Paper short abstract:

Transnational scholars are very mobile and many of them call more than one place 'home'. This multilocality has an impact on their individual material environment and belongings. But the usage and meaning of things might change when the national and sociocultural context is in motion.

Paper long abstract:

Mobility is an indispensable element in the academic career trajectories: A stay - or multiple stays - abroad is considered as a requirement of a successful career. Therefore we have an increasing number of students and highly qualified scholars who study or work abroad.

This mobility does not only mean the movement of a person between two or more places, but also the flow of objects. Every relocation is framed by objects and the mobile material environment consists of many different thing-categories: commodities for the every-day life, things for academic/professional life, memorials, souvenirs, books, electronic devises and ICT-objects, cloth, and so on. Especially when you live for a longer time in another country or move to a new destination one needs to make decisions: What do you what to take with you and which new things might be useful in another country? With those things a new 'home' is created - a process with many prospects and drawbacks.

The proposed paper is based on a series of narrative interview and ethnographic fieldwork (conducted with international scholars in Germany) with a focus on objects related to a transnational life and the interaction between transnational mobile humans and things. I would like to present some preliminary findings on how mobility and multilocality have an impact on the individual material contents with an exemplary view on interim arrangements and the process of appropriation and transformation.