This second chapter on the differentiated embedding of migrants places intimacy and its role for the creation of footholds at the core of the analysis. Tying together the links between migrants’ narratives of love, mobility and belonging, I argue that only by recognising intimacy as crucial for guiding migrants’ lives can we obtain a coherent picture of their ‘worklife pathways’ (Krings et al., 2013a), which consist of both repeated and ongoing mobility, as well as spatial immobility.

Concepts like intimacy, emotional attachments and belonging point to the psychological aspects of staying in or moving onwards from destination countries (Erdal and Oeppen, 2013). In this respect, the concept of ‘anchoring’ is useful. Developed by Grzymala-Kazlowska (2016, 2018), it demonstrates how migrants search for ‘footholds’ and points of reference that allow them to acquire sociopsychological stability and security in order to adapt and feel ‘settled down’ in a new or substantially changed life environment (Grzymala-Kazlowska, 2016). As the previous chapter has shown, friendship networks and place-making activities can figure as crucial footholds for a certain time but with the transition of life stages and the fluidity of many of these migrant-dominated networks more intimate relationships provide the stability and security to anchor migrants on the long-term. How such anchors develop and may change in the context of changing migrant biographies and changing places has been little discussed and will complete the picture of the EU Generation’s early career mobility in contemporary Asia.

Different patterns of intimacy and romantic relationships result in a variety of notions of emotional attachments and belonging among the European migrants. These, in turn, have different outcomes for migrants’ (continued) geographical mobility. For reasons of simplicity, I adopt the term partner when referring to both a spouse or a romantic partner in a long-term relationship. The state of being involved in a romantic relationship but also the nature of the relationship – the time and place the partners met, their citizenship and their role in the relationship, that is, as a parent or as a childless partner of a dual career couple – influences how the migrants navigate feelings of belonging and multiple identities.