Privileged Mobilities

As corporations ramp up «workforce globalization», social entrepreneurs use online digital platforms to create offline social events where foreigners can meet face-to-face. Through ethnographic study, Erika Polson illustrates how, as a new generation of expatriates uses location technologies to create mobile «places,» a new global middle class is emerging.

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As corporations ramp up «workforce globalization» and young professionals increasingly pursue opportunities to work abroad, social entrepreneurs use online digital platforms to create offline social events where foreigners can meet face-to-face. Through ethnographic study of such groups in Paris, Singapore, and Bangalore, Erika Polson illustrates how, as a new generation of expatriates uses location technologies to create mobile «places,» a new global middle class is emerging.
While there are many differences in the specifics between the expat groups, they share certain characteristics that indicate a larger logic to the way that the increasing mobility of professional career paths is connected to new subjectivities and changing forms of community among a diverse and growing demographic.
This book opens up a new field of study, one which pays more attention to middle class mobility while questioning the privileging of mobility more generally.