Burger, T. (2025). Vigilant Emigrants: Transatlantic Mobility and Class Formation between California and the Azores. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 33(3), 1-17. Retrieved Oct 9, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.3167/saas.2025.330302

Abstract:
This article examines the role of individual vigilance in the formation of class. Focusing on the upward social mobility of Azorean migrants, I show how being alert about one’s sensed positionality orients and amplifies the generation of social class in a migratory setting. Over centuries, the Azores archipelago, situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, has been left behind by its residents in pursuit of better livelihoods elsewhere. The resulting transatlantic ties, comprising both outmigration and return migration in significant numbers, produced an economic setting that foments projects of distinction and watchful self-positioning amid conflicts between temporary returnees
and permanent residents. I argue that vigilantly navigating such tense encounters can

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