Spatializing Class. Sociological Reflections on Migration, Translocality, and the Relativity of Social Spaces
Abstract: This is an attempt to discuss the interplay between social stratification and transnational space through the theory of social boundaries. The transnational space is regarded not only through its geographical attributes but also as a meaning device that bears the signs of the economic, social, and cultural differences of the actors. The author proposes a model for studying social mobility across different migrant spaces, explaining how upward, lateral, or downward mobility occurs. Moreover, the transnational mobility model reveals how the disparities between national and social spaces are based not only on economic but also on social boundaries and value systems that reveal power relationships among the main actors at a regional and global scale.
Marius Lazăr is a professor of sociology at “Babeș-Bolyai” University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, with a PhD in Sociology of Culture. His main fields of interest are Social Theory, Minorities and Ethnic Relations, Elites, and Sociology of Literature.
He is the author of: Ice-block Theory [Teoria Blocului de gheață], Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărții de știință, 2023; « Lipovan » Russians in Romania. History, Identity,Community (Rușii lipoveni din România. Istorie identitate comunitate). Cluj Napoca: Editura Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor minorităților Naționale, 2020 (co-edited with Iulia Elena Hossu); Paradoxes of Modernization. Elements for a Sociology of Romanian Cultural Elites [Paradoxuri ale modernizării. Elemente pentru o sociologie a elitelor culturale româneşti]. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Limes, 2002.