Unsettling protracted displacement: connectivity and mobility beyond ‘Limbo’

ABSTRACT

Conventional understandings of protracted displacement are limited by a number of shortcomings. They imply the stasis of protracted situations; the passivity and disconnection of vulnerable groups who need external support; and immobility of people ‘stuck’ in places. Moreover, solutions to protracted displacement are based on the priorities of states and defined by the perspectives of humanitarian organisations. In contrast, this special issue seeks to advance scholarly and policy debates in order to advocate for more nuanced understandings and genuinely supportive practices of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). This is realised through the framework of social figurations of displacement, documenting how these evolve over time, and highlighting the structural forces that perpetuate conditions of displacement. Articles in this special issue demonstrate the agency, resilience and transformative power that lies in displaced persons’ everyday practices. They foreground the role of multiple mobilities in displacement situations, unsettling the politicised concept of protracted displacement as an example of governance techniques that are geared towards locking the lives of forcibly displaced people in space and in time, rendering the displaced populations controllable. Recognising their mobility and connectivity can become a basis to continuously circumventing and challenging these.

KEYWORDS:

• Protracted displacement
• social figurations
• mobility
• temporality
• translocality
• refugees’ agency

Introduction

Even though the very term ‘protracted’ displacement hints at the significance of time in the experience of displacement, a recurring critique in scholarly debates is that it is still largely framed as a situation of stasis and immobility. This ignores the inherent dynamics, transformations and future-orientations as well as the multiple mobilities in the lives of protractedly displaced persons (Long 2014; Brun 2015; Kraler, Etzold, and Ferreira 2021). In this issue, the authors, collaborators in a recently completed research project,¹ address this critique through exploring protracted displacement in Africa, Asia and Europe through the lenses of power, social connectivity, mobility and temporality. They aim to render visible displaced persons’ long-term experiences of precarity as well as the political forces that contribute to prolonging displacement. In particular, the contributions show how social constellations of displacement have evolved and might be dissolved, but also recognise the social dynamics and multiple spatial mobilities – locally, within countries of reception or across international borders – that are part and parcel of the lives of displaced persons, who are widely believed to be ‘stuck’.

The concept of protracted refugee situations was established by the UN’s Refugees Agency to better address displacement situations, which did not dissolve but deepened over time as the ‘durable solutions’ of voluntary return, resettlement or local integration remained elusive (Crisp 2003; UNHCR 2004). Successively, many academics have worked with the concept and investigated conditions of refugees’ long-lasting exile as well as states and humanitarian actors’ responses to them (see Loescher et al. 2008; Hyndman and Giles 2016; Vollmer 2019; Kraler et al. 2020 for regional overviews and empirical cases). Importantly, by looking at patterns and conditions of internal displacement within countries of conflict, the understanding of protracted displacement and potential solutions was substantially expanded (see IASC 2010; Brun 2015; Kälin and Entwisle Chapuisat 2017). Based on these discussions, we understand protracted displacement to be a long-lasting condition of economic precarity, marginalisation, rightlessness and future uncertainty, which displaced persons experience after their initial displacement, and which is coupled with consistently and systematically blocked options for both social and spatial mobility (Etzold et al. 2019).

This special issue engages with the notion of protracted displacement and seeks to advance its understanding. A central argument threading through all contributions is that transformations over time and mobility in space are shaped by the social figurations of displacement. These are the personal networks, asymmetric power relations and interdependencies in which displaced people are inevitably entangled across multiple scales (Etzold et al. 2019). The contributions demonstrate that protracted displacement as a social phenomenon does not equate with stasis and immobility. The reasons for this are threefold. First, the displaced are not passive ‘victims’, but agents who constantly adapt to change, reposition themselves in social relations and use mobility to sustain their livelihoods and to rebuild their lives. Second, the geopolitical, economic and social contexts in the countries of reception and origin are not static either. They are highly dynamic, forcing both the displaced persons and humanitarian actors to navigate through ever changing circumstances. Third, the migration regimes and asylum systems that shape the conditions of protractedly displaced persons are continuously transformed, too. Often, it seems, this is done with the sole purpose of ‘keeping them at a place’ (Bakewell 2008). If preventing mobility is not possible, as in the case of large-scale forced migration, then decelerating the movements of the displaced, for instance through encampment, seems to be the second best option for states (Lilja, Henriksson, and Baaz 2018). In this sense, ‘decelerated circulation means that migration is not regulated through space but through time’ (Tsianos and Karakayali 2010, 384). The politicised notion of protracted displacement appears as a prime example of governance techniques that are geared towards locking the lives of forcibly displaced people both in space and in time, rendering the displaced populations controllable.

