Researching high-skilled migrants between social stratification and methodological nationalism

Abstract

Methodological nationalism as a critique of container-based and nation-state-focused theory and empirical research is currently strongly anchored within migration studies, where it was initially developed. While this has led to extensive literature and critical engagement with methodological nationalism, and ways to circumvent the national trap in many (sub-)disciplines, it has not much penetrated theories of social stratification. This conceptual paper will address this gap by discussing the social positioning of high-skilled migrants in contemporary stratified societies. This exemplary discussion will bring together a critical perspective of methodological nationalism on class and milieu theory. It will also confront the critique of methodological nationalism with the question of the origin of social power and dominance, which are the foundation of stratification theories. This article will specifically draw on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social space and its derivative. Emphasis will also be given to Michael Vester's development of social milieu to highlight blind spots according to the critique of methodological nationalism. This paper shows that these theories have not grasped high-skilled migration thoroughly. It also outlines that migrant theories and their critique of methodological nationalism inadequately address the source of symbolic hierarchy and the formation of social stratification. Thus, both theoretical strands would benefit from a deeper conversation with each other.

Keywords

High-skilled migration social milieu social class social stratification methodological nationalism symbolic power

Introduction

Class or milieu theories that address social stratification often fail to consider or undertheorize migrants (Bourdieu et al., 1999; Esser, 2006). Their (supposed) position close to the lower end of the societal order mirrors their specific (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic) capital accumulation and configuration, sometimes in combination with their uncertain legal status. However, the research strand on high-skilled migration hardly fits into that image because high-skilled migrants (HSMs) enjoy a high(er) accumulation of economic capital, which poses the question of “methodological nationalism” in such class or milieu models. In contrast, migration research on HSM might overlook the social embeddedness of migrants, even when they are privileged and high-skilled. However, this perspective tends to miss how economic capital does not necessarily equal the same accumulation of cultural and social capital for HSM in a new environment after migration, overlooking horizontal stratification beyond the labor market (Huot, 2017; Van Hear, 2014).

My contribution attempts to join the two divergent research perspectives. It also aims to not only highlight their complementary shortcomings but also highlight their potential to fertilize each other. This work will draw on the example of the HSM and their social positioning in a new country. It does so by expanding the perspective of cross-border HSM with horizontal theories of class and milieus. It will ask if these (potential methodologic nationalist) schemes of social order are able to adequately capture HSMs? And, what might be the advantage of relying on milieu models to explain social stratification including HSMs?

When this paper speaks of HSM, it presupposes that those coming for a high-skilled job find a fitting job (in terms of salary, tasks, educational level, and responsibility) in the destination country, and migrated specifically for adequate work and not for other reasons. This includes various forms of employment, such as the parent company sending their employee to a new country, an individual moving to a completely new position at a different company, or entering self-employment as an independent high-skilled professional. The EU blue card defines HSMs as individuals with higher education and earning a minimum annual salary of 56,800 EUR (44,304 EUR in higher-educated job fields with labor shortages) (Directive, 2009). While the exact definition of HSM in the literature is not clear-cut—the set of skills is always a changing interplay between income, formal education, and job-related qualifications and practical expertise (González Enríquez and Triandafyllidou, 2016)—, higher education is always included and is apparently a strong marker (King et al., 2016). This definition of HSM includes many migrants who might understand themselves as upper-middle or middle-class in their home country (Favell et al., 2017; Landolt and Thieme, 2018; Ryan and Mulholland, 2014). This renders the question of social positioning even further because it allows room for social mobility during and after the migration process. Class or milieu subjectivity can be altered because of the migration, and the frame of the migrant can shift to the transnational and loosen itself from national containers, considering contextual factors in both countries on different levels, from the national to the local (Cook, 2021). However, this aspect of social mobility of the highly skilled has received only limited research attention so far (Erel, 2010). This article explicitly includes such aspects to demonstrate and discuss how we are able to approach the question of social stratification without being methodologically nationalist.

