Helena Hof
Helena Hof is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich. She is PI of the Swiss-government funded project 鈥淧rovisional Futures: Migrants as wanted workers, yet temporary residents鈥�, a comparative study of Canada, Switzerland and Japan鈥檚 drive to temporary migration and migrant workers鈥� agency in three sectors: IT, health (nurses) and construction. Helena鈥檚 ethnographically-informed work explores the implications current demographic change has on migration, mobilities, and socio-cultural change. Her research spans Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and uses an urban lens, as well as social categories of difference such as gender, ethnicity, and class to analyse shifting meanings of work and a life worth living. Among her most recent publications are "The immobility of the highly mobile: existential (im)mobility among transnational entrepreneurs in post-pandemic Singapore" (Mobilities) and "鈥榃hite Innovation鈥�: Conceptualizing Changing Racial Hierarchies Through Migrant Entrepreneurship in Singapore and Japan."
Research focus while a Fellow with Bridging Divides:
Helena Hof will be a guest researcher of Bridging Divides in relation to her Swiss National Science Foundation funded project 鈥楶rovisional Futures: Migrants as wanted workers, yet temporary residents.鈥� Using a multi-sited, interdisciplinary approach, Helena and her team will study migrant workers in three key sectors鈥攊nformation technology, health care, and construction鈥攁cross Canada, Switzerland, and Japan, exploring how temporariness shapes human action and social relations. At 成人大片, she will collaborate with the Global Migration Institute鈥檚 leading scholars, including Scholars of the Bridging Divides research program and with researchers at the BMO Newcomer Workforce Integration Lab.
Relevant publications or reports:
Hof, Helena. 2025. "The immobility of the highly mobile: Existential (im)mobility among transnational entrepreneurs in post-pandemic Singapore." Mobilities. DOI 10.1080/17450101.2025.2598269.
Hof, Helena, Aimi Muranaka, Joohyun Justine Park. 2024. 鈥楨mployment as an anchor: The prospects of emerging skilled migration regimes through the lens of migrants鈥� access to the labour market.鈥� Asian and Pacific Migration Journal. 33(3), 554-576. DOI: 10.1177/01171968241292376
Hof, Helena. 2024. 鈥楩oreign entrepreneurship in the Japanese startup ecosystem: Can deviance fuel innovation?鈥� Contemporary Japan, 1鈥�21. DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2024.2423969
Hof, Helena and Jaafar Alloul. 2023. 鈥楳igratory class-making in global Asian cities: The European mobile middle negotiating ambivalent privilege in Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai.鈥� Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50(2):1-19. Doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2271669
Hof, Helena. 2022. The EU Migrant Generation in Asia: Middle-Class Aspirations in Asian Global Cities. Bristol University Press, Global Migration and Social Change Series.
Hof, Helena, Simon Pemberton and Emilia Pietka-Nykaza. 2021. 'EU migrant retention and the temporalities of migrant staying: A new conceptual framework.' Comparative Migration Studies, 9(19). DOI: 10.1186/s40878-021-00225-5.
Hof, Helena and Yen-Fen Tseng. 2021. 'When 鈥済lobal talents鈥� struggle to become local workers: The new face of skilled migration to corporate Japan.' Asia and Pacific Migration Journal 29(4). DOI: 10.1177/0117196820984088.