asylum seekers; COVID-19 pandemic; immobility; Refugees; undocumented migrants; waiting; Cultural Studies; Geography, Planning and Development
Abstract :
[en] Several recent studies have examined experiences of waiting and spatial and temporal immobility among refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. This paper investigates recent migrants’ experiences of waiting and (spatial and temporal) immobility in the context of COVID-19 lockdowns, and against the background of pandemic isolation and boredom. It asks how public health measures affected ‘recently’ arrived migrants’ and how these migrants experienced waiting and immobility differently before and during the pandemic. We argue that differences in recent migrants’ status and housing situations shape how they experience immobility during and beyond the pandemic. This paper contributes to research on immobility in migration by highlighting the importance of diverse emotional geographies of loneliness and frustration; it concludes that immobility is situated along an isolation-to-agitation continuum.
Disciplines :
Human geography & demography Sociology & social sciences
Author, co-author :
De Backer, Mattias ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences sociales > Centre d'études de l'ethnicité et des migrations (CEDEM)
Felten, Pascale ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences sociales > Centre d'études de l'ethnicité et des migrations (CEDEM)
Kirndörfer, Elisabeth; Geography Department, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Kox, Mieke; Criminology Department, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Finlay, Robin; School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Language :
Spanish
Title :
‘Sus vidas están aún más en espera ahora’: las experiencias de espera e inmovilidad de los migrantes durante la pandemia del COVID-19
Aliverti, A., Milivojevic, S., & Weber, L. (2019). Tracing imprints of the border in the territorial, justice and welfare domains: A multi-site ethnography. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 58 (2), 240–259. https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12317
Andersson, R. (2014). Time and the migrant other: European border controls and the temporal economics of illegality. American Anthropologist, 116 (4), 795–809.
Arriola Vega, L. A. (2020). Central American asylum seekers in Southern Mexico: Fluid (im)mobility in protracted migration trajectories. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2020.1804033
Bendixsen, S., & Eriksen, T. H. (2018). Time and the other: Waiting and hope among irregular migrants. In M. Janeja & A. Bandak (Eds.), Ethnographies of waiting: Doubt, hope and uncertainty (pp. 87–112). Bloomsbury Publishing.
Biner, Ö., & Biner, Z. Ö. (2021). Syrian refugees and the politics of waiting in a Turkish border town. Social Anthropology, 29 (3), 831–846. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.13081
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Stanford University Press.
Brown, S., & Gilmartin, M. (2020). Migration and mobilities. Social & Cultural Geography, 21 (8), 1168–1173. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1667019
Çağlar, A., & Glick Schiller, N. (2021). Relational multiscalar analysis: A comparative approach to migrants within city-making processes. Geographical Review, 111 (2), 206–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2020.1865817
Cangià, F., Davoine, E., & Tashtish, S. (2021). (Im)mobilities, waiting and professional aspirations: The career lives of highly skilled Syrian refugees in Switzerland. Geoforum, 125, 57–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.06.015
Conlon, D. (2011). Waiting: Feminist perspectives on the spacings/timings of migrant (im)mobility. Gender, Place & Culture, 18 (3), 353–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2011.566320
Cwerner, S. B. (2001). The times of migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27 (1), 7–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830125283
De Backer, M. (in press). Strategies and Tactics of Visibility: The Micro-Politics of Vulnerable Migrant Groups during the Pandemic in Brussels. In A. M. Brighenti (Ed.), The new politics of visibility: Spaces, actors, practices and technologies in the visible. Intellect Books. 135–156.
De Backer, M., & Mazzola, A. (2021). Liminal spaces of migrant reception in times of crisis. Cartografie Soziali, 10, 143–156 https://universitypress.unisob.na.it/ojs/index.php/cartografiesociali/issue/view/104/showToc.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life (trans. S.F. Rendall). University of California Press.
El-Shaarawi, N. (2015). Living an uncertain future: Temporality, uncertainty, and well-being among Iraqi refugees in Egypt. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 59 (1), 38–56. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2015.590103
Fee, M. (2021). Lives stalled: The costs of waiting for refugee resettlement. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1876554
Gil Everaert, I. (2020). Inhabiting the meanwhile: Rebuilding home and restoring predictability in a space of waiting. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1798747
Grace, B. L., Bais, R., & Roth, B. J. (2018). The violence of uncertainty—Undermining immigrant and refugee health. New England Journal of Medicine, 379 (10), 904–905. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1807424
Griffiths, M. B. E. (2014). Out of time: The temporal uncertainties of refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40 (12), 1991–2009. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.907737
Griffiths, M. B. E., Rogers, A., & Anderson, B. (2013). Migration, time and temporalities: Review and prospect. COMPAS research resources paper. COMPAS.
