This article examines the notion of the academic life course from the perspective of international scholars in Latvia—a research system characterised by “projectarisation,” yet also by aspirations of increased international competitiveness. In conversation with literature on academic precarity andmobility justice, I investigate the contingencies and non‐linearities embedded in the transnational movements of research workers. In the academic life course, mobility across borders is supposed to lead to a permanent job in the future, yet often turns into an indefinite process of moving from one country and institution to the next. Based on semi‐structured interviews with 29 international scholars in Latvia, as well as other qualitative data, I examine how this contradiction is experienced in more peripheral contexts of academic knowledge production. I suggest that international scholars in Latvia experience heightened job insecurity while simultaneously making use of professional and personal opportunities.

The article examines the incorporation of international scholars into the Latvian higher education and research system from the perspective of labour. Whilst recent research policies in the country are aimed at increasing international cooperation to situate Latvia within the global regimes of knowledge production, the number of international researchers in Latvia remains low. Based on ethnographic research, I suggest that this is at least partially because of the largely invisible work that both international researchers in the country and their local counterparts have to perform to bridge the gap between policy dreams and structural realities. In conversation with scholarship on academic precarity and through the lens of interpretive and infrastructural labour, this article shows how the task of ‘internationalising’ knowledge production in Latvia is entrusted to individual local researchers, whilst international scholars face a multitude of uncertainties regarding their work lives and their presence in the country in general.