This article explores the role played by migration and mobilities practiced while young in subsequent professional development, focusing on the example of research careers in Portugal. The first half of the discussion introduces theoretical issues, including the proposition that time spent abroad provides a means of generating distinction. This belief, alongside other ideas associated with Bourdieu, helps explain why certain people have sought to spatialize their careers in the past. However, the multiplication and fragmentation of mobilities changes this situation, democratizing but diluting the value of spatial experiences for youth transitions to and within the labour market. The second part of the article looks at the evolution of what is termed a mobilities/transitions nexus, using evidence from 48 biographical interviews conducted with researchers in Portugal during 2022 and 2023. Taking a temporally cross-sectional view of this evidence, change in the efficacy of migration and mobilities for incipient researchers during the youth phase is illustrated, ranging from examples of distinction generating success among individuals who migrated at a time when such practices were relatively exceptional to others who moved after the multiplication and fragmentation of mobilities, also noting the emergence of hybrid forms of circulation.

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Distinction,Migration,Mobility,Portugal,Researchers,Transitions

• Sociology - Social Sciences

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• Circulation of Science: Mobility, Precarity and Economic Growth
• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2019 Legislative Elections
• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2022 Legislative Elections