No abstract

Mobility is a key concept within recent social theorising on globalisation, transnationalisation of social relations, and new divisions of society. Mobility growth is also central to issues of global warming and the need for sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to elucidate empirically some properties of recent developments in international mobility. A theoretically informed understanding of changing patterns of long-distance travel is briefly outlined. This understanding is confronted with empirical findings concerning the actual development of international travel from Sweden during the 1990s. The findings confirm expected trends of further increasing intensity, extensity, and velocity in long-distance mobility. A tendency towards globalisation is observed, though an intraregional transnationalisation is the dominant process at work. It is concluded that an increasing short-term flexibilisation in people's use of time and space is a more important driving force behind the transnationalisation of mobility, than is the geographical extension of more enduring social relations. Influencing factors behind the social division of mobility are addressed by identifying the hypermobile segment of the population. Implications for the wider issues of globalisation and environmental sustainability are discussed.

Going abroad to live, work, or study for a period when young has become increasingly widespread. An important aspect of this development is the longer-term consequences for mobility at the individual and population levels. The present article explores the specific connections -the 'mobility links' -between temporary stays abroad and other mobility events in the early life course. The paper is based on a retrospective study of transnational moves and mobility among young adults in Gothenburg, Sweden. The results identify two main forms of consequential mobility: first, 'secondary' travel during the stay between two places linked by a move and, second, patterns of regular travel back to the place of temporary stay in following years, mainly because of new social ties formed.

FRÄNDBERG, L. (2008): 'Paths in transnational time-space: representing mobility biographies of young Swedes', Geogr. Ann. B 90 (1): 17-28.ABSTRACT. This article sets out to capture and describe individual transnational mobility from a long-term, biographical perspective. The purpose is to discuss the use of a time-geographical form of notation to represent people's transnational mobility as paths in time and space, and to demonstrate how such representations can contribute to explaining some of the dynamics of longdistance mobility. An advantage of using time-space paths is that several aspects of an individual's travel biography can be represented in a single image: intensity and extensity are immediately evident, and the temporal and spatial relationships between the various mobility actions are made visible.Using data describing all transnational trips taken during childhood and adolescence by sixty-two Swedish youth with different backgrounds, three aspects of how trajectories develop over time are discussed in more detail. The first concerns overall change in travel pattern with time. A dominant pattern of increase in travel with increasing age is observed, indicating the importance of further investigating how travel behaviour is related to experience and life-course transitions. Second, sequential relationships between migration and temporary mobility are examined. In spite of the relatively small number of respondents, a wide range of such relationships are disclosed in the material. Third, regularity and repetition in long-distance travel patterns is discussed as an increasingly important aspect of contemporary transnational mobility. Among these young people, highly regular travel is often motivated by enduring long-distance social relationships, but is also generated by leisure or holiday travel alone.

This paper examines the meaning attributed to the practice of 'going abroad' from the perspective of youth transitions. It assumes that the growing prevalence of temporary moves abroad among middle-class youth can be understood as spatial manifestations of, and responses to, both expanded opportunities for individual choice and increased demands for flexibility in the face of uncertainty. The paper is based on an analysis of in-depth retrospective interviews with 14 thirty-year-old Swedes who had spent at least 1 year studying or working abroad in their early to mid twenties. The questions addressed concern the meanings attributed to temporary moves abroad in relation to (a) personal history and personal choice and (b) the management of opportunity and uncertainty. Although going abroad is fairly common among middle-class Swedish youth, the results indicate that the decision to do so is typically described as highly personal, with reference to one's family history, childhood environment, personality, or desire to become someone different. The act of physical displacement is conceptualised as a way to accelerate progress towards independence and autonomy and to incorporate evidence of courage, flexibility, and ability to act into one's biography. However, mobility is also used to create 'fail-safe' situations to postpone and avoid the demands for longterm planning and progress integral to the transition to adulthood. Whereas the pressure for success seems to be considerably relaxed in many temporary communities of mobile youth, it is clearly part of the social context at home.