Hierarchies and categorical power in cross-border science: analysing scientists’ transnational mobility between Ukraine and Germany

Abstract

Using the results of qualitative research in Germany and Ukraine, the article provides evidence to how the short-term and circular geographic mobility of Ukrainian natural scientists between Ukraine and Germany contributes to the formation of a cross-border scientific field. Combining Bourdieu’s field theory with the transnational field approach and the intersectional perspective, the article indicates how unequal access to scientific reputation is structured across borders. In sum, the complex interplay of ethnicity-, class- and gender-related categorizations pushes mobile scientists to define themselves as an exploited elite. At the same time, female mobile scientists are identified as having the most disadvantaged positions in the transnational academic hierarchy.

Keywords:

• transnational mobility
• transnational inequality
• transnational field
• intersectionality
• scientists
• Germany
• Ukraine

Notes

1. The German university is given a fictitious name here to protect the identity of the interviewee. The names of the interviewees in this paper are also pseudonyms. All interviews were conducted in Russian; translation of quotes is by the author.

2. Whilst migration is conventionally defined as one-year stay abroad, mobility is specified as the residence abroad which lasts less than one year.

3. The relation between particular fields is hierarchical. The fields are subordinated to the larger field of power relations.

4. Which is the most prominent online platform for scientific mobility in the Ukrainian language (http://www.usw.com.ua).

5. The average monthly income in Ukraine is around €250.