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In this paper, I explore the role of the imagination in the construction of meaningful places out of the transnational corporate spaces of the late-20th century global economy. As others have made clear, there is a politics to the social imagination that achieves its most onerous effect in the ethnic/racial/gendered/national stratification of the global workforce.¹ In this regard, I wish to consider how the colonial imagination operates within an urban terrain occupied by a diverse population united (however tangentially) through the exigencies of the global economy. I take the colonial imagination as a key component of a broader transnational socio-spatial imagination through which Indonesian and Western-born members of the transnational capitalist class make sense of a complicated social geography to which neither is, strictly speaking, indigenous.

This chapter explores the potential of transnational history for researching global higher education policy. It begins with an overview of transnational history as a perspective, demonstrating how it is, in part, a response to processes of globalization that have also transformed contemporary higher education. Second, it reviews key features of transnational history as a perspective that can enhance global higher education policy research. The third part takes dimensions of contemporary global higher education and discusses how these can be approached through a transnational historical perspective drawing on the features outlined. The chapter concludes by highlighting how a transnational historical approach can enable new insights and research questions as well as some challenges presented by this perspective. The spatial focus of the chapter is predominantly European higher education, though the implications are more general.

The conceptual framework of Multicultural Hybridism is adopted to reflect the emerging themes of transnationalism and superdiversity in the context of ethnic minority migrant entrepreneurs breaking out of their ethnic enclaves into mainstream economy. It is constructed as an extension of Mixed Embeddedness theory (Kloosterman, 2006), given that ‘Multicultural Hybrid’ (Arrighetti, Daniela Bolzani, & Lasagni, 2014) firms display stronger resilience with a higher survival rate than enclaved businesses (Kloosterman, Rusinovic, & Yeboah, 2016). With further integration of incremental diversification typology (Lassalle & Scott, 2018), the current study adopts Multicultural Hybridism as a lens to explore the opportunity recognition capabilities of transnational, migrant entrepreneurs who are facilitated by the hybridity of opportunity recognition (Lassalle, 2018) from linking host-country and home-country cultures. The hybridity of opportunity recognition focuses on access to markets and resources between transnational ethnic and local multicultural mainstream markets. Through the theoretical lens of Multicultural Hybridism, interviews with 16 Birmingham-based Chinese migrant entrepreneurs have been analysed to shape a dynamic understanding of the multifaceted concept of breakout in a superdiverse and transnational context. The multilayered interpretation of breakout provides an enhanced understanding of the diversity of hybridism between transnational ethnic and local multicultural mainstream markets. This is seen from the perspectives of firm growth and social integration in the current locations and future spaces of transnational migrant entrepreneurs. It goes beyond the narrow imagination of breakout as an economic assimilation process, avoiding the singular conceptualisation of the host-country mainstream market as the only breakout destination for transnational ethnic entrepreneurs.

Transnational migration has become a defining feature of many societies across the globe. This paper focuses on contributions to diversity theorizing and research available from “superdiversity”, an analytic framework derived from transnational migration studies. “Superdiversity” speaks to the novel social transformations taking place globally and provides new opportunities, albeit with critique, for conceptualizing and studying people, difference and inclusion. The purpose of this paper is to provide innovative ways to rethink hallmark concepts of diversity scholarship by offering new insights about the role of nation-states, the concept of difference and inclusion in the midst of mobility.

The paper relies upon transnational migration studies as an emergent field of inquiry about societal level changes brought upon by the ongoing movement of people. The social, cultural and political transformations growing out of transnational migration are used to theorize new directions for diversity research in the context of management and organization studies. By relying on “superdiversity” and its mobility-based ontology, epistemology and methodology, the paper proposes new ways to think about and carry out research on difference and inclusion.

Deploying the analytic framework of “superdiversity,” the paper offers “belonging” as the new conversation on inclusion and proposes mobile methods as a means to study mobile subjects/objects. In addition, it discusses how the ongoing transformative societal changes by way of transnational migration impact the ways in which the author theorizes and carry out diversity research. Questions and concerns around ethics, (in)equality and representation are considered vital to future research in/around diversity.

Extensive changes in societies emerging out of ongoing encounters between/among different kinds of people have taken shape by way of transnational migration. As a result, emergent and novel notions of difference have been forged in a transnational manner across social fields. By examining these transformations, the paper provides new directions and challenges for diversity scholarship in the context of rising societal tensions and rhetoric around difference and “belonging” in nation-states. It also provides alternative considerations for understanding and theorizing inclusion in diversity research.

While going through a revival in sociology and business studies, the concept of communities, as used in those disciplines, appears to confront, in an unresolved tension, the development of differentiated and transnationally interconnected modern societies. We argue that there is a need not only to “rediscover” but in fact also to “renew” the notion of community. Building on insights from classical sociology, we propose a definition of transnational communities as social groups emerging from mutual interaction across national boundaries, oriented around a common project or “imagined” identity. Transnational communities are not static structures but fluid and dynamic processes. They are constructed through symbolic or “imagined” proximity rather than through physical propinquity. More often than not, they are “communities of limited liability” rather than the expression of permanent ascriptive markers. Finally, transnational communities go well beyond the provision of local protection and solidarities as they engage in different kinds of transnational activism. This chapter compares bottom-up and top-down patterns of transnational community development, exploring in both cases the role of those communities in the dynamics of transnational governance. We propose that transnational communities impact cross-border governance in at least six different ways. They contribute to the framing of a governance problem space. They allow the mobilization of collective action while also serving as public arenas. They foster preference transformation. They directly participate in rule-setting while also playing a key role when it comes to monitoring and control. In conclusion, we identify key directions for further research.

