The Less Miraculous. Conceptualising social mobility in post-communist academia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper looks at the phenomenon of upward mobility through education from a comparative and historical perspective. Pierre Bourdieu referred to upwardly mobile individuals in France as the miraculous (les miraculés), oblates (oblats), or, less often, defectors (transfuges). A difficulty with applying a theory created in one specific cultural context to other settings is the recognition of unique structural conditions characteristic of the particular academic field, especially when systematic analyses of academic careers in post-communist and semi-peripheral countries are rare. In this study, based on autobiographical narrative interviews, 24 upwardly mobile Polish professors were asked to tell their life stories and how these led them to an academic career. The findings suggest that the category of les miraculés should not be treated as a universal, one-size-fits-all concept but rather as a general name for many forms of mobility taking place in various higher education systems. Building on the Polish, semi-peripheral, example, I introduce two new concepts (‘Normal Miraculous’ and ‘Non-Miraculous’), which allow us to adequately capture the experience of mobility in a post-communist society. These findings reveal more general mechanisms of non-reproduction within academia.