Translocal mobility systems: Social inequalities and flows in the wild berry industry.

Abstract This paper uses the lens of translocality to investigate the seasonal mobility system of Thai berry pickers in Sweden: the perspective highlights the local-to-local relations that constitute this transnational and fluid mobility system. In this paper, we add the aspect of social inequalities to translocal studies, while arguing that multi-sited and locally grounded recruitment processes are contributing to produce and reproduce the mobility system. In the migrant-receiving area, stereotyping processes are active in shaping the selection of workers based on ethnicity, whereas in the migrant-sending area local asymmetries are visible in the selectivity of workers on the basis of age, wealth, and gender. In this way, the aspect of social inequalities, locally embedded at both ends of the recruitment process, is highlighted as a dimension to consider in translocal mobility systems. This is achieved through the analysis of multi-sited fieldwork in Sweden and Thailand that consisted of observations and interviews with Thai workers and representatives of the Swedish berry business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]