The ‘migrant experience’: An analytical discussion

Abstract

The idea of experience has been taken at face value in scholarly accounts of the migration experience, consequently very little attention has been given to how this idea has acquired its meaning and how it relates to the category of the ‘migration experience’. This article provides an analytical investigation into the nature of the phenomenon known as the ‘migrant experience’; firstly, by examining mediated and non-mediated conceptions of experience as well as an alternative account of experience associated with strangeness/disruption. Through this conceptual lens, I then critically consider how the migration experience, as an analytical construct, has been constituted through a spatial–temporal framework, a critical migration perspective, and within the phenomenological and existential accounts. In conclusion, these approaches, as I will demonstrate, are not necessarily mutually exclusive, rather they complement and, at times, are in tension with each other. Such an examination will provide some conceptual clarity that is currently lacking in empirical work on an ‘experience’ categorized as migration.

The Art of Arriving: A New Methodological Approach to Reframing “Refugee Integration”

“…Ana Mijić  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2409-6348 Michael Parzer  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5312-8361 Notes 1. Marotta's (2020) reflections on how the experience of migration can be theoretically conceptualized relate highly to the theoretical approach of our research. Since the following outline is mostly dedicated to our methodological strategy, we currently only want to briefly mention Marotta.…”

Macaristan’da Popülist Söylem: Türk Göçmenlerin Deneyimleri

“…Göçmen deneyimleri bir açıdan, belirli bir süre için kendi ülkesinden yeni bir ikamet ülkesine geçiş olarak, mekânsal ve zamansal boyutlarına vurgu yaparak tanımlanmaktadır (Marotta, 2019). "Eleştirel" bakış açısı ile göçmen deneyimleri tanımlanırken göçmen, "vatandaş" veya "ev sahibi" ile ilişkili olarak tanımlanır.…”

“…"Eleştirel" bakış açısı ile göçmen deneyimleri tanımlanırken göçmen, "vatandaş" veya "ev sahibi" ile ilişkili olarak tanımlanır. Bu "ilişkisel" tanımda yerleşik bir hiyerarşi ve "ötekileştirme" mevcuttur (Marotta, 2019;Brubaker, 2017). Bu ilişkisel deneyimin ve hiyerarşinin, deneyimin gerçekleştiği ortam ve aktörlere bağlı olarak farklı biçimler alması beklenir.…”

Encountering the Other

“…Consequently, the space between the carriages transforms spatiotemporally the travel experiences of the Muslim women: temporality or how 'waiting' may be a notable part of liminality as a zone of survival, 'people mess with you less;' spatiality or how Muslim sittings are segregated and Othered spatially by dominant groups. It gains its meaning based on a hierarchical Othering process in which some bodies are privileged morally, culturally, spatially, and politically over the Other (Marotta, 2020). The mobility of some bodies comes at the expense of the mobility of the Other (Massey, 2012;Bissell, 2016;Straughan et al, 2020).…”

“…'Ambivalent people,' as Bauman (1991) argues, epitomise an in-between position; they are neither near nor distant, neither white nor non-white. They are 'betwixt and between,' neither one 'state' nor another, neither this nor that (Turner, 1967) making social, cultural, and physical boundaries confusing (Marotta, 2019;Pietsch & Marotta, 2009). A liminal body who is in transition is surrounded by an atmosphere of uncertainty, emanates danger and anxiety.…”