Biographical costs of transnational mobility in the European space

Combining biographical analysis with theoretical background of critical realism, this chapter presents the phenomenon of European mobility as the outcome of objectively formed opportunity structures and subjectively performed processes of internal conversation and biographical work. Viewing transnational mobility as a strategy actively promoted and facilitated by European legislation, we recognize the fact it potentially leads to biographical metamorphoses when new opportunities of study, work and life abroad are seized but at the same time it involves high biographical costs. On the basis of comparative analysis , we reconstruct different scenarios of transnational mobility directly connected with the amount and composition of resources held and type of reflexivity practised. Further, we analyse the biographical costs of mobility including suffering, maladjustment, devaluation of professional credentials and a biographical trap condition of being caught in a limbo situation between different worlds, moving without belonging and potentially becoming an ‘eternal wanderer’. We conclude with the considerations on the impact of ‘realist biographical research’ on the social policy in Europe.