Social stratification in theories of class and social milieu

Classical class theory only pays attention to “hard” factors, the vertical dimension, such as salary, wealth, type of employment, and education. Meanwhile, models of milieu pair the vertical with a horizontal “soft” dimension, such as taste, consumption, lifestyle, values, and area of work, within the “social space” (Bourdieu, 1984: 129). The advantage of such a multi-dimensional model is its higher explanatory power of social order through its fine-tuning of various forms of social stratification in modern societies, which are less obvious than economic or educational status. Both aspects, economic and cultural, are homologue in their occurrence, meaning that they do stand not in a causal relationship to each other but that de facto specific cultural tastes and activities are not free and open for everyone to choose, nor can they be randomly found among a population. They are intertwined with a specific social class or milieu that people, the bearer of taste, have to be socialized into. The core concept to explain such ongoing differences are the different forms of capital, expanding the well-known economic capital with social and, most importantly, cultural capital. The three capital forms combined form the symbolic capital, which is a form of meta-capital and is best translated into everyday language by “prestige.” Symbolic capital not only depends on the quantification of the different forms of capital but also depends on its internal configuration, ergo in what relation the capital forms are accumulated and embodied (Bourdieu, 1986). The acknowledged differences in symbolic capital then lead to “distinction” (Bourdieu, 1984) between social classes and the social dominance of the dominating upper class.

This distinction also resonates on the macro-level of society (Lemert, 2006). Bourdieu's concept of the “social space” is the relational differentiation between not only different vertical classes but also horizontal social milieus. Each milieu is defined by its relationships or borders to the other milieu, without which it could not even theoretically exist because the affiliation to a milieu only becomes relevant and visible by the contrast to another milieu. A milieu is characterized by its own capital configuration and habitus, which the members themselves are mostly unaware of (Bourdieu, 1984). But habitus remains rather firm and only changes slowly, an effect dubbed hysteresis (Bourdieu, 1990), which makes it difficult (though not impossible) for members originating from one social milieu to make their way into new, rather “unfamiliar,” social environments. The nationally bounded bourgeoisies and elite cannot only rely on a common lifestyle and taste, which separates them from outsiders (Andreotti et al., 2013; Hartmann, 2017; Meuleman and Savage, 2013), but must also hold a dominant position of power, including the potential to shape politics (Faist, 2018). This argument is especially crucial for the discussion of HSM because it shows that educational leveling does not necessarily equal symbolic recognition, even within one country and educational system, and much less so when cross-bordering migration is involved. Even after upwards social mobility—as measured with “hard variables” on the vertical dimension (economic status)—, habitual adaptation and adjustment of an adequate capital configuration to the new surrounding takes much longer because these components are inscribed into the body and mind through our primary socialization (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). The socially mobile agent has to learn new manners and implicit knowledge, while the old ones have to be unlearned. The capital “exchange rate” is skewed towards the upper class because their capital configuration is “arbitrarily more highly valued, naturalized and misrecognized as legitimate. Thus, failure to recognize the value of non-economic forms of capital as arbitrary contributes to misrecognition and symbolic violence” (Huot, 2017: 32).

This system of differentiation only works if the people involved collectively agree on the valuation and recognition of the different capital forms and configurations. Although the upper class has the biggest scope in defining legitimate capital forms and configurations, they can only succeed in the relational recognition and acceptance by the rest of people in the social space. Again, this becomes relevant when we think about HSM and their “package” of capital, because it does not address the “position-taking” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 99) or social positioning of agents, who penetrate the social space after their primary and secondary socialization outside of a particular social space—ergo, migrants: “The highly skilled migrants also possess cultural capital that is specific to their country of origin. This capital is rarely recognized and must be translated into universally understood cultural currency” (Weiß, 2005: 720).

However, this is not integrated into Bourdieu's original model, and neither is the possibility of transnational spaces that span over more than one nation state (Weiß, 2006). Based on the concept of social space and milieu, Vester (2003) traced a more detailed and analytically sound version of the milieu model. Although it also emphasizes “homology between economic and habitus position” (Vester, 2003: 38), the model pays attention to the historical lines of the milieu and their internal differentiation. Even though the upper milieus vary among their horizontal “soft” factors, what unites them is their relatively closure vertically, which makes it quite hard for people from the lower milieu to “work” their way up into the upper milieu (Vester, 2003: 43). National elites, even when working in transnational/international companies, do not tend to adapt a transnational lifestyle and consequently do not “escape” or “devalue” the symbolic order of their respective national social space—at least in the UK, the USA, France, and Germany (Hartmann, 2000). This could mean that the penetration of an upper milieu for a foreigner of the same social status from a different country is as difficult as it is for a lower-class national because the system of closure is based on said historical lines (Vester, 2003). This is emphasized by the historical tradition lines over a temporal development, which defines the relative stability of the formation and boundary of the social milieus, especially among the upper class.

The underlining explanatory power of the concept of social milieu is its understanding of social stratification as not only conscious decisions but as also pre-reflexive and subconscious practices and symbolically arbitrary, which define the borders of a milieu in demarcation to the other social milieus. Social milieus developed historically and cannot be created through plain interaction with other agents. Whereas a change from one milieu to another is possible, its realization comes with many premises and requires adequate timing. This is usually a slow process and is potentially conflict-laden for the agent. This change not only addresses a change within a (national) social space but can also be theorized as a change from one social space, as the order of symbolic dominance, into another. This is the point where the criticism of methodological nationalism departs, with its critique of the narrowness of national container conceptualization of the social space. I will continue by laying out the specific points of that criticism in relation to the theory of milieu.

Methodological nationalism and transnationalism

The critique of methodological nationalism addresses the problem that social analysis often presupposes the nation state as the natural form of social organization, with complete control over its geographical realm and synonymous with the society that it holds (Amelina and Faist, 2012; Chernilo, 2006a; Chernilo, 2006b). From this perspective, sub-, trans-, or supranational organization, influences, and processes are easily overlooked, which is the crucial point of the criticism of methodological nationalism. Migrants in the container model are only equalized (both societally and statistically) once they have been “absorbed,” meaning that they have been assimilated or integrated into the nation state with its national population. Cultural homogeneity and integration are taken as given in national societies, and research is adjusted along these assumptions. Especially in research and theory-building, this kind of heuristic naturalization becomes problematic because it presupposes the state without bringing this fact to the forefront (Chernilo, 2006a). The division into milieus follows this national logic, it is shaped by national background assumptions, and it might ignore the missing relevance of such categories for a population that is relationally creating their self-understanding across borders with the minor influence of the groups or individuals within the same nation state. Although methodological nationalism is adequate to capture and analyze the sedentary, it has shortcomings in regard to cross-border moving people and the transnational migrants who might accumulate their capital in one “container” but anchor their social and symbolic position in another container/country. Only by changing the nation state from the epistemological framework into an empirical variable research can we overcome the fallacy of methodological nationalism (Beck and Grande, 2010: 202).

Transnational agents think, orientate, act, and move across national borders, and therefore create a relational—not physical—space that is much more shaped by its members, their social and cultural connections, and their daily lived experiences than by national horizons. They are not fixed to one location. This leads to the formation of numerous attachments, which are not conceptualizable in a national container model (Plöger and Becker, 2015). Therefore, the focus of transnational migration research lies in the temporary, circular, and permanent quality of migration processes (Amelina, 2013), in comparison to a clear and straightforward move-settle perspective that ends with integration or assimilation. When the national as a reference point decreases in importance and relevance, local contexts become more important, in which the transnational or even translocal space and belonging is kept alive through everyday interactions (Peleikis, 2000; Yeoh and Huang, 2011). However, as in a national model, agents are still embedded in specific social structures of varying economic, political, and social opportunities (Schiller et al., 2004). They are not free-floating individuals in a social void. Consequently, their (higher) social positioning or status within the relational point of reference embodied in the social space can be jeopardized: “The importance of social skills, including linguistic capabilities and possession of social (often local) capital, and the national character of professions and skills’ construction” (Peixoto, 2001: 47).

This is still a relevant factor for the recognition of social status. Transnational spaces can also develop specific transnational forms of capital or transnational capital (Wallinder, 2019). However, because this kind of capital is not necessarily recognized to the extent that it would help in social mobility outside of the transnational, its power can be limited to the transnational realm (Bilecen and Faist, 2015). HSMs are even considered to be “examples par excellence of members of today's societies, which are considered to have developed into mobile societies” (Meier, 2014: 15). However, this view overemphasizes the transnational mobility experience of certain groups, while large parts of the population are neither mobile nor transnational. Moreover, the fast development of digital communication and digitalization in general and their enabling impact on transnationalism and support of transnational life forms (Marino, 2015) do not necessarily challenge once established national social orders. We can especially see this during the contested political elections and open political clashes in countries that have bigger transnationalist communities (Oosterbaan, 2010). In the following section, I will argue that HSM's social positioning is characterized by the tension of their transnationality, and the formative and stratifying social structures of the host society. The latter represents the national container but is explicitly focused on as such, and argued why and how its function exists regarding symbolic dominance and exclusion.

HSMs and their positionality in transnationality and upper social milieus

To underline the shortcomings of both approaches when considered in isolation and to show how they can fruitfully be thought together, we can consider the exemplary case of HSM and their social positioning. To emphasize my point, I focus on HSMs who have migrated specifically for adequate work or who have moved directly into a position, whether self-organized or sent by their company. If we follow theories of social space and social inequality, then we see that social power is mediated through the positioning in the social space, ergo the localization within a specific social milieu. However, the lenses of methodological nationalism overlook the transnational movement and interconnection that proves to be very valuable and important for the migrants and their peers. Stretching this importance to the social space in general and the social impact of HSMs in particular, this questions the clear position-taking of such migrants in the realm of social milieus. Their relational “social success,” and therefore the recognition of their social position and prestige by others, depends on the fit of embodied capital accumulation and configuration to the new setting through the (non-)recognition of a socially dominating group, ergo the historically established members of a social milieu, who define and embody symbolic violence (Huot, 2017). Migrants may remain symbolically attached to their places of departure, which is not only reproduced by themselves but also by people in the place of destination. This can play into their personal struggle to find an adequate social position within the new setting. This is an image that we can also find in the concept of “the stranger,” who is “Fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose boundaries are similar to spatial boundaries. But his position in this group is determined, essentially, by the fact that he has not belonged to it from the beginning, that he imports qualities into it, which do not and cannot stem from the group itself” (Simmel, 1950: 402).

The string of attachment to the past (as a space) is used by the established to exclude the migrant, which would be open due to the otherwise “fitting” capital and habitus. Because they are “recognized” as different, certain spaces and positions in their company (or in work life in general), and also in the social and cultural realm of their everyday life, can remain closed (Boström and Öhlander, 2015; Lan, 2011). The transfer to a new place, a new milieu in a new country, and a new field, most certainly goes hand-in-hand with a certain loss of symbolic capital that has been accumulated throughout the life course (Joy et al., 2020). A milieu is defined by its aggregated social action, united in a common habitus liaised with the “fitting” taste and practice, and is always distinguishing from other milieus: “According to its habitus type, each milieu follows specific strategies of the life course which also include specific educational and occupational goals and means and, when frustrated, their substitutes” (Vester, 2003: 25).

As newcomers, originating outside of the new milieu, they are not able to change the rules of the game and its capital configuration and acceptance (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) but they have to wait patiently until they can accumulate the “right” type and amount of capital to achieve the desired recognition (if ever). “The very act of migration disrupts ideas of linear reproduction of cultural capital” (Erel, 2010: 648), precisely because the fields are changed after migration. The (in-)ability to “participate in locally-shared professional cultures” (Erel, 2010: 648) is a very vivid example of how this disruption can lead to exclusion and devaluation of social status/positioning for the HSM. The “local codes of labor” (Weiß and Nohl, 2013: 70), for managers (for example), including specific vocabulary for negotiation and routines of interactions, vary over countries and cannot be transferred one-to-one from one's own socialization, despite some homologies (Weiß and Nohl, 2013). A transnational perspective would argue at this point that the state does not matter much, due to the creation of transnational spaces that the HSMs certainly engage with and are part of. However, transnationalism cannot adequately address forms of social distinction and symbolic power outside of transnational space, which overlooks great portions of people, who act and orientate themselves foremost outside of transnational references. Furthermore, transnationalism often neglects the contribution of approaches such as Bourdieu's that emphasize the bodily and physical experience for social spaces and practices (Reed-Danahay, 2017).

High-skilled work, especially in the medical system, state administration, law, and higher education sector, as well as in businesses and industries with domestic partners or suppliers, can be very language-intensive and sensitive to language. Therefore, language can easily become a barrier and shield that protects natives from immigrating competitors. Other branches, such as IT, do use English as their lingua franca and are less exclusively based on language use. But beyond the workplace, language plays an important role in the social life of the respective milieu because the fitting habitus and socialization in it is tightly intertwined with the appropriate use of language (Bourdieu, 1984; Negretti and Garcia-Yeste, 2014). Yet, linguistic politics or practices, access to social and welfare services, and other mechanisms of symbolic dominance and exclusion vary from state to state. This can affect the HSM's ability to find symbolic recognition and alignment to a milieu, depending on regularities and traditions of practices.

These differences become even more pronounced in a perspective that is sensitive to the global north–south divide, and its dominating reproduction pattern of symbolic evaluation and devaluation, in education, employment, and in other fields (Greer, 2013). Such symbolic power imbalance can even lead to a relatively advantageous position for HSM from the global north in countries of the global south, at least in specific multinational corporations operating in such countries (Waters, 2008). However, this preference for the job market does not automatically lead to further advantages in the countries of the global south (Yeoh and Willis, 2005). Intersectional dimensions of social inequality and symbolic power in migration, such as race and gender (Zuluaga et al., 2021), can further and reinforce socially exclusionary mechanisms. This results in the barricading of social milieus and devaluation of existing capital configuration beyond the economic capital endowment. In the literature, this is also conceptualized in the form of additional capital forms, such as “racist symbolic capital” (Weiß, 2010), which functions beyond the symbolic recognition of economic and cultural capital and addresses physical features. This introduces another level of the arbitrariness of symbolic borders for racialized HSM.

Beyond racialization and intersectional inequalities, HSM in the general face another horizontal line of distinction reaffirmed by national logic: political and civil participation. Beyond legal rights, the participation in civic and political society is a fundamental activity in contemporary liberal democracies. The level and intensity of this participation vary over different social milieus (Gallego, 2007). It is constitutional for certain (middle and upper) milieus because they define who they are as a “zoon politikon” and maintain the social symbolic order in which they occupy a dominating position. It is crucial to understand that through such forms of participation and activity, the self-assurance of an upper-middle milieu is continuously shaped and fostered. This participation becomes important beyond its content because it confirms the habitus and self-image of the milieu. In contrast, HSM rarely participates in politics (Weiß, 2005), and they only engage in political or civic issues when they foster and deepen their ties to the local communities that they live in, also depending on their own family status (Carattini, 2021). When they lack the inclusion into specific social networks and organizations, they tend to be under-averaged and active in the political and civic fields (Meier, 2014). This is mirrored on the other side by the neglect of HSMs’ views and problems by policy makers, educational institutions, and other state organizations (Carattini, 2021).

The transnational approach argues that the social practice of agents creates geographical and symbolic references by and for themselves, thereby “ignoring” the absolutistic understanding of a (national) container model (Amelina and Faist, 2012; Pries, 2008). Following the transnational perspective, we can ask if the HSM can also establish their own social reference, a “transnational milieu,” to find their adequate positioning in the upper or upper-middle social space? Albeit the individual HSM could relatively easily establish themselves in such a transnational space (Joy et al., 2020), this space is not necessarily close to the fields of power within a specific social space, where (after all) the symbolic power and its order are upheld. Transnational space may be created and populated by the HSM, but that does not mean that the relevance of this space spills over to the sedentary population of a country, which may stay (including the upper classes and elite) very much national-focused (Hartmann, 2000). Thereby, creating only disinterest if not mistrust towards a transnational space/milieu. Migration is an “ongoing process of negotiating their access to economic, political, cultural and social resources” (Lan, 2011: 1671). These resources are concentrated towards the domestic upper class and are guarded by the domestic upper-middle class, rooted in their social historicity, which makes it so difficult for a transnational milieu to achieve symbolic recognition and to share symbolic power. Furthermore, their upper socioeconomic status might obscure the fact that HSMs are often spatially and socially restricted between their respective spatial spaces of their life courses. This brings them into an “in-between position,” where they are “neither elites nor cosmopolitans” (Shimoda, 2014: 149). This experience can be described as “contradictory class mobility” (Parreñas, 2015: 118). Although some aspects of the daily life of HSMs do improve (e.g. salary), others decline (e.g. the distance towards centers of political and societal, and hence symbolic power). To clarify the point of symbolic devaluation through HSM, the next section will present some empirical evidence from the literature review.

