Migración y movilidad de los recursos humanos en ciencia y tecnología: claves analíticas para su estudio

Resumen

This article offers a critical review of the concepts of migration and mobility through an analysis of the international movements of Human Resources in Science and Technology. Although both concepts are well established in the specialized literature, they are often treated as mutually exclusive. Migration is typically understood as a unidirectional, long-term process associated with structural factors, while mobility is described as a temporary and reversible movement linked to international scientific networks. Drawing on a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with Argentine PhDs who lived in Spain and returned to Argentina after 2008, the article examines migratory projects that reveal the permeability between the two concepts. The notion of a migratory project is here presented as an analytical tool that helps understand how meanings, durations, and motivations are redefined through personal decisions, professional trajectories, and contextual transformations. Rather than fitting experiences into rigid categories, the analysis shows how migration and mobility can overlap, alternate, or be re-interpreted within a single trajectory. It also emphasizes that these profiles should not be viewed merely as a stock of knowledge or analyzed solely through professional motivations. Instead, they involve individuals who, when moving—whether emigrating, returning, or re-emigrating—develop life projects, temporary or of indefinite duration, in which professional and personal dimensions are closely intertwined in a dynamic, unfinished, flexible, and at times contradictory manner. The proposed approach calls for a reconsideration of the indicators and analytical dimensions used to capture the complexity of highly skilled migration