Chapter 10: Relocation Services For Families in Geographical Itinerancy: Beyond the “Cultural Problem”¹

In a globalized world, where individuals move more and faster than ever, human mobility becomes the object of concern for researchers and for various practitioners. In particular, international companies and organizations in different professional domains try to hire the best professionals globally, regardless of their location in the world. Such pull forces, combined with individuals’ own professional ambitions and their quest for personal achievement, lead many people to engage in mobile lives. However, people have also personal and family lives, which means that their international relocation raises numerous everyday issues, including those relating to family arrangements, family local insertion and socialization. The increasing mobility of professionals has thus been accompanied by a proliferation of “experts” providing services to support international relocation. If the main function of these services is mainly to facilitate the relocation process, so as to help people perform better in their new assignment abroad, what is the significance of such intervention, and what are the implications of this emergent expertise?