Inhabiting the meanwhile: rebuilding home and restoring predictability in a space of waiting

ABSTRACT

Around the world, millions of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees encounter countless barriers to their movement and endure prolonged periods of waiting, resulting in frequent moments of immobility. This paper explores a paradox of experiences of mobility: how asylum seekers reconcile long-term future projects with immediate futures during moments of waiting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at the border between Mexico and Guatemala, I examine how asylum seekers balance their future projects within restrictive spatial–temporal contexts. I find that they actively inhabit spaces that they consider and wish to be transitory. Through particular tactics, they inhabit the meanwhile, while actively resisting to forego their future projects elsewhere. I analyse two sets of practices: place-making materialised in the construction of ‘home’ and temporal tactics to restore predictability and counter the uncertainty imposed by bureaucratic procedures. Inhabiting the meanwhile highlights asylum seekers’ agency within restrictive spatial–temporal contexts and allows for future-making possibilities in a space of waiting.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum seekers
• waiting
• temporal uncertainty
• place-making
• future-making

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the CUNY Graduate Center Athena Polis Dissertation Fellowship. I wish to thank Prof. Van Tran, for his careful reading and thorough advise through the process of writing this paper. Thanks as well to my colleagues and friends at both the CUNY Graduate Center and the New School’s Zolberg Institute Migration Workgroup for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. A special thanks to Fabiola de Lachica, Anna Zhelnina and Guillermina Altomonte. The author may be reached at the Sociology Program, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY, U.S.A. 10016; e-mail: [email protected]

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Safe third country agreements” between the U.S. and Central American countries in 2019 posited that to claim asylum in the U.S., people had to prove that they had requested and been denied asylum in transit countries. While Mexico did not officially sign an agreement, in practice, many asylum claims in the U.S. were rejected for this reason.

2 Ley sobre Refugiados, Protección Complementaria y Asilo Político.

3 According to Article 24, this time limit can be extended when exceptional conditions occur. Some of these include insufficient information, lack of translators, poor state of health of the person requesting, or “other fortuitous events that make it impossible for the Ministry of Interior to comply adequately with the procedure”.

4 Article 23 of the Bylaws of the Law on Refugees and Complimentary Protection establish that, under certain conditions, a person requesting asylum may file a request to change state of residence during the process.

5 This project has IRB approval. For confidentiality purposes, names of places, people, and all identifying details have been changed.

6 All procedures of data gathering were discussed and approved by those in charge of the shelter.

7 Atlas.ti is a software used mostly for qualitative analysis. It allows for uploading, organising, coding and analysing of documents, images, audio, video, and other sources of information for qualitative research.

8 Translation is mine.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CUNY Graduate Center Athena Polis Dissertation Fellowship. I wish to thank Prof. Van Tran, for his careful reading and thorough advise through the process of writing this paper. Thanks as well to my colleagues and friends at both the CUNY Graduate Center Immigration Working Group and the New School’s Zolberg Institute writing Group for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. A special thanks to Fabiola de Lachica, Anna Zhelnina and Guillermina Altomonte. The author may be reached at the Sociology Program, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY, U.S.A. 10016; e-mail: [email protected]