Conference – Global Elite Migration : New insights
Date: Tuesday 22 April 2025
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Venue:Marie Curie Amphitheatre, SUAD Campus
Open to public
Abstract
As a research direction, the rapidly developing scholarship on global elite migrations still has no uniform definition of ‘global elite migrant’: this term is often used interchangeably with many others. When people, including scholars hear the word ‘global elite migrant’, they often revive the images of retired migrants, tourists, skilled professionals, and lifestyle transnationals, who are de facto imagined as holders of privileged occupational positions and solid financial means that allow them to move around the world in relatively unrestricted ways. This is bolstered by additional nationality benefits that some of them might have. Still scholars argue that the accent on income and nationality is not enough for understanding the nature of global elite migrations and their distinction compared with other migrant types. Given this, the author Irina Isaakyan reconceptualises global elite migrations within the novel interpretive metaphorical framework that brings together ideas from the studies of elites and transnationalism and also from the field of astrophysics. In her book (Isaakyan 2024), she uses the sociological metaphor of ‘astrogation’ to illuminate the complexity of global elite migrations and related migrant networks, and also to awaken a more critical and more ethical thinking migrating “elite professionals” such as international opera singers, who may be both glamorous and fragile, lucky and disadvantaged, who can rise to unimaginable heights in their migratory and professional careers and, at the same time, unexpectedly fall down – rather than de facto viewed as “privileged people” who have no problems and, therefore, do not deserve scholarly attention.
In partnership with
By attending this event, you agree to your image being captured and used in event photos and videos for promotional purposes.
Please fill-in the registration form below to confirm your participation on campus
