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Special issue on self-initiated expatriation: career experiences, processes and outcomes
Edited by Noeleen Doherty, Julia Richardson and Kaye Thorn
Introduction
Globalisation and internationalisation have changed the ways in which people work, experience everyday life, situate meanings, and establish a sense of identity and place ([27] Conway, 2004; [78] Massey, 2007; [14] Berry, 2008; [34] Devine-Wright and Clayton, 2010). New patterns and dynamics of migration and mobility have seen shifts in notions of spatial and temporal boundaries, described as an "era of mobilities" ([105] Urry, 2007; [53] Halfacree, 2012, p. 209) and global boundaryless careers ([21] Carr et al. , 2005). A fundamental element of this new landscape is the power of the unrestricted mobility of transnational capital, which alongside worker individual agency in the global labour market, has also meant a decentring of the local. Nevertheless, contradictions continue to be unresolved in relation to the impact of context. The interplay of identity with mobility has increased the dynamism and hybridity of identity, to a point where it is difficult to separate what is "local" and what is "global" ([39] Easthope, 2009). This raises questions about the impact on the way individuals interact with, and position themselves within contexts.
More importantly, whilst national boundaries are said to be continuously blurred, they are also "counterbalanced by social and cultural forces that sustain them" ([9] Ailon-Souday and Kunda, 2003, p. 1073). Discourses about "global work"; "global workers" and "global careers" are articulated around ideas of a "borderless world", which assume a significant degree of homogeneity in individuals as "global citizens" ([107] Vertovec and Cohen, 2002). This is problematic given that workers are not on a level playing field, and the homogenising representations of what it is and means to be global are contested at national and local levels with impositions and constructions that use nationality, citizenship and regulations to establish differences between individuals.
Workers are central to this discussion. The dynamics they engage in as part of the interplay between globalisation and migration, have resulted in a significant change in the nature of careers ([35] Dickmann and Baruch, 2011; [7] Altman and Baruch, 2012) and how they make sense and narrate their choices and experiences. Patterns of international mobility see workers move across geographical, national and cultural boundaries...