While qualitative interviewing methods based on story telling are powerful in eliciting narrations that are structured according to interviewees' relevance systems, topical interviewing can build upon existing knowledge resulting from prior (interpretational) work. The problem-centred interview (PCI) is an attempt to integrate both styles of qualitative interviewing and is presently in wide use in the German-language social scientific community. It is especially helpful for research endeavours that focus on biographical experiences and orientations from individuals' perspective. Within one interview session, the PCI combines an open narrative beginning with a more structured thematic interview. This article discusses the advantages and limitations of such a combination by introducing an example of its potential use within a research project on biographical orientations in migration processes. The PCI is also placed within the existing canon of qualitative interview methods and methodologies, highlighting its merits as well as its crucial problems. IntroductionThe problem-centred interview (PCI) focuses on reconstructing orientations 1 and structures of meaning within a specific social context.

This article explores the aspirations of Western European emigrants as part of wider processes of life course and self-development within what has been called 'second modernity'. Starting from the observation that migration often happens in stages, the article focuses on the changing meaning and content of aspirations within migratory projects. Furthermore, in order to understand the specific place chosen for migration, a multi-scalar approach is proposed. The analysis is based on two empirical studies addressing migration experiences of Austrians migrating to the United States during the 1990s and 2000s. The empirical material is drawn from qualitative interviews that explore the aspirations, realisations and evaluations of migrants after moving abroad. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of situating aspirations for migration to on-going broader societal changes by applying theoretical concepts such as second modernity and multi-scalar approaches. Migrants' experiences and meaningmaking are shaped by these societal developments and contribute to them via their everyday activities.

Based on the results of a qualitative study, this article deals with the biographies of Austrians who emigrated to the US after 1965. While, in terms of quantity, the most significant waves of immigration into Western Europe have been studied extensively during the past few years, external migration has been given comparatively little consideration. A closer look at the sociological contributions that deal with this phenomenon also shows that the existing research is only helpful to a certain extent: emigration from Western European countries is mainly discussed on the basis of very few groups of people and is ultimately categorized as being `diversified' and `individualized'. In this article, it is suggested that emigration from Western Europe should be understood as one possible course of action shaped by the conditions of a second modernity. Therefore, it is oriented more closely towards the goal of self-realization — quite in contrast to such well-known forms of migration as labour-related migration or forced migration into the European Union.

The European Union has given itself unique worldwide regulations so that EU citizens can port their social rights transnationally in case of migration. Yet this political and legal statement becomes flawed once a sociological perspective is adopted to look into the actual experiences of migrants. TRANSWEL (2015–2018), an ongoing international research project—applying a mixed-method approach to compare four country-pairs (Bulgaria-Germany, Estonia-Sweden, Hungary-Austria, Poland-UK)—has shown that mobile EU citizens are confronted with exclusion and discrimination and that their belonging is put into question. Based on qualitative interviews with migrants, we argue that welfare institutions in the ‘old’ EU member states (partially) exclude and potentially discriminate against mobile EU citizens. Exclusion and discrimination are mainly based on two types of experiences: First, the difficulty to navigate through a complex system of (transnational) regulations and administrative structures, and second, the burden to prove that one falls into the competency of the member state in question. The article points out that the EU—commonly referred to as the global best-practice example in terms of the portability of social rights—reveals its flaws and limitations once the actual experiences of migrants are scrutinized in this multilevel system of governance.

Migration-induced diversity has led to the global emergence of multilingual life worlds in which language regimes are particularly intertwined with labour markets. Thus, state institutions such as national unemployment services must fulfil a special role in society. In a qualitative research project (2019–2021), we interviewed employees at the Austrian Public Employment Service (AMS) at multiple organisational levels. The results demonstrate diverging and (apparently) contradicting approaches and strategies throughout the organisation concerning the appropriateness of using German exclusively during interactions with clients. This is illustrated along a continuum, ranging from a reflective, critical approach towards linguistic diversity that is at least partly based on ideas promoting the value of multilingualism to frequently encountered notions of the need for monolingualism. Such a framework must be understood by considering the coexistence of diverging ideas and ideologies surrounding multilingualism, as well as a neoliberal working context characterised by new public management and activation policy.