Nathan Albury-Garces

Hi all

I'm Nathan Albury-Garces - not a very Dutch name, I know. Once an expat from Australia, but now naturalised in the Netherlands (does that me an expat still?) and had to say goodbye to my Aussie citizenship. I am married to a Puerto Rican, and after living in New Zealand, Norway, the US and Hong Kong, I have now settled for good in the south of the Netherlands for the quiet life. It has been a very international ride!

I am a sociologist of language by training, and conduct research into the politics, economics and cultures of multilingualism in society. My perspective is broad, having researched what youth in New Zealand want for the Maori language in the future, why multilingualism is king in Malaysia despite policy to the contrary, and why Cyrillic is making a come back for writing in Serbian.

Now my focus is on my LangPats project, funded by the Dutch Research Council. European businesses are losing out to those who can trade and negotiate in Asian languages, and expats experience more happiness if they feel connected to locals. So what is stopping more Europeans from learning Asian and Middle Eastern languages when living as an expat? LangPats will find out who is more/less likely to learn a language, including whether age, reason for expatriatism, family composition, nationality, minority status and work sector play a role.

Beyond that, I am a research grants advisor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam helping talented academic secure funds for their research, and come from a government policy background at the Australian and New Zealand immigration departments.

And I am absolutely addicted to my cat Benedict. Animals play a major role in my life!