Precarity, Imagination, and the Mobile Life of the ‘Trailing Spouse’

Abstract

Abstract This article investigates the experiences of mobility and work transition for some “trailing spouses” following their partners in professional overseas assignments. It draws upon in‐depth interviews conducted in Switzerland both with female and male accompanying spouses, in order to illustrate some aspects characterizing the subjective experience of precarity for these people living a mobile life, when career trajectories and occupational identities are interrupted, unstable, or altogether reimagined. The meaning of “precarity” will be discussed from a combined sociocultural psychological and anthropological perspective, through a look at the socioemotional relations involved and at the role of imagination. [trailing spouses, precarity, gender, imagination]