migration destinations, this pioneering work makes the case for EU citizens’ aspired lifestyles and professional employment that is no longer only attainable in Europe or the West.

This intersectional study provides fresh insights into the complex networks of migrants. More than 200 interviews with people following multiple routes over eight decades help to illustrate how social support and trust are developed, how networks evolve over time, and how they impact the opportunities and obstacles migrants encounter.

Migrant City tells the story of contemporary London from the perspective of thirty adult migrants and two sociologists. Connecting migrants’ private struggles to the public issues at stake in the way mobility is regulated, channelled and managed in a globalised world, this volume explores what migration means in a world that is hyper connected – but where we see increasingly mobile, invasive and technologically sophisticated forms of border regulation and control. Migrant City is an innovative collaborative ethnography based on research with migrants from a wide variety of social backgrounds, spanning in some cases a decade. It utilises recollections, photographs, poems, paintings, journals and drawings to explore a wide range of issues. These range from the impact of immigration control and surveillance on everyday life, to the experience of waiting for the Home Office to process their claims and the limits this places on their lives, to the friendships and relationships with neighbours that help to make London a home. This title will appeal to students, scholars, community workers and general readers interested in migration, race and ethnicity, social exclusion, globalisation, urban sociology, and inventive social research methods.