Tales of the global city: German expatriate employees, globalisation and social mapping

Authors

  • Fiona Moore Kingston University School of Business

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22582/am.v6i1.107

Abstract

Transnational business people are seldom studied by anthropologists. They are inexorably linked to cities through the nature of their work and yet detached from them by virtue of their globe-trotting lifestyles. Here, I examine the role that two ‘global cities’ — London and Frankfurt — play in the lives of a group of employees from a German transnational financial corporation. I consider how these employees construct, and are constructed by, the cities in which they work and suggest that anthropologists may have to rethink our present conception of ‘the global’ versus ‘the local’, in favour of more abstract models.

Author Biography

Fiona Moore, Kingston University School of Business

Dr Fiona Moore is a business anthropologist whose main research interests include symbolism and the construction of identity, the social impact of globalisation, Germany, Europe and economic migration. Following the completion of a doctorate on transnational bankers, she is currently doing research on German automobile manufacturers in the UK.

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