Unsettling protracted displacement – aims of this special issue

This issue seeks to unsettle the notion of protracted displacement and advance it in several directions. First, building on the work of the German sociologist Norbert Elias (1978) and drawing on the notion of ‘figurations of displacement’ (Etzold et al. 2019), it provides a comprehensive, time-sensitive conceptual basis for rethinking the notion of protracted displacement. Social figurations are dynamic, often power-laden constellations of interdependent individuals. Applied to displacement, figurations are social constellations between displaced persons, state actors, humanitarian actors, host communities, and possibly other actors, which have arisen in the wake of conflict-induced mobility. These figurations are shaped by state policies and legal frameworks as well as protection and migration regimes at and across multiple scales, and sustained as well as transformed through the everyday practices of the involved actors (Etzold et al. 2019). A figurational perspective illustrates the multitude of interdependency relations, some more and some less institutionalised, and power dynamics in which protractedly displaced people are entangled (Rosenthal and Bogner 2017). While centring on the multiple connections and transactions between displaced persons and family members, employers and humanitarian actors, the figurational approach moves away from individual-centred or structuralist framings of social conditions. In contrast to network theories (see Schapendonk 2015; Ryan and Dahinden 2021 for introductions of network perspectives in migration studies), figurations encompass network relations as well as individual actors’ practices and broader all-encompassing structures.

Second, internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, and other migrants encounter strong political, economic and social forces that limit the ways in which they can cope with their situation and move on in their lives. We engage with the structural forces that contribute to protracting displacement and limiting displaced persons’ agency. We explain how ‘displacing forces’, ‘marginalising forces’ and ‘immobilising forces’ co-produce protracted displacement, while emphasising that these structures must not be understood as being static. On the contrary, we re-conceptualize protracted displacement as persistent, yet constantly evolving figurations that unfold at and across particular places (Etzold et al. 2019). It is indeed a particular facet of protracted displacement – and one might add a crucial feature of the deeply politicised debate on migration and asylum in general – that the structures and conditions of migrants’ precarity, vulnerability and marginalisation are largely understood as being fixed in time, as unchangeable or ‘hard-to-resolve’, while in fact they are constantly transformed.

Third, building on refugees’ everyday lives and migrants’ agency we show that displaced persons enact their ‘agency-in-waiting’ (Brun 2015) vis-à-vis restrictive governance regimes and thereby try to overcome protractedness. Even though displaced people are constantly being constrained in their rights and freedoms, they navigate complex bureaucratic regimes of migration, aid and asylum, adapt their livelihoods, embed themselves in social relations with the host community, draw on translocal networks for support, and engage in multiple forms of mobility. While there is plenty of evidence of displaced persons’ sustained efforts to maintain dignity and retain agency under the most difficult circumstances, we must also acknowledge that their agency is impeded by and through structures of power. These include in particular restrictive policies, the (in)action of states and the practices of humanitarian actors. We argue that the purposely enacted constraints on human agency are a decisive factor for the creation, deepening and fixation of protracted displacement.

Fourth, we emphasise the central role that spatial mobilities – locally, within a region or country and across multiple nation states – play in IDPs and refugees’ lives. Many displaced people are mobile, yet this mobility also contributes to fragmenting their social figurations. Many maintain close ties with family members or other acquaintances living in the home region, the same country of reception, or in third countries. Due to mobility and interactions across the distance, social figurations often become translocal or transnational. Moving beyond the notion of ‘stuckedness’ and territorially-bound thinking in ‘durable solutions’ (Cohen and van Hear 2017; Long 2014), we argue that instead of framing displaced persons’ multiple mobilities as nuisance or security risks for states, the reality and potentiality of multiple, non-linear and circular mobilities and multi-polar translocal social spaces, which displaced persons inhabit, need to be recognised. We also show that mobility as such is rarely the single or best solution to protracted displacement. In particular, if mobility takes place ‘under the radar’ of governance regimes, and is thus deemed to be ‘irregular’, it can also prolong the experience of displacement, legal limbo and socio-economic precarity (Roman et al. 2021).

