Becoming Mobile

Abstract

Just as it has been argued that there is a need to incorporate a more overt geographical perspective into the study of ISM (Brooks and Waters, 2011, p. 114), there also needs to be greater recognition of the sociological factors which help shape and define mobility decision-making. This includes macro-level dimensions such as structures of opportunity in respect to work and study and policy in the areas of education, employment and social welfare. At the level of geo-politics, we also need to be aware that the ease with which young people move, including the enablement and inhibition of student movement, is affected by ideological battles which take place at national governmental and European levels; this latter area will be explicitly dealt with in the next chapter of this book. At micro-level, there is also a need to take into account personal desire in regard to mobility decisions; that choices can be influenced by values and expectations as well as individual resources (Faist, 1997, pp. 199–200). Added to this list can be more indeterminate influences at what has been termed by Thomas Faist (1997) the ‘meso-level’, some of which have already emerged at the end of the previous chapter of this book. This includes kinship ties and acquaintanceship networks as well as the sense of security, or insecurity, provided by local communities and institutions; in other words, the dimensions of life that are normally discussed under the rubric of social capital (e.g., Coleman, 1990; Bourdieu, 1996; Putnam, 2000).¹