INVITATION FOR PHD DEFENCE - Kerstin Martel

In order to obtain the PhD degree, Kerstin Martel has submitted her thesis entitled:    

Creating and dissolving ‘identity’ in global mobility studies  - a multi-scalar inquiry of belongingness and becoming on-the-move    

An increasingly diverse, highly qualified mobile workforce and self-directed transnational pathways compel us to question the prevalent sedentarist understanding of professional and personal identifications and belonging. Whereas modern conceptualisations of 'identity' are fostered alongside societal structures and nation-state logics, mobile individuals live their lives across multiple locations, organisations and occupations. Based on this observation, the thesis problematises established assumptions and ascertains the need to consider 'mobility complexity' and nomadic ethics when investigating mobile ways of identifying and belonging. It exemplifies how externally ascribed migrant categorisations in macro-level discourse generate ‘discursive noise’ and how they contribute to the social organisation of difference in the competition state. It shows how ephemeral ways of collective belonging and care emerge during the pandemic whilst the shared imaginary of borderless mobility collapses. Moreover, it proposes to consider 'moments of intensity' as a post-structuralist device for apprehending rhizomatic processes of mobile becoming. Overall, this thesis advances the conceptualisation of mobile ways of being and becoming as nomadology and contributes to International Human Resource Management and to the mobilities and migration nexus more broadly.    

The thesis will be available from research.cbs.dk
 

Primary Supervisor:
Professor Sara Louise Muhr
Department of Organization
Copenhagen Business School
 

Secondary Supervisors:
Professor Mette Zølner
School of Communication and Culture - Department of German and Romance Languages
Aarhus University
 

Assessment Committee:
Associate Professor Maribel Blasco (Chair)
Department of Management, Society and Communication
Copenhagen Business School
 

Associate Professor Banu Ozkazanc-Pan
School of Engineering
Brown University
 

Professor David S.A. Guttormsen
Department of Business, Strategy and Political Sciences
USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway
 

Date: 2 February 2024
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: Dalgas Have
Room: DH.Ø.089
Reception: Faculty Club

*The CBS PhD School will host a reception, which will take place immediately after the defence.