Doctoral Dissertation Reseach in Sociology: Deciphering the Professional: The Culture of Transnationalism in Comparison

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Doctoral Dissertation Research in SociologyDeciphering the Professional: The Culture of Transnationalism in ComparisonPrincipal Investigator: Fatma Muge GocekCo-Principal Investigator: T. Deniz ErkmenAbstract:Using concepts and theoretical perspectives from sociology and political science, this Sociology Dissertation Improvement Grant explores how transnational practices affect the way people imagine themselves in novel ways. It seeks to understand how the conditions of interconnectedness, flexibility, and mobility engendered by globalization affect people's worldviews and their sense of belonging to a community. For this purpose, it poses the main research questions as follows: What kind of a culture do transnational practices help construct? Can we talk about shared, trans-border cultural repertoires emerging out of transnational practices? If so, how do people from different national backgrounds participate in these cultures and how does it affect their self-identification? What does it mean for the participants of these processes to be "transnational," "global," or "cosmopolitan"? And, through what kind of behavioral and self-interpretive acts is a transnational community constructed? The research takes place in two sites - Istanbul, Turkey and New York City, U.S - and focuses specifically on professionals who work in multinational corporations. Turkey and the U.S are chosen due to their position within the world economic order: one is the epicenter of the global market, and the other is a developing country, clearly integrated into the global market, yet without the power to dominate and/or shape the processes within it. The case selection aims at going beyond the single-site studies of transnationalism and exploring the variation within the transnational experience by bringing in perspectives from a developing country. Semi-structured in-depth interviews, life histories, and participant observation will be used to gather data on daily practices and self-identification processes of the professionals. This project contributes to the scholarly discussion by advancing knowledge on transnationalism, transnational professionals, and national identity. It aims to inform the theoretical discussions with empirical data. Moreover, it provides valuable information on the newly emerging transnational professionals and it adds to the recent discussions on citizenship by investigating global citizenship and cosmopolitanism in practice. It also provides an important comparison between developed and developing countries, an underresearched area in the literature on transnationalism. It is of public concern to know how national attachments, belonging, and identity are being transformed in the contemporary world since how people perceive themselves affects how they act politically and this has important consequences for the stability, persistence, and effectiveness of democratic systems. Given the declining levels of political and civic participation in most Western democracies, there is worry that the public is not taking their citizenship responsibilities seriously, leading to deterioration in politics and public life. In this context, it is crucial to explore how the interconnectedness, mobility, and flexibility associated with transnationalism affect how people identify with their communities and feel responsible towards them. The result of the research will be also of interest to the business communities as it provides information on the transnational business class and how people in this class perceive and relate to each other.