Article Green Open Access 2023

The making of a skilled worker: the transnational mixed embeddedness of migrant workers

CA
Ceccagno, Antonella
 GR
Gao, Ru
Mobilities
Journal · Vol. 18 · Issue 2 · pp. 250-266
Abstract

Migrant workers’ employment pathways are mainly analysed by observing their behaviour in receiving societies. In dialogue with critical studies of mobility, migration, and skill, we argue that the ‘transnational mixed embeddedness’ approach, used to analyse migrant businesses, should extend to include migrant workers. Based on multi-sited ethnography, we discuss the phenomenon of Chinese migrant workers in Italy who exploit the transnationally embedded opportunities to access training courses in China. We analyse the transnational workers’ agency in circumnavigating socially constructed notions of training and skill, and stress the transformative logic of the migrant trajectories as transnational mobility influences the trainees’ perspectives. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

China Italy skill training migrant workers Transnational mixed embeddedness transnational mobility

Index Keywords

training China skilled labor Italy international migration Asian immigrant migrant worker
Author Affiliations
Department of Modern Languages, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
School of European Languages and Cultures, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, Beijing, China
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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