The Social Construction of Improvement: Continuity and Change in Caribbean Migrants' Life Stories

Authors

  • Karen Fog Olwig University of Copenhagen

Keywords:

mobility, life story, social construction of improvement, personhood, Caribbean

Abstract

Migrants' social mobility in migration destinations
is often measured in terms of "objective" socio-economic indi-
cators. These, however, generally say little about migrants' own
hopes and aspirations. This analysis of Caribbean migrants' life
stories argues that "improvement" offers a flexible notion of
achievement that, as construed by migrants, may be understood
according to a range of cultural rationales, thus enabling them
to see themselves as worthy social actors. An ethnographic
analysis of migrants' social construction of improvement there-
fore opens up a framework of analysis focusing on individuals'
understanding of migration as a means of societal mobility and
social recognition.

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Published

2022-03-11

How to Cite

Fog Olwig, K. (2022). The Social Construction of Improvement: Continuity and Change in Caribbean Migrants’ Life Stories. Anthropologica, 53(1), 41–51. Retrieved from https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/984

Issue

Vol. 53 No. 1 (2011): Changes of Place: Interrogating the Continuities and Disjunctures of Movement

Section

Thematic Section:

License

Copyright (c) 2011 Karen Fog Olwig

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