Social figurations of displacement: a framework

Displaced persons are embedded in multiple social worlds (Marx 1990) and networks of interdependence. These ‘social figurations’ (Elias 1978) vary in scale and type: the family, the neighbourhood, the labour market, the nation-state, or the transnational diaspora, to name but a few. Key dimensions of figurational thinking, we suggest, enable a better understanding of the inherently social phenomenon of protracted displacement. Ignoring the social connections that displaced people maintain at their place of living and across a multitude of places and countries risks overlooking a significant part of their everyday lives and a potential for overcoming their legal limbo, economic precarity and social marginalisation.

The figurational approach as a meso-level concept, first developed by the sociologist Norbert Elias, describes the contingent emergence of social life and the inherent interdependence of actors and groups (Baur and Ernst 2011; Dépelteau and Landini 2013). Elias (1978, 130) believed that an antagonistic separation of ‘the individual’ from ‘the society’ was misleading. The concept of figurations offers a framework to overcome divisions within sociology between micro- and macro-perspectives. He shared this interest with other sociologists who conceived of micro–macro relations in terms of agency and structure (Giddens 1984) or practices, habitus and field (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) and who reflected on social life in terms of ever-emergent relations rather than fixed structures (Emirbayer 1997).

Comparatively few scholars have explicitly used the figurational approach in migration and refugee studies. Those who have include Kirk (2012) on the journeys of young unaccompanied Afghans; Brandhorst (2015) on the transnational lives of Cuban migrants; Sökefeld (2015) on conflicts, mobility and development in Central Asia; Rosenthal and Bogner (2017) on mobile and socially mediated lifeworlds in the Global South; Hüttermann (2018) on ‘established-outsider-relations’ between migrants and local residents in Germany; and Grawert and Mielke (2018) on displaced people's coping practices in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In different ways, they all reveal the potential that lies in applying the concept of social figurations in empirical research and broader analysis of mobility and displacement.

A key analytical value of figurational approaches is their sensitivity to power relations that shape displacement. Power differentials are always at play in bilateral or multilateral relations between states, and regarding cross-border mobility and border control or humanitarian aid for displaced persons. Highly unequal power relations are visible in the formation and (lack of) implementation of legal frameworks of refugee protection that operate at the global, regional, national or the local level (Ferreira et al. 2020). We also become particularly attuned to dependency relations and transactions and how they are being contested between actors, whether between the state and recipients of social services, local employers and refugee labourers, or relatives of an extended family. A figurational perspective provides space for negotiation, contestation, and manoeuvring through unequal power relations, and thus for the recognition of displaced persons’ agency (Etzold et al. 2019).

The temporal dimension inherent in figurational thinking offers a useful tool for our purposes. A processual perspective (Baur and Ernst 2011) helps us to comprehend the formation, consolidation and dissolution of protracted displacement at certain locations. It also offers a more accurate recognition of the dynamically changing power relations between displaced persons and other actors. This temporal sensitivity allows for reflexive investigations of the politics of time. States exert their power over displaced persons by decelerating their journeys through border practices and encampment; by letting them wait or not processing their applications for asylum or family reunification (Tsianos and Karakayali 2010; Griffiths 2021). From this perspective, prolonged experiences of displacement and exclusion as well as constrained future live chances are not accidental by-products of migration governance or simply effects of underfunded humanitarian aid. In contrast, states are actively ‘stealing time’ of displaced persons to meet their own respective goals (Bhatia and Canning 2021).

Overall, the contributions in this special issue draw on a figurational perspective to render visible key dimensions of protracted displacement. These include power, highlighting the significance of the ‘political impasse’ and the ongoing ‘structural forces’ that contribute to prolonging protracted displacement. They highlight social connectivity, particularly the role of family networks and other relations of interdependency and power in social constellations of protracted displacement. They bring to the fore translocality and mobility, so not limiting analysis of protracted displacement to ‘stuckness’ at single places but recognising the realities of displaced persons’ translocal lives and mobilities. Finally, the figurational perspective takes account of temporality and transformations as it acknowledges the rhythms of displacement, the governance of mobile populations through time and its constant transformations. We engage with each of these in the following sections.

