Migration, Temporality and Capitalism: A Brief Introduction

‘Life Is Tight Here’

“…Anthropologists have sought to understand how individual subjectivities are transformed by the increasingly common state of displacement (Abusharaf 2009;Barber and Lem 2018;Brun 2016;El-Shaarawi 2015;Greene 2020;Horton 2009;J. H. Jenkins 1991;Volk 2009).…”

Waiting as a redemptive state: The ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ and the offer from the Hamburg government

“…Indeed, the reshaping of borders as states today strive to ‘reconcile sovereignty with economy’ (Johnson et al., 2011: 64), has been central to border studies in the past decades (Paasi, 2012; Walters, 2002). Control of time is essential to such processes of bordering, evident in temporary work schemes, conditional regularization programs and in practices of detention and deportation (Andersson, 2014; Barber and Lem, 2018; Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013; Tazzioli, 2018). The offer and the Duldung regulation, more generally, illustrate how states deploy techniques of delay and tempo to ‘facilitate migrants’ desired economic and political “integration” (Clayton and Vickers, 2018: 5) and to pursue a more efficient ‘filtering’ of migrants on economic terms (Barber, 2018; Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013).…”

“…The ‘incitement to wait, to be patient’ (Povinelli, 2011: 190) is central to how power is organized in such processes of bordering (see also Hage, 2009). Several scholars have highlighted migrants’ experiences and negotiations of waiting (Bendixen and Eriksen, 2018; Griffiths, 2014; Rotter, 2016) and explored the production of suspended futures through border controls, regularization schemes and labour regulations (Andersson, 2014; Barber and Lem, 2018; Bryan, 2018; Sætermo, 2018). Yet, while migration scholars have explored how migrants relate to uncertain future promises and how these articulate with neoliberal economic and demographic imperatives (Barber and Lem, 2018), there has been less research on the topic that interests me here.…”

“…Several scholars have highlighted migrants’ experiences and negotiations of waiting (Bendixen and Eriksen, 2018; Griffiths, 2014; Rotter, 2016) and explored the production of suspended futures through border controls, regularization schemes and labour regulations (Andersson, 2014; Barber and Lem, 2018; Bryan, 2018; Sætermo, 2018). Yet, while migration scholars have explored how migrants relate to uncertain future promises and how these articulate with neoliberal economic and demographic imperatives (Barber and Lem, 2018), there has been less research on the topic that interests me here. Namely, on how future horizons, and temporal techniques more generally, work to define and legitimize the violence of waiting in particular ways, and naturalize its conditions of production (yet see Çağlar, 2018; Ramsay, 2017a).…”

“…Moreover, scholars have explored the governmental effects of conditional promises of future inclusion in regularization schemes or labour migration programs, and how these make migrants vulnerable to exploitation (Bryan, 2018). While literature has highlighted the organizing logic of territorial nation-states in producing and legitimizing migrants’ waiting, less attention has been paid to how this spatial imaginary is imbricated with temporal frameworks (yet see Barber and Lem, 2018; Ramsay, 2017a). However, such frameworks situate migrants in time and space in particular ways and shape political and epistemological judgements on migrants’ waiting.…”