5 THE EMBODIMENT OF UNHEALTHY GLOBAL CAREERS AMONG SWEDISH PROFESSIONALS Anna Essén, Torkild Thanem and Sara Värlander, Stockholm University School of Business, Sweden Introduction In this chapter, we discuss global careers in the context of Swedish professionals. By introducing an embodied approach that goes beyond, and yet complements, established concepts in career studies, we investigate how Swedish professionals embody unhealthy global careers. We invoke two vignettes to substantiate this argument. In particular, these vignettes draw attention to the ways in which Swedish professionals in global firms deal with the physical and emotional stress and strain of global work and careers. This is based on interviews with employees from ten different firms and an observation study in one of the firms. The chapter is structured as follows: In the first section, we provide a brief introduction to the Swedish context of global careers. In the second section, we discuss the notion of global work and careers by complementing extant concepts in career studies with what we call a critically embodied approach, to study the bodily practices and experiences of global workers. In the third section, we present the two vignettes mentioned above. In the fourth section, we then discuss these vignettes in relation to extant concepts in career studies and in relation to the embodied approach mentioned above. Whereas the former enables us to problematize the structural and cultural aspects of global careers among Swedish professionals, the latter enables us to problematize bodily aspects that are hitherto underresearched within the field of career studies. Finally, we discuss how these findings and concepts may inform critical engagements with global careers in future research. 5787 CAREERS W/O BORDERS A-cg_US 6 x 9 10/08/2012 14:52 Page 78 !"# %&''("