Umeå University's logo

This chapter problematizes the intertwined and multidimensional practices of professional mobility and tourism. The authors challenge traditional understandings of tourism by analyzing how physicians and researchers, while working temporarily in another country, become momentary tourists in-between mandatory job obligations or even while performing their duties. Tourist activities and experiences happen both in planned forms of leisure-oriented activities and excursions, and sometimes just as “moments” – temporary shifts and alterations of one’s mood during other undertakings. The fact that the professionals are both traveling and working in a location influences their interests and perceptions when they momentarily shift to a tourist mode. An “exotic” experience might thus be seeing elephants on their way to work and Oxford dons in their gowns at dinners, but also different ways of organizing seminars or childcare among their colleagues. The authors argue that highly skilled professionals’ combination of academic work and temporary tourist moments could be understood as an ongoing interplay between different types of gazes. The data consists of 73 ethnographic interviews with medical professionals and humanities scholars from Sweden.

I olika forskningskontexter definieras nyfikenhet som ettcentralt beteende som kännetecknar människor och som utgör enväsentlig orsak till framväxten av mänskliga samhällen och kulturer. Människor lägger till exempel ner mycket tid på att undersöka ochhitta på nya saker som är svåra att förklara ur ett snävt överlevnadseller nyttoperspektiv. Nyfikenhet kan också förstås genom reglerande maktpraktiker, och därigenom reglering av idéer och kroppar. Vem vinner på att reglera nyfikenhet? Vad är syftet ocheventuella effekter? 

This article analyzes strategies and practices among Swedish Humanities scholars in relation to the demands of “internationalization” and in a frame- work of academic capitalism. The article is based on 30 qualitative interviews with scholars in philosophy, Romance languages and history. There are signs of cognitive dissonance, with conflicting set of norms. Benefits for the aca- demic CV, along with a discipline’s ideals, traditions and its perceived role in society are the main context in which internationalization is understood, im- plemented and contested, with individual variations in international practices as e.g. international mobility, networking or publishing strategies.

This article addresses the relationship between highly skilled international mobility and knowledge by focussing on knowledge transfer work. Empirically, this study is based on interviews of professionals in the Swedish medical field who returned to Sweden after a period of work in other countries. The medical field harbours many transnationally valid competences and standardised lines of work, but even in this field, knowledge transfer is a process requiring effort, skills, negotiation, translation and adjustment to the specific organisational and cultural contexts. The studied professionals’ knowledge transfer work showed a spectrum, ranging from smooth, almost friction-free transfers to the ones where much translation and transformation was required, depending on the context and the professional’s status in the workplace. The professionals also developed and made use of knowledge transfer skills, such as the ability to observe, analyse and adjust to cultural differences between workplaces, healthcare systems or academic systems, as well as the ability to translate knowledge to make it relevant and viable in the specific context.

Comparison is a way to make sense of reality, e.g., by contrasting places, “cultures,” or practic- es. It may present different degrees of something, create a dichotomy, and imply a hierarchy of values. The article analyzes how comparison as a tool is used by highly skilled Swedish profes- sionals when they talk about participating in international work mobility and their subsequent return to Sweden. Empirically, the analysis is based on 46 interviews with Swedish medical professionals and 30 interviews with scholars in Swedish Humanities.

The article develops the concept of returnees' cultural jetlag as an aspect of highly skilled professionals' post-mobility experiences, based on an analysis of Swedish medical professionals' experiences of working abroad and returning to Sweden. Its focus is on the experience of the post-mobility phase upon return to the country of residence, and the process which we conceptualize as "returnees' cultural jetlag", consisting of initial bewilderment, estrangement, and the endeavour to re-establish one's cultural bearings, resulting in a new insights and perspectives on the taken-for-granted and a gradual, reflexive (re)adjustment. The article proposes theoretical refinements in relation to the more established concept of "reverse culture shock". 

The article, based on 43 narratives of Swedish physicians and molecular biologists on temporary work abroad, discusses how these professionals articulate and negotiate ideals of “Swedish” family life, dual careers, equal gender contract and a respectful parenthood, and how they motivate and legitimize exceptions from those ideals. A proper family timing was regarded as a crucial factor for making international work mobility possible, as family life was pictured as basically sedentary, creating a kind of inertia and requiring a lot of considerations, negotiations and logistics. However, international mobility was also considered to be beneficial for the family; e.g. a great opportunity to learn about new cultural and social contexts – even if it required to put the equal gender contract and “family democracy” temporarily on hold. The suspension of the - otherwise cherished - ideals and considerations for reasons of mobility was legitimized as a necessary prerequisite of the professional’s work or grounded on the new country’s characteristics; it was regarded as a parenthetic, and thus more acceptable, exception.

The aim of this article is to analyze the meanings attributed to curiosity in relation to international mobility among physicians and researchers in the medical field. On the basis of 43 in-depth interviews, we discuss our informants' views on curiosity as well as its relation to mobility practices that affect the professional's choice of career options and place of work - and thus their knowledge, in terms of both learning and production. What is the importance of curiosity when people choose to go abroad for some time in their professional life? How is curiosity narrated as a genre of academic mobility? To entangle these questions, we will in this article problematize curiosity as a motive, pleasurable driving force, ideal and practice weighed against the family and internal professional career requirements, and as a tool for professional distinktion against the non- och less mobile colleagues.

In the paper, we discuss how a “family timing” may be a crucial factor in international mobility and result in reflexive learning outside the occupational context. The paper is based on narrative interviews with Swedish physicians and molecular biologists. In the stories, the family often creates a kind of inertia and complication for working abroad. The interviewees’ dreams of career development, learning new theories and methods or “making a difference” in the world must be negotiated with a partner pursuing his/her own career, as well as the rest of the family. But mobility is also regarded as an amazing opportunity for the whole family to learn about new cultural and social contexts, even though the prolonged stay abroad means both hardships and benefits and there are a lot of logistics and practicalities to take care of. We discuss the informants’ experiences of how international mobility influences gender roles and the ideals of dual careers, equal relationship and a respectful parenthood, vital parts of the image of Swedish middle class. For the specialists, a proper “family timing” and different strategies for “family adjustment” are vital aspects in for evaluating the stay as successful – even a rewarding job and excellent professional learning may fall short if the children or partner are miserable. The stay abroad is, however, regarded as a time for both professional learning and a valuable learning for the whole family, questioning the taken for granted and acquiring social and cultural skills and extended reflexive knowledge.