Power relations and structural forces

Power relations come to the fore at multiple levels. Geopolitics and structural forces shape and consolidate social figurations under conditions of protracted displacement, but dependencies and power dynamics inside figurations need consideration, too. We consider the former here, and, the latter in the context of displaced persons’ connectivity. The existence of a ‘political impasse’ (UNHCR 2004) that prevents displacement crises from swift resolution is obvious. The political economy of violent conflict, the governance of humanitarian aid and refugee protection, the geopolitics of mobility and migration and the European border regime all shape protracted displacement (Loescher et al. 2008; Bohnet et al. 2015; Hyndman and Giles 2016; Kraler et al. 2020). Going beyond this, we argue that displaced persons’ experiences of exile can be understood through forces that are in turn, displacing, marginalising and immobilising. Together, they shape the figurations of displacement and enable or block solutions (Etzold et al. 2019, 16–17).

Displacing forces encompass reasons why migrants have left, and those that hinder their return. Protracted conflicts that are marked by unclear boundaries between war and peace, violence and political instability, risk of persecution and enforced conscription into the military (Bohnet et al. 2015; Bank, Fröhlich, and Schneiker 2017) are among them. This is, for instance, the case in Ethiopia and Jordan, where Adugna et al. (2022, #3)and Tobin et al. (2022, #5) have respectively noted that the return rates of Eritrean refugees from Ethiopia and of Syrian refugees from Jordan are low due to consistently powerful displacing forces. Jacobs et al. (2022, #2), who conducted research with internally displaced persons who fled to Bukavu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, argue that despite fears of violence, many IDPs episodically return to their former residence to rebuild connections and draw on resources from their home communities. Some commute regularly and build translocal livelihoods between these sites, an example of how overcoming displacing forces is key to leaving protracted displacement.

Marginalising forces effectively block local integration. Legal limitations, obstacles to the acquisition of citizenship, as well as social exclusion and economic disadvantage, restrict displaced people’s de jure as well as de facto integration and participation in receiving societies (Hovil 2014). In Jordan, Syrians have comparatively good access to protection as registered refugees, even though there are constraints such as encampment, limited access to the labour market and education. Tobin et al. (2022, #5) critically note that short-term arrangements and policies of humanitarian aid as well as the unwillingness of the Jordanian government to provide more long-term perspectives, intensifies Syrians’ marginalisation. Displaced Syrians cope with their legal insecurity and economic precarity through family networks but drawing on these ties alone is not enough. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been living in Pakistan, some for decades, but still struggle with precarious labour and legal insecurity. Their residency permits are occasionally renewed, but they are denied access to formal jobs, ownership of property or driving licences. As Mielke and Etzold (2022, #4) argue, Afghans’ ‘refugeeness’ is consistently reproduced in this socio-political figuration through the Pakistan government policies and international humanitarian organisations’ interventions. At the same time, Afghans’ basic rights, livelihoods, mobilities, and modes of belonging to the country are further constrained. The marginalising forces are systematically upheld.

Powerful immobilising forces are maintained through a globally stratified mobility regime (Tsianos and Karakayali 2010; Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013). After initial forced mobility, displaced people are often stuck in places where they found protection and have access to external support. Their self-organised onward mobility is, however, often hindered by hosting governments as they can be better catered for and are easier to control if they are ‘kept’ at few designated sites, most notably in camps (Turner 2016). In Ethiopia and Jordan, encampment is an important element of the governments and humanitarian actors’ responses to displacement. In both countries, the strategy of immobilising refugees has produced precarious and long-lasting displacement conditions. Refugees’ experiences in the infamous Zaatari camp in northern Jordan (Tobin, 2022, #5) and in Shimbela, Hitsats or Adi Harush camps in Ethiopia’s Tigray region (2022, #3) are testament to this. In both countries, out-of-camp-policies were developed, leading to a gradual improvement of living conditions for those who move on to cities and found livelihoods there. For some, camps thus became spaces of transit. For others, precarity was prolonged because they did not meet criteria for leaving the camp under the Jordanian sponsorship system (kafala) or the Ethiopian out-of-camp policy. Others left the camp only to find themselves in highly precarious conditions in a large city, but this time without the basic support of humanitarian organisations.

