Early-Career Academics’ Transnational Moves: The Gendered Role of Vertical Social Ties in Obtaining Academic Positions Abroad

Abstract

AbstractMoving across borders to take up academic positions is one form of occupational mobility (or migration), one that is often presented as constitutive of an academic career. Drawing on biographical and qualitative egocentric network interviews with early-career academics working in Switzerland and the United States, this chapter shows that the transnational career moves of young scholars are embedded in social relationships in subtle ways. The analysis reveals that it is mainly one type of social tie that is important: vertical ties with higher-status academics. But the support these ties provide varies according to discreet and inconspicuous gendered mechanisms in which institutional resources also play a role. On the one hand, traces of strong male support networks persist in obtaining transnational academic positions. On the other, the digitalisation of academic labour-markets, fellowship schemes, and dual-career support make it possible to advance in one’s academic career while relegating vertical ties to a secondary role.