Cover -- Contents -- Migration and Social Pathways. Biographies of Highly Educated People Moving East-West-East in Europe -- Acknowledgements -- Preface: Pathways to the research questions -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 The context of EU enlargement -- 1.2 Outline of my research questions -- 1.3 Studying migration and social pathways by means of life stories -- 1.4 Structure of this thesis -- 2 Context: Czech-German border crossings against the backdrop of the shifting landscape of European migration -- 2.1 Historical interconnections over the past millennium -- 2.2 The 19th and 20th century -- 2.3 Border crossings during the Cold War -- 2.4 The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the establishment of new migratory spaces -- 2.5 The enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 and the financial crisis -- 3 Research on highly skilled migration in Europe: state of the art -- 3.1 Changing contexts of highly skilled migration: working towards the liberalisation of skilled migration flows -- 3.2 Rethinking the migration of highly skilled people: the research agenda -- 3.2.1 "Highly skilled migrants" as the subject of research -- 3.2.2 The neglected gender dimension within studies on highly skilled migration -- 3.2.3 Going beyond the dichotomy of "low skilled migration" and "highly skilled migration" -- 3.2.4 Redefining "highly skilled migrants" and "highly skilled migration" -- 3.3 An overview of recent studies on highly skilled migration pathways to and within Europe -- 3.3.1 Education - the ticket to work? Statistical evidence. -- 3.3.2 Legal and institutional frameworks affecting highly skilled migrants: studying the inter play of class, gender and ethnicity -- 3.3.3 An agent-centred approach to pathways to the labour market -- 3.3.4 Experiences and coping strategies for deskilling and contradictory class mobility.

3.3.5 The role of the family and social networks -- 3.4 Summary and research desiderata -- 4 Biographical approaches to migration and social mobility -- 4.1 Biographical approaches -- 4.1.1 Historical and theoretical background of the biographicalapproach -- 4.1.2 The central biographical concepts -- 4.2 Biographical approaches to migration -- 4.2.1 First approaches to migration from a biographical perspective -- 4.2.2 Links between the transnational and biographical approach -- 4.3 Shifting social positions in transnational spaces -- 4.3.1 Theorising social mobility in transnational spaces -- 4.3.2 The transferability of skills across borders -- 4.3.3 Translocational positionality -- 4.3.4 Making sense of one's own class positioning -- 4.4 Summary: biographical approaches to migration and social mobility -- 5 The research process -- 5.1 Telling the stories: the theoretical background behind the "biographical narrative interview" -- 5.1.1 Theoretical assumptions -- 5.1.2 The focus on storytelling -- 5.1.3 The autobiographical presentation -- 5.1.4 Narrative constraints -- 5.1.5 Cognitive figures of autobiographical presentation -- 5.2 The reflexive research process -- 5.3 Constructing the sample -- 5.4 Interview settings -- 5.5 The interview process -- 5.6 A brief summary of interviewees -- 5.7 Ethnographical notes -- 5.8 Transcription -- 5.9 Analysis -- 5.9.1 Formal analysis of the text -- 5.9.2 Structural description -- 5.9.3 Analytical abstraction and the construction of types -- 5.10 Reflections on the research process -- 5.10.1 Reflections on the research process in transnational settings -- 5.10.2 The role of language and translation in the research process -- 5.10.3 Being part of it: reflections on my own position within thefield -- 6 Biographies -- 6.1 Background: the Czech educational system.

6.2 Lenka: the difficult route from private to publicsphere -- 6.2.1 Interview setting and biographical presentation -- 6.2.2 Lenka's migration and social pathways -- 6.2.3 Summary -- 6.3 Martin: moving places and passing classes -- 6.3.1 Interview setting and biographical presentation -- 6.3.2 Martin's migration and social pathways -- 6.3.3 Summary -- 6.4 Barbora: a story of reorientation -- 6.4.1 Interview setting and biographical presentation -- 6.4.2 Barbora's migration and social pathways -- 6.4.3 Summary -- 6.5 Arnošt: living in "exile" -- 6.5.1 Interview setting and biographical presentation -- 6.5.2 Arnošt's migration and social pathways -- 6.5.3 Summary -- 7 Cross-case comparisons and findings -- 7.1 Biographical reflections on borders and bordercrossings -- 7.1.1 Borders and border regions in biographical renderings -- 7.1.2 Becoming an "Eastern European" after migration -- 7.2 Migration as an enlargement of possibility spaces -- 7.2.1 Experiences of inequality in the region of origin -- 7.2.2 Discovering new possibility spaces through initial border crossings -- 7.2.3 Moving back and forth in transnational spaces -- 7.2.4 Doing "transnational work" -- 7.3 Linking spatial and social mobility -- 7.3.1 Biographies at the intersection of migration and gender regimes -- 7.3.2 Negotiating one's own possibilities, skills and knowledge across borders -- 7.3.3 The question of translatability and recognition of social positions across the border -- 8 Conclusion -- Bibliography and references -- Index.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2023. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.