A striking example of immobilising forces is given by Papatzani et al. (2022, #6) who describe migrant’s forced containment in the so-called ‘hot spot’ camps on the Aegean islands, their isolation in camps on the Greek mainland, and the accommodation of the ‘most vulnerable’ in the public housing system. The Greek authorities in coalition with EU agencies have produced a multi-layered landscape of protracted displacement. It centres on systems of deterrence, detention, and control, while humanitarian support and the right to asylum play an ever-diminishing role. This is further supported by Ferreira et al. (2022, #9) who address overlapping fields of policy in and by the European Union. Analysing policies operating outside of Europe such as the European Development Fund, the EU policy framework on displacement and development (EC 2016), or the Migration Partnership framework, they reflect upon the evolution of the Common European Asylum System and more recently the New Pact on Asylum and Migration. They note that refugees and other migrants’ mobility is increasingly seen as a security risk. Whilst calls for restrictive visa regimes, and heightened border protection dominate the debate, policy discourse and practices revolving around refugee protection and fundamental rights, called the ‘protection-rights-figuration’, and around humanitarian support and development, the ‘humanitarianism-refugee-relief-figuration’, are side-lined in Europe’s political agendas. As the ‘migration-security-figuration’ prevails, strengthening the immobilising forces has become the central strategy of the EU and its member states. The EUthus contributes significantly to intensifying protracted displacement outside and within Europe. The displacing, marginalising and immobilising forces sketched here, are emblematic for the power relations that lead to the production and perpetuation of protracted displacement, keeping it stable at a global scale.

Social connectivity in protracted displacement

Being exposed to restrictive and marginalising forces does not a priori exclude the agency of migrants. The figurational approach highlights people’s positional power within a web of interdependency relations and their capacities to act, and thus to change the social figurations in which they are situated (Etzold et al. 2019). What does this mean in the context of protracted displacement? Displaced persons are not autonomous individuals disconnected from others. They maintain multiple interpersonal relations and are, more often than not, embedded in networks of solidarity and support. The agency of displaced persons who are deprived of other forms of capital largely lies in their social connectivity. This is the reason why the notion of ‘self-reliance’, prominent in policy (EC 2016; UN 2018) and academia (Skran and Easton-Calabria 2020) as a cornerstone of refugee protection is misguided. Instead, we need to assess the importance of social networks as a means for overcoming protracted displacement (Horst 2006; Betts, Omata, and Sterck 2020).

For displaced people, their family is in many cases the most important source of support and point of orientation for the future. The contributions by Jacobs et al. (2022, #2), Adugna et al. (2022, #5), Tobin et al. (2022, #5), Papatzani et al. (2022, #6) and Christ and Etzold (2022, #8) offer insights into the role of family networks, and the circulation of resources, and emotional support within families. In the DR Congo, where shorter distances between the place of origin and refuge are common, Jacobs et al. (2022, #2) found that many IDPs who now live in the city of Bukavu regularly return to their home. Maintaining these close relations is anessential resource for their translocal trade between rural sites and the city, and can help to keep open the possibility of permanent return. The authors also found, however, cases where broken ties with the family who stayed behind were a reason for not returning home but continuing a life in the city.

Tobin et al. (2022, #5) examine how the mobility trajectories of displaced Syrians are shaped by their network relations. They find that bonding social capital, ‘close’ relations based on trust, emotional ties and kinship relations, play a decisive role in refugees’ everyday lives, and for their mobility decisions. The initial move to Jordan was facilitated through networks, whilst the spatial distribution of family networks has driven the journey towards Jordan. Mobility within the country has been guided by family relations. Until 2015, moving out of Zaatari camp has been possible for those with established relations within the country. The kafala system, under which Jordanian citizen had to provide a guarantee, forced those who wanted to move on to rely on extended kin networks. While this created new dependencies, it also strengthened emotional bonds within families. For camp residents who had no close kin ties at other places, the lack of translocal social capital made moving on ever more difficult. Notably, some choose to stay in Zaatari voluntarily if this facilitates a family staying together. Lastly, the aspirations to return to Syria or to live in other countries are closely linked with the desire to reunite families. Often, following the network to another country remains elusive. As Tobin et al. argue, some family connections weaken across distance and over time, not least as result of the global migration regime’s immobilising forces.