Hart, G. (2002). Disabling globalization: Places of power in post-Apartheid South Africa. University of California Press.
Hart, G. (2018). Relational comparison revisited: Marxist postcolonial geographies in practice*. Progress in Human Geography, 42 (3), 371–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516681388
Khosravi, S. (2014). Waiting. In B. Anderson & M. Keith (Eds.), Migration: The COMPAS anthology (pp. 74–75). COMPAS.
Kox, M., Boone, M., & Staring, R. (2020). The pains of being unauthorized in the Netherlands. Punishment & Society, 22 (4), 534–552. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474519887357
Kox, M., & Staring, R. (2020). ‘If you don’t have documents or a legal procedure, you are out!’ Making humanitarian organizations partner in migration control. European Journal of Criminology, 1477370820932079. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820932079
Maillet, P., Mountz, A., & Williams, K. (2018). Exclusion through imperio: Entanglements of law and geography in the waiting zone, excised territory and search and rescue region. Social & Legal Studies, 27 (2), 142–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663917746487.
Mayblin, L., Wake, M., & Kazemi, M. (2020). Necropolitics and the slow violence of the everyday: Asylum seeker welfare in the postcolonial present. Sociology, 54 (1), 107–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519862124
Mazzola, A., & De Backer, M. (2021). Solidarity with vulnerable migrants during and beyond the state of crisis. Culture, Practice and Europeanization, 6 (1), 55–69. https://doi.org/10.5771/2566-7742-2021-1-55
Mcfarlane, C. (2010). The comparative city: Knowledge, learning, urbanism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34 (4), 725–742. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00917.x
McMichael, P. (1990). Incorporating comparison within a world-historical perspective: An alternative comparative method. American Sociological Review, 55 (3), 385–397. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095763
Menjívar, C., & Abrego, L. (2012). Legal violence: Immigration law and the lives of central American immigrants. American Journal of Sociology, 117 (5), 1380–1421. https://doi.org/10.1086/663575
Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2006). Insiders and outsiders: Citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary Southern Africa. Zed Books.
Olwig, K. F. (2021). The end and ends of flight. Temporariness, uncertainty and meaning in refugee life. Ethnos, 0, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2020.1867606
Petäjäniemi, M., Kaukko, M., & Lanas, M. (2021). Confined in waiting: Young asylum seekers narrating in and out of temporary shelter. YOUNG, 29 (1), 62–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308820904271
Phillimore, J., & Cheung, S. Y. (2021). The violence of uncertainty: Empirical evidence on how asylum waiting time undermines refugee health. Social Science & Medicine, 282, 114154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114154
Pijpers, R. (2011). Waiting for work: Labour migration and the political economy of borders. In D. Wastl-Walter (Ed.), The ashgate research companion to border studies (pp. 417–438). Ashgate.
Reneman, M., & Stronks, M. (2021). What are they waiting for? The use of acceleration and deceleration in asylum procedures by the Dutch Government. Time & Society, 30 (3), 302–331. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X211006053
Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: A view from off the map. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26 (3), 531–554. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.00397
Rotter, R. (2016). Waiting in the asylum determination process: Just an empty interlude? Time & Society, 25 (1), 80–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X15613654
Schnegg, M. (2014). Anthropology and comparison: Methodological challenges and tentative solutions. Zeitschrift Für Ethnologie, 139 (1), 55–72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24364942.
Schuster, L. (2011). Dublin II and eurodac: Examining the (un)intended(?) consequences. Gender, Place & Culture, 18 (3), 401–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2011.566387
Schwartz, B. (1975). Queuing and Waiting. Chicago University Press.
Steinmetz, G. (2004). Odious comparisons: Incommensurability, the case study, and ‘Small N’s’ in sociology. Sociological Theory, 22 (3), 371–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00225.x
Tefera, G. W. (2021). Pre-arrival temporalities of displacement in refugee migration: The case of resettled Ethiopian refugees in Australia. Population, Space and Place, 27 (4), e2417. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2417
Tryggvadottir, H. K., & Skaptadottir, U. D. (2018). Borders, boundaries, and exclusion in the Icelandic asylum system. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 34 (2), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.7202/1055573ar
Vaughn, T., Seeberg, M. L., & Gotehus, A. (2020). Waiting: Migrant nurses in Norway. Time & Society, 29 (1), 187–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X19880145
Ward, K. (2010). Towards a relational comparative approach to the study of cities. Progress in Human Geography, 34 (4), 471–487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132509350239