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Research mobility is a core notion for the European Research Area (ERA), and a wide body of literature has focused on the factors facilitating and hindering researchers' mobility. The European discourse tends to promote mobility as a value, but to what extent is it perceived as such by researchers? What role does mobility play in career development, and what kinds of professional practices does it imply? The Italian case is particularly interesting for discussing scientific mobility, since unattractive career prospects and substandard working conditions are pushing more and more researchers to find job opportunities abroad. The article is based on a number of in-depth interviews conducted with early-stage researchers in the field of social sciences and humanities in the context of the research project OMERA Social Sciences, and aims at giving "flesh and blood" to the notion of mobility, thus overcoming the stylized narrative of the mobile scholar.