–The paper originated in challenges trying to theorize and research practices and processes of actors engaged in transnational activities for business and everyday life. Key concern was the assumption that actors’ identities remain the same regardless of time/space. While intersectional analysis once seemed a reasonable analytical approach the authors wondered about starting from identity-based categorical schemes in a world where mobility may be ever more the ontological status of everyday experiences and social structuring. Thus, the paper addresses limitations of intersectional analysis in such situations and advances its recasting via mobile conceptualizations, redressing its analytical purchase for contemporary subject formation.

Discusses emergence of intersectionality at a particular point in time, its success and proliferation, and more recent critiques of these ideas. Develops alternative conceptualization – mobile subjectivities – via literatures on mobilities in the context of globalization. Illustrates the value of these arguments with ethnographic examples from a multi-sited ethnographic project and analyses. Concludes by examining implications for new feminist theorizations under neoliberalism and globalization.

Observing the constitution of a “mobile selfhood” in actual transnational business activities is a step toward making sense of complex processes in contemporary subject formation under globalized market neoliberalism.

“Mobile subjectivities” suggest that analyses of oppression and subordination must be ongoing, no matter which “new subjectivities” may appear under “the latest regime.”

Theoretical and empirical analyses facilitated a reconceptualization of intersectionality as a mobile, precarious, and transitory accomplishment of selfhood temporarily fixed by the neoliberal rhetoric of “choice” and “self-empowerment.” This is of particular value for understanding transnational practices and processes of contemporary organizational actors.

Purpose – Analyzing support strategies (such as childcare, elderly care, nursing, and remittances) of Ukrainian migrants living in Germany, the chapter addresses the interrelationship of social inequality and migration. First, it explores mechanisms influencing the unequal distribution of financial and care support within Ukrainian transnational families. Second, it examines how the unequal distribution influences migrants’ social mobility in Germany.

Methods – Building on the intersectionality approach the chapter indicates class, ethnic, and gender-specific categorizations as being important determinants of unequal support distribution. Conducting 28 semi-structured interviews the author used the multisited research methodology including the sending (Kiev, Rogosin near Lviv, Poltava and Ivano-Frankovsk) and the receiving (Bielefeld) localities.

Findings – The research results point out how correspondent gender narratives, self-ethnicization and migrants’ strategies of status representation structure the unequal support distribution. First, marital status regulates quantities of migrant women's support, which encourages the self-exploitation of married migrant women, in contrast to single mothers. Second, the quantities of migrant men's social support are influenced by their educational achievements in Germany. In sum, migrant men and single mothers are generally sooner integrated into the formal labor market than married migrant women.

Limitations – The interpretation of research results is limited to a number of qualitative interviews and should not be over-generalized in a quantitative manner. Nevertheless, it provides insights into how the transnationally organized reproductive sector influences migrants’ social mobility in the country of destination.

On 18 March 2015, the transnational anti-austerity Blockupy coalition protested the inauguration of the new European Central Bank premises in Frankfurt. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this mass protest event by highlighting the organizational differences, possibilities, and conflicts that was involved.

The paper is based on participant observation of the Blockupy event and interviews with a group of Danish activists who also participated.

The paper constructs sociospatial narrative that unfolds through three different scales of organization: the Blockupy coalition, the participating formal and informal organizations, and the activist subject. This narrative explicates the mode of organization as a “convergence space” (cf. Routledge, 2003), with different “roots” and “routes” of organization (cf. Davies, 2012).

Thus, through an analysis of the modes of organization constituting this mass protest event, this paper restates the relevance of the concept of organization, which have recently been ignored or understated in favour of master-narratives of networks or the dichotomy of horizontalism and verticality. It concludes by posing a set of questions for further discussion among both activists and sociologists.

This paper investigates the impacts of globalization processes on the Swiss business elite community during the 1980–2010 period. Switzerland has been characterized in the 20th century by its extraordinary stability and by the strong cohesion of its elite community. To study recent changes, we focus on Switzerland’s 110 largest firms’ by adopting a diachronic perspective based on three elite cohorts (1980, 2000, and 2010). An analysis of interlocking directorates allows us to describe the decline of the Swiss corporate network. The second analysis focuses on top managers’ profiles in terms of education, nationality as well as participation in national community networks that used to reinforce the cultural cohesion of the Swiss elite community, especially the militia army. Our results highlight a slow but profound transformation of top management profiles, characterized by a decline of traditional national elements of legitimacy and the emergence of new “global” elements. The diachronic and combined analysis brings into light the strong cultural changes experienced by the national business elite community.