Privileged Mobilities
Subtitle: Social Media and the Offline Construction of a New Global Middle Class?
Publisher: Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 196
ISBN-13: 9781433130267
Subjects: Middle class; Social media
Description: 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.