Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Career and Migration
Lead Research Organisation:
Loughborough University
Department Name: Business and Economics
Abstract
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Organisations
Publications
Cohen L
(2011)
Migration: Vocational perspectives on a complex and diverse transition
in Journal of Vocational Behavior
| Description | • The loss, recovery and reconstruction of career capital as pivotal in the experience of migration. Whilst the careers literature tends to focus on the accumulation of career capital, the work of migration scholars has highlighted, conversely, issues of loss, rupture and recovery. • Migrants' experiences of insecurity, security and their dynamic interplay. The series revealed how such experiences are related to financial matters, legal status, perceptions of inclusion and exclusion, and notions of future possibility. Significantly, the salience of emotional dimensions, frequently overlooked in careers and migrations literatures, was seen as contributing to migrants' perceptions of security and insecurity. • Importance of relationships with family (in home and host countries), compatriots, communities in migrants' career development. Relational perspectives on career highlighted the point that families and communities must not be seen simply as the contexts in which migrants enact their careers, but as central factors in this process. • Work and career as adaptive mechanisms in processes of acculturation. • Methodologies in research and practice: appropriateness of creative and narrative approaches for researching and supporting people in unfamiliar environments. The extensive contributions of practitioner and policy-oriented colleagues throughout the series challenged some academic methodological conventions and encouraged participants to think about how we go about our work in new and original ways. • Migration as diverse and complex, taking many different forms and styles. Some of these blur the boundaries between international and intranational moves. • While throughout the series the primary focus was on individuals and their careers, attention was also paid to organizational perspectives. The series revealed how individual and corporate goals frequently differ in the management of international assignees, and that these discrepancies are rarely recognised, let alone resolved. |
| Exploitation Route | The impacts from the series can be considered in the short, medium and long term. In the short term, academic colleagues have reported that the series has not only informed their understandings of the interplay between careers and migration, but from a process point of view has demonstrated to them both the challenges and the potential of interdisciplinary endeavours. With respect to knowledge transfer, policy oriented and practitioner colleagues have reported their use of learning from the series in their work contexts (eg National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education's evolving work on the 'life cv', further developed through the series). In addition, Laurie Cohen has been invited to join the newly formed NICEC (National Institute of Careers Education and Guidance) 'Career Action' network of career practitioners, consultants and academics where insights from the series will inform the group's policy and practice-shaping agenda. A third area of impact is in teaching. John Arnold and Laurie Cohen have incorporated learning from the series into both undergraduate and postgraduate modules. Based on the students' work arising from these programmes, it is clear that they are engaging with this material in a deep and meaningful way. Other series participants have likewise suggested that they will be including findings from the series in their teaching. b) Anticipated/Potential Future Impacts Please outline any anticipated or potential impacts (scientific or economic and societal) that you believe your project might have in future. [Max. 200 words] In the medium term, we have been given the opportunity to co-edit a special issue of Journal of Vocational Behavior (a US-based journal,impact factor 3.106) on careers and migration. Our plan for this special issue is ambitious. Consistent with our aim of fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between sectors and stakeholders, we have invited authors working from different perspectives/sectors to produce co-authored papers. Included in the list of contributions we have got a careers scholar working together with a migration scholar to examine family, community and career. Another contribution will involve a migration scholar, a careers scholar and representatives from NIACE to examine participatory methodologies and the life cv. A third incorporates an HR specialist, a human resource management scholar, a career scholar and a careers consultant will collaborate on a paper focusing on expatriate career experiences, and so on. In the long term, given its originality and relevance, we (together with the general editor of JVB) see the special issue as a significant contribution to the careers literature with wide-reaching implications for theory, policy and practice. The project will synthesise previously separate literatures so that scholars, thus broadening and deepening our collective knowledge base. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Other |
| Description | With respect to knowledge transfer, policy oriented and practitioner colleagues have reported their use of learning from the series in their work contexts (eg National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education's evolving work on the 'life cv', further developed through the series). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |