Mobilities In and Beyond Europe

Our department researches the complex dynamics of transnational mobility in a globalized world. Central to our research is the (re-)production of intersectional social inequalities in processes, phenomena and effects of international migration and spatial and social mobility, in and beyond the EU. Our inter-university Migration and Mobility Research Lab, the Migration Studies course supplement supervised by us and our participation in the international Master’s degree course and double-degree program “EUMigs” link our research work in the interdisciplinary and international scientific community with teaching and students at the university.    

Our migration research focuses on transnational mobility. This mobility, which spans regions of origin and arrival as well as transit regions (keyword multilocality), plays a key role both in the context of the migration of highly qualified people and in relevant precarious segments of the labor market (e.g. care, tourism and agriculture).   

Social differentiation also manifests itself in our second focus of critical tourism research and it seems fruitful to further develop the driving forces of current travel flows theoretically from the perspective of different countries of origin and destination as well as to interpret them empirically – in relation to many heterogeneous forms of contemporary travel – more comprehensively. To this end, Salzburg as a hot spot of international tourism will continue to be embedded in relevant research on future socio-ecologically compatible structural adjustments in tourism.  

In addition to local structures, we are also interested in global processes that promote unequal developments. Precarization is the Janus face of globalization and global capitalism, which puts workers in competition with each other worldwide. This gives rise to large areas of socio-economically marginalized workers who have to make a living primarily through subsistence farming, even if they are based in megacities. Migration and flight dynamics are logical consequences of unequal global-local development and are likely to increase significantly in the future due to the current changes in ecological livelihoods caused by climate change.