“Us versus them”: Sensemaking and identity processes in skilled migrants’ experiences of occupational downgrading

We examine how a group of highly-skilled migrants from Sri Lanka made sense of occupational downgrading associated with their career transition to the UK. Our findings highlight three distinct sensemaking narratives that enabled the migrant employees to develop a more positive identity in the face of occupational downgrading. While all the narratives followed a similar cognitive pattern, one that represented the occupational world in terms of a...