Forms of symbolic devaluation

In their research of medical doctors who have moved to work in a hospital in another country, Boström and Öhlander (2015) called the medical labor market “an overarching transnational medical field” (Boström and Öhlander, 2015: 42). Theoretically, relevant knowledge and daily practice do not differ in the “hard science” of medicine. They are universal and allow doctors to work clinically and in research all over the world. This reduces the argument for the centrality of nation states because the medical profession spans over national borders and functions transnationally. However, their empirical findings point to obstacles and pitfalls that are clearly connected to a new national working environment. This includes the questioning of skills and work competence due to a lack of linguistic and cultural competences, especially in higher positions. Eventually, but not always, this devaluation through questioning can be leveled over time with “impressive results” in the work of the HSM. However, the initial lack of “the feeling for subtleties” (Boström and Öhlander, 2015: 51) speaks a clear Bourdieusian and Vesterian language, in which it is not enough to occupy formally a position in the field (of the medical profession) without the expected forms and manners. Previous accumulated symbolic capital is put at risk with the migration decision and transnationality is only possible when the capital is recognized as symbolic valuable in the new context. The symbolic “mismatching” can intensify in combination with the reproduction of negative stereotypes and prejudice about Eastern Europeans (Boström and Öhlander, 2015). Because the medical and education system, as places where one has to learn about the subtleties and correct behavior, are nationally organized and safeguarded, the nation state does plays into the symbolic devaluation of HSM. The content of education is often part of nation-building, including specific literary canons and the cultural heritage of a country, which is not included in (higher) education in other countries but is expected to a certain degree from high-educated and high-skilled people. The medical system itself can even be part of nation-building when nation states take pride in their free and qualitative medical services, as is the case in many Western and Northern European countries. The symbolic gap that Boström and Öhlander (2015) address in the context of Eastern European HSM in Northern Europe, can also be found on a global level under a reversed condition. Lan (2011) discusses how English-speaking Westerners occupy an advantageous position as HSM due to their hegemonic linguistic and cultural capital, good “exchange rates,” and racialized symbolic valorization when entering the global South. However, even such privileged racialized migration is realized far from the national centers of symbolic power and dominating milieus because these migrants end up in “lucrative, privileged, yet segregated, ghettoised job niches” (Lan, 2011: 1670), leaving them in well-paid positions yet in socio-political isolation and with limited contact to the domestic population. This can lead to an even lower social positioning in societies where social capital is most crucial for social thriving (Lan takes the example of Taiwan and the importance of “guanxi,” which translates to interpersonal networks). In this instance, the transnational milieu can work as a glass ceiling for social mobility in the host society because it allows some social mobility within the milieu but the inherent limits of the milieu put an end to overall social mobility within the host country. The lack of time and energy to engage in social activities due to their long working hours (because, after all, they came for a specific position) plus commuting time (Wallinder, 2019) further this dynamic because working hours in high-skilled professions are longer (Bosch, 2009; Kuhn and Lozano, 2008).

When HSM circumvent materialistic barriers in the host countries through transnationalizing aspects of their socioeconomic life, for example, relying on the social security and education of their respective host country (Wallinder, 2019)—a privileged position for those coming from a country where universal social security is guaranteed to its citizens—, this helps in fostering the self-image of imagined independence and a sense of security. However, it barely helps to elevate their social positioning in terms of the milieu affiliation in the country of their current stay because it adds very little to nothing to the symbolic capital that is relevant in that specific domestic context. This eventually leaves them even in a position of “perceived vulnerability” (Wallinder, 2019: 48), which is a sign of domination in milieu theory.

The HSM can compensate for the lack of social embeddedness beyond work through joining “migrant communities” (Plöger and Becker, 2015: 1531), which represent a safe space for cultural orientation and participation. Migrant groups can only be used for social mobility if the individual HSM can claim a dominant position within the group and establish themselves as the “contact person” or even representation of the minority within the majority domestic society, therefore gaining importance and symbolic recognition overall in the host society (Erel, 2010). This development is the exception rather than the rule and most of the HSM will not come into this position, and therefore the distance to the centers of symbolic power and isolation from dominating milieus remains. Another alternative for HSM is to join transnational/international social groups, which define themselves not upon nationality but on professional occupation and activity. This binds them in the “specific logics and mobility requirements of their professional fields” (Plöger and Kubiak, 2019: 318). Nevertheless, these communities are again only loosely if at all connected to the host society (Plöger and Kubiak, 2019). This proves pragmatically relevant for the HSM's daily social life and social well-being, but not necessarily for elaborating their social positioning due to the missing link to sources of symbolic power and domination. The constituting circumstances are shaped by the fact that HSM usually decides to take a specific job rather than a specific location. This leaves them with little to no knowledge about the destination, including its specific capital requirements and exchange rates (Tippel et al., 2017).

