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

摘要：本社会学博士论文改进资助项目利用社会学和政治学的概念和理论视角，探讨了跨国实践如何影响人们以新颖的方式想象自己。它试图理解全球化所产生的相互联系、灵活性和流动性如何影响人们的世界观和他们对社区的归属感。为此，本文提出了以下主要研究问题：跨国实践有助于构建什么样的文化？我们能否谈谈在跨国实践中出现的共享的、跨国界的文化曲目？如果是这样，来自不同国家背景的人是如何参与这些文化的，这又如何影响他们的自我认同？对于这些过程的参与者来说，“跨国”、“全球”或“世界主义”意味着什么？跨国社区是通过什么样的行为和自我解释行为来构建的？这项研究在两个地点进行——土耳其的伊斯坦布尔和美国的纽约市——专门针对在跨国公司工作的专业人士。土耳其和美国之所以被选中，是因为它们在世界经济秩序中的地位：一个是全球市场的中心，另一个是发展中国家，明显融入了全球市场，但没有能力主导和/或塑造全球市场的进程。案例选择旨在超越跨国主义的单一地点研究，并通过引入发展中国家的视角来探索跨国经验中的差异。半结构化的深度访谈、生活史和参与者观察将用于收集专业人员日常实践和自我认同过程的数据。该项目通过推进关于跨国主义、跨国专业人员和国家认同的知识，促进了学术讨论。它的目的是告知与实证数据的理论讨论。此外，它还提供了有关新兴跨国专业人员的宝贵信息，并通过调查实践中的全球公民身份和世界主义，增加了最近关于公民身份的讨论。它还提供了发达国家和发展中国家之间的重要比较，这是跨国主义文献中研究不足的领域。公众关心的是，在当代世界，国家的依恋、归属和身份是如何转变的，因为人们如何看待自己会影响他们的政治行为，这对民主制度的稳定性、持久性和有效性具有重要影响。鉴于大多数西方民主国家的政治和公民参与水平不断下降，人们担心公众没有认真对待他们的公民责任，导致政治和公共生活的恶化。在这种背景下，探讨与跨国主义相关的互联性、流动性和灵活性如何影响人们对社区的认同和对社区的责任感是至关重要的。这项研究的结果也将引起商业界的兴趣，因为它提供了关于跨国商业阶层的信息，以及这个阶层的人如何看待和相互联系。

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.