Hierarchies and categorical power in cross-border science: analysing scientists’ transnational mobility between Ukraine and Germany

Abstract

Using the results of qualitative research in Germany and Ukraine, the article provides evidence to how the short-term and circular geographic mobility of Ukrainian natural scientists between Ukraine and Germany contributes to the formation of a cross-border scientific field. Combining Bourdieu’s field theory with the transnational field approach and the intersectional perspective, the article indicates how unequal access to scientific reputation is structured across borders. In sum, the complex interplay of ethnicity-, class- and gender-related categorizations pushes mobile scientists to define themselves as an exploited elite. At the same time, female mobile scientists are identified as having the most disadvantaged positions in the transnational academic hierarchy.