Trans-National Mobility and Research Careers in the Human and Social Sciences: assessing individual self-discovery processes

• In Event: How Does Mobility Change Researchers, Research Groups And Scientific Communities?

Abstract

This paper draws on the conceptualisation of a research career as an evolving path through a network of jobs and roles that takes place in a context of high uncertainty and over which the researcher progressively builds her identity, gaining knowledge regarding her own capacities (Cañibano and Potts 2016). As shown by Lam (2016), Spivak l’Hoste and Hubert (2012) and Coey (2017), sectoral and geographical mobilities shape how researchers perceive themselves and their role in scientific communities. We conduct an empirical analysis drawing upon research undertaken in the course of a European Project across 13 countries, throughout which a total of 320 interviews were conducted to address the factors shaping the careers of doctorate holders in the social sciences and humanities. We build on those interviews to analyse processes of individual self-discovery triggered by trans-national mobility across three different contexts of change. We group the contexts in which self-discovery through mobility may take place in three main categories, distinguishing between: i) changes in the epistemic context; ii) changes in the socio-cultural environment; and iii) changes in the professional-organisational context. We consider how trans-national mobility within these three contexts stimulates and shapes processes of self-discovery. For example, changing the epistemic context can lead to the learning of new skills or the development of particular competences about which the researcher was not previously aware - but which may alter the selection of future research questions, for example. The specific contours of individual self-discovery that shape researchers’ identities and careers are thus considered to be outcomes of the diverse mobilities that are increasingly integral to the scientific vocation.

Authors

• Carolina Canibano, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV)

• Richard Woolley, Ingenio (CSIC-UPV) Universitat Politècnica de València

• Carmen Corona, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV)