Preliminary Programme

In the Netherlands, Indians are the largest national group of expats. Many of them are employed in IT and producer services. In a study of Indian IT workers employed by the Dutch division of Capgemini we tried to assess the type of professional knowledge they bring to the job. Our analysis was guided by the distinction between tacit and codified knowledge. Presumably, tacit knowledge is not easily transferred over large distances. The Indian IT professionals, however, are engaged in activities which are clearly rooted in tacit forms of knowledge. This internationalization of tacit knowledge is made possible by the shared corporate culture of Capgemini as a TNC. The intra-company international mobility of the Indian IT professionals makes them part of an ‘epistemic community’: a transnational network of knowledge-based experts. This further enhances their potential mobility and thus increases the transferability of tacit forms of knowledge. Increasing mobility of tacit knowledge might lead to substitution at higher levels of the labor-market as immigration already does at the lower end. Theoretically, then, the question rises whether the sociological law that ethnocentrism is negatively related to educational level will hold as strongly as it does now. (Show less)

Welcoming ‘guests’ and ‘friends’: high skilled migrants in 20th century The Hague and Jakarta
‘And is it not a disgrace that after ten years a prosperous people like ours, have still not employed every possible means to house this [international] school in a way that a civilized host should accommodate his guests?’
International School director Dr. J.G. Valk in: Haagsche Courant, December 29, 1962 (My italics)
In the mid-fifties and early-sixties both The Hague and Jakarta saw the foundation of an International School on their territory. These schools had to provide education for the children of employees of foreign companies and institutions in their city. The students – and in particular – their parents, were welcomed as ‘guests’ and ‘friends’ both in The Hague and Jakarta. High skilled migrants, who in principle stay temporary (nowadays often labelled as expats), are generally not perceived as migrants and do not consider themselves as such. Only under specific (political) circumstances have they become the object of critique and resentment (at times of war or heightened nationalist feelings, like decolonization). Why is this the case?
Throughout their history the cities of The Hague and Jakarta have housed a variety of international institutions such as embassies, EU- and UN international courts, multinational companies and colonial agencies, attracting a wide variety of foreigners. As a result, the cities have a strong infrastructure of international clubs, schools, shops and magazines for their ‘foreign guests’ or ‘friends’. This paper explores the logic of this international urban infrastructure. How did these migrants organize and what opportunity structure was in place for them? The focus will be on a number of media cases concerning the foundation of such institutions like the International School. Which parties – ranging from the hiring institutions to the national migrant groups – were involved in facilitating and shaping the settlement process of this group? And how did they in turn frame this group as non-migrants?
The paper argues that nonetheless the efforts of some of these parties to ‘create’ a uniform category of ‘expat’-citizens, much variety can be found amongst high skilled migrants – sometimes clearly distancing themselves from the group of ‘expats’. Moreover, the more general question whether high skilled migrants indeed constitute a separate category in Migration Theory or should be studied as ‘normal’ migrants, is addressed. (Show less)

In descriptions of the lives of knowledge workers or expatriates, two dominant images can be identified. According to the first, highly-skilled workers who travel around the world for their jobs are ‘cosmopolitans’, given that they are comfortable in many places and are open to different cultures and lifestyles. According to the second image, however, knowledge workers are ‘organization men’, who only feel at home in their own expat bubble, and whose lives are extremely dominated by their occupation. These two images have in common that knowledge workers are portrayed as a very distinctive group of people. The nature of their movement and settlement is considered to be ‘clearly very different to the standard migration/immigration story’ (Favell 2008). In this paper, I argue that knowledge workers actually are in many ways comparable to more ‘classic’ types of migrants. A systematic comparison between knowledge workers and middle-class immigrants in the Netherlands shows that although differences certainly exist, regarding their incorporation into the host society and their doubts about where they can find the best ‘quality of life’, both groups are rather similar. (Show less)