Researching social stratification and its relational power without falling into methodological nationalism

This paper asks if and how the criticism of methodological nationalism, which is well-established in migration studies, can also be utilized in the research of social stratification and milieu and vice versa with the exemplary case of HSMs. Answering these questions may not be as straightforward as the original criticism of methodological nationalism implies. Indeed, transnational spaces or milieus are created by and are relevant for HSM, which shows that the nation state is a less relevant factor for their employment or life course. However, social stratification, as represented in the structure of milieus and symbolic power, is still often embedded and reinforced within the nation state. It is also stabilized by national institutions and cultivated habits, as represented by political and civic participation and the use of public goods. Therefore, potentially methodologic nationalist milieu models can have legitimacy in the research of social stratification, including HSM, in contrast to a purely transnationalist or globalized analysis. The latter may overlook national and nation-bound sources of (social) symbolic power and its relational recognition within, which then may result in an inadequate attempt to explain social stratification beyond vertical lines. However, for the former, it is crucial to “unpack” the function and role of a potential national framework in such milieu analysis to adequately contextualize HSM. This includes to make national legal or practical specifies transparent and to pay attention to inner upper milieus dynamics as an expression of symbolic struggles over legitimate power. The question of source and perpetration of symbolic power and dominance are not simply dissolved when we shift our analytical and epistemological perspective away from the national towards the transnational, because “The state is an X (to be determined) which successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical and symbolic violence over a definite territory and over the totality of the corresponding population. If the state is able to exert symbolic violence, it is because it incarnates itself simultaneously objectivity, in the form of specific organizational structures and mechanisms, and in subjectivity in the form of mental structures and categories of perception and thought. By realizing itself in social structures and in the mental structures adapted to them, the instituted institution makes us forget that it issues out of a long series of acts of institution (in the active sense) and hence has all the appearances of the natural” (Bourdieu et al., 1994: 3).

Precisely because a national society is perceived (misrecognized) as real (by researchers as their research object or context, as well as by HSM as their mode of spatiality), it is real in its consequences. Its differentiation into horizontal social milieus can explain the underlining and hidden power dynamics based on capital configuration and habitus, but this approach can struggle to accurately grasp people with “contradicting” capital configurations, such as HSM, over the time. Nevertheless, the nation state continues to be a relevant reference for the exertion of symbolic violence and of potential struggle for symbolic power, although not the only one (Fine and Chernilo, 2003). The transnational perspective is helpful on the other side because it shows how forms of migration, such as HSM, are part of the social reality of contemporary societies and also becoming part of social stratification. Even if their relational position does not adequately reflect their employment status, cultural capital, qualification level, or professional skills yet, due to the historicity of milieus (Vester, 2003). Nevertheless, in many cases, HSMs do not necessarily seek symbolic recognition as part of the upper or upper-middle class in the host country. Instead, they emphasize a different national or transnational identity and prefer to stay in their (trans-)national communities within the host country (Mulholland and Ryan, 2014). They can be very content with their specific situation and positioning (Wallinder, 2019), and may not aim for social mobility or the (habitual and cultural) alignment to a specific (upper) social milieu because their social self-image and identity is based on other factors. For that matter, milieu models might be insufficient and attention to transnational explanations becomes vital.

It is important to bear in mind that while this discussion about the social positioning of HSM addresses relational social positioning within the specific national social space, it does not necessarily say anything about the life quality or satisfaction of migrants. The growth of transnational milieus quantitatively and qualitatively might also add to its importance for social stratification processes in national contexts in the future, when centers of symbolic power and dominating milieus shift towards stronger transnational poles, harmonizing capital configurations, and requirements across national contexts. This is a plausible scenario for the future given the development of economic globalization but it is also visibly counter-attacked by political (populist) nationalism and exclusive communitarianism, which by any means wants to keep the dynamics of symbolic power and rule strictly nation-bounded. This paper's aim was to demonstrate and highlight the shortcomings and heuristic advantages of methodological nationalist social stratification, as well as transnationalism, and how they can fruitfully enhance each other to understand high-skilled migration and social stratification with the help of milieu models. Further research should employ this perspective in empirical studies.

Footnotes

Availability of data and material

Data sharing is not available.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Gregor Schäfer

Author biography

Gregor Schäfer obtained his PhD from the University of Siegen in 2021, where he worked as a research assistant in a project on transnational scientific careers in the European Union. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the FernUniversität in Hagen, where he focuses on educational strategies, social distinction, and social stratification in education and higher education in Germany.

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