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Lost in Transition to Adulthood? Illegalized Male Migrants Navigating Temporal Dispossession

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  • Louis Vuilleumier

    (Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
    NCCR on-the-Move, University of Neuchâtel, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

Abstract

The so-called ‘refugee crisis’ has been portrayed as an invasion that threatens Europe and calls its sovereignty into question, prompting exceptional emergency responses. These (re)bordering processes highlight Europe’s uneven, discriminatory, and racialized filtering system. European nation-states sort desired and undesired migrants through sets of precarious administrative statuses that translate into limited access to resources, most notably the formal labor market. European border regimes impose specific spatialities and temporalities on migrants through long-term physical and social deceleration: territorial assignation, enduring unemployment, forced idleness, and protracted periods of waiting. These temporal ruptures interrupt individual biographies and hinder the hopes of a young population seeking a better future. However, some find ways to navigate the socio-spatial deceleration they face. In this paper, I explore how European border regimes affect the trajectory of Sub-Saharan male migrants and how they appropriate such temporal dispossession. I use biographical analysis and participant observations of a squatting organization in a Swiss city to scrutinize the everyday practices and aspirations of a population made illegal and, as a result, denied access to social markers of maturity. I investigate how time intersects with physical, social, and existential im/mobility. I argue that, in navigating spaces of asymmetrical power relationships, impoverished migrants find autonomy in illegality. Neither victimizing nor romanticizing illegalized migrants’ trajectories, this paper offers an ethnographic analysis of the capacities of an impoverished population to challenge European border regimes.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis Vuilleumier, 2021. "Lost in Transition to Adulthood? Illegalized Male Migrants Navigating Temporal Dispossession," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:7:p:250-:d:586740
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Israel Drori & Benson Honig & Mike Wright, 2009. "Transnational Entrepreneurship: An Emergent Field of Study," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(5), pages 1001-1022, September.
    2. Joris Schapendonk, 2012. "Turbulent Trajectories: African Migrants on Their Way to the European Union," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(2), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Sabine Hess & Bernd Kasparek, 2017. "Under Control? Or Border (as) Conflict: Reflections on the European Border Regime," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 58-68.
    4. Andersson, Ruben, 2014. "Time and the migrant other: European border controls and the temporal economics of illegality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57802, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
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    Cited by:

    1. Giorgia Donà & Angela Veale, 2022. "Introduction to Crises, (Im)mobilities and Young Life Trajectories," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-4, December.
    2. Louis Vuilleumier, 2023. "The Fine Art of Camouflage: Migrant-Drug Distributors Negotiating Police Interactions in Switzerland," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 709(1), pages 165-183, September.

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