The role of transnational networks is also at the heart of Christ and Etzold’s contribution (2022, #8), which explores Syrians’ and Eritreans’ journeys to Germany. They highlight that family separation, enforced transnationalism and network support for mobility are the norm rather than an exception. Contributing to key insights on transnational family studies (Bryceson and Vuorela 2002) through the figurational approach, they identify family constellations that reflect different modes of refugees’ journeys to Germany, and diverse practices of ‘doing family’ in a transnational space. They include lone yet connected travellers; joint and reunited nuclear families; transnationally separated as well extended families. These figurations, so they argue, are shaped by visa regimes, migration management and asylum governance: State policies, legal procedures, and bureaucrats’ decisions (dis)allow displaced families to stay together or to (re)connect at other places through reunification, humanitarian admission or resettlement programmes. Powerful (im)mobilising forces structure displaced persons’ options to follow their networks, or conversely, force them into a prolonged transnational family life (see also Papatzani et al. 2022, #6).

Family relations are only one set of social connections in the lives of the displaced. Cingolani et al. (2022, #7) point to the importance of non-kin-networks for forced migrants in Italy. Social relations at the places of residence are vital for access to housing and livelihoods, and for developing a sense of belonging. Many migrants maintain multiple connections across diverse places. These translocal networks facilitate seasonal mobility within Italy to access especially agricultural labour opportunities. Connections often revolve around a shared origin and thus ethnic identity, such as among many Eritrean refugees in Rome. Solidarity and reciprocal support are not restricted to co-ethnic networks. Interpersonal and intergroup relations, sometimes linked to anti-racist movements or housing struggles, have developed all over Italy (Belloni 2016). The significance of networks beyond the family is also highlighted by Adugna et al. (2022, #3). Their research with Eritrean refugees in camps in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Afar regions, shows that sharing resources and other forms of mutual support are crucial coping strategies. Investing in good relations in the immediate neighbourhood can pave the way for livelihoods outside of camps. Whether these local networks are strong enough to sustainably lift refugees out of precarious conditions remains an open question.

Protracted displacement is not only a deeply political concept, but also an inherently social phenomenon. Refugees and IDPs are not at all isolated or disconnected (Horst 2006; Betts, Omata, and Sterck 2020). The contributions in this issue demonstrate that displaced persons cope with their legal limbo, precarity and marginalisation through connectivity. They can potentially overcome displacement, through social relations, including family, co-ethnic networks and more diverse intergroup relations. Acknowledging the relevance of social ties does not equate a naïve belief in networks as a panacea. They can be brittle, family networks can rupture and shared resources are finite. A figurational approach highlights the ambivalence of migrants’ reliance on social capital, as it acknowledges asymmetric power relations, interdependencies and ever-changing modes of collaboration between people.

Translocality and mobility

There is a sedentary bias in the literature on protracted displacement. The lives of refugees and IDPs are conventionally framed as involuntarily immobile, ‘being out of place’ and disconnected from other places. In turn, displaced persons’ small-scale and circular mobilities, their practices of place-making and their translocal connections are disregarded. The three conventionally proposed ‘durable solutions’ – local integration, return, resettlement – imagine mobility as singular and linear. Moreover, ‘the solution’ is considered as a permanent emplacement at one locality. But it is highly questionable whether the challenges of protracted displacement can be overcome with such a narrow and territorially contained approach. Instead, concepts that centre on displaced people’s agency, diversified livelihoods, cross-border relations, circular mobilities and more fluid life-worlds are much more appropriate (Monsutti 2008; Long 2014; Horstmann, Rudolf, and Schmitz-Pranghe 2019). Acknowledging refugees’ networks across multiple countries, transnationalism has been proposed as ‘fourth durable solution’ to protracted displacement (Koser 2007; Cohen and van Hear 2017). In line with the paradigm shift away from a nation-state centred epistemology (Dahinden 2017) many scholars have recently turned to translocality instead of transnationalism. The concept of translocality acknowledges the specific ways how people embed themselves in distinct places before, during, after and irrespective of mobility (Greiner and Sakdapolrak 2013). Displaced persons do then not necessarily depart from places of origin and settle at a destination permanently. Rather, most remain ‘simultaneously situated’ (Brickel and Datta 2011, 4) in a social constellation that includes diverse settings and localities. Mobility, communication, transfers of resources and maintaining relations are essential social practices that connect actors and places in such a network-like figuration (Etzold et al. 2019).

The contributions in this special issue document how mobility and translocal connectivity are expressions of migrants’ agency under conditions of protracted displacement and potential pathways out of precarity. But they also challenge naïve assumptions that mobility as such could resolve the social and political constraints of displacement. The history of Afghans is characterised by high intra- and inter-regional mobility in Central Asia, it is also, however, a history of violence and displacement (Monsutti 2008). Mielke and Etzold (2022, #4) discuss the politics of mobility that has led to constantly ‘shrinking spaces’ for Afghans’ mobility within Pakistan and across borders. Already existing social inequalities and capacities to be(come) mobile differ among Afghans according to class, gender, ethnic affiliation and generational position. They are further amplified by restrictions to internal mobility and a tightened border regime. Framing Afghans’ presence in Pakistan as a protracted refugee situation and thus rendering them as subjects of humanitarian support and not as migrants or citizens who make use of mobility and maintain multiple transnational ties, feeds into policies of immobilisation and denies Afghans their right to translocal and transnational living. Beyond the nation-state, Jacobs et al. (2022, #3) found that many IDPs in the DR Congo are now engaged in rural-urban-trade between their former home and the city where they now live. Their ‘translocal livelihoods’ are built around regular mobility and the circulation of goods, money and information between both places. A functioning transport network is vital to build these translocal businesses, as are trustworthy social relations. While many benefit from such trade networks, translocality as such, does not resolve all the challenges associated with displacement and can thus only be described as a ‘semi-durable and partial solution’.

From the perspective of refugees now living in Germany, Christ and Etzold (2022, #8) frame transnational mobility that is enshrined in displaced families’ network relations as a pathway out of protracted displacement. In contrast, the southern European case studies in this issue point to the ambivalent role of mobility and translocality that might contribute to prolonging experiences of displacement. In Greece and in Italy, small-scale, onward and circular mobilities are essential for forced migrants, but in both contexts the migrants are confronted by increasingly strict systems of detainment and control. Papatzani et al. (2022, #6) show how migrants are frequently rejecting the places where ‘they have been put’ and resist the ‘geographical restrictions’ – a central tool in the Greek asylum regime – they are subjected to. Forced migrants are disrupting the socio-spatial figurations of displacement through moving on from the hot spots on the Aegean islands without the required documents, by relocating from one camp in Athens to another due to family reasons, or by leaving the ‘total institution’ of the camp for a self-organised life and informal work in a city. This mobility under the radar has ambiguous effects. It takes place at the margins and interstices of formal regimes and can contribute to deepening migrants’ insecurity and marginalisation. Such a mobility paradox, where ‘‘regularity’ restricts mobility whilst ‘irregularity’ allows for it’ (Roman et al. 2021, 43), can also be observed in the Italian context. Cingolani et al. (2022, #7) describe migrants’ transnational mobilities, and the role of Italy in much longer journeys, and explain migrants’ multiple movements within the country. They highlight that mobility trajectories must be conceived of as spatial and social journeys that take shape within increasingly restrictive migration regimes (see also Etzold 2017; Schapendonk et al. 2018; Snel, Bilgili, and Staring 2021). Their typology of spatial mobility vis-a-vis socio-economic mobility provides a useful summary of how the notions of immobility, translocal mobility and transnational mobility respectively relate to social, legal and economic opportunities for migrants in Italy. They show that migrants’ arrival in Greece or Italy is not a guarantee for upward social mobility and an end to marginalisation. Countering conventional assumptions, protracted displacement, seen as a distinct socio-political figuration, does then not only exist in countries of the Global South, but also in Europe.

Temporality and transformations

Time is a crucial dimension of human mobility that does not capture as much attention as it should. This has been changing recently, as the rhythms and velocities of journeys, the governance of mobility through time, migrants’ experiences of waiting and detention, and the meaning of mobility in the life course have become prominent themes in studies of mobility, including refugees and forced migration studies (Baas and Yