Mobility, Immobility and Precarity: The Mobility Imperative and Its Impact on Precarious Academics

This chapter examines the intersection of academic precarity and international (im)mobilities. It draws on a project that involved forty biographic interviews with individuals who had experienced long-term academic precarity. By this, we mean situations where qualified individuals tried and failed to secure a stable academic post for at least five years. Their stories are important: Research on the impact of international mobility on academic careers generally excludes those who are no longer employed in academia as well as those who were pushed to its margins – for example, staff on hourly paid contracts and/or those working in private colleges. As a result, little is known about those for whom mobility did not deliver its promise of career progress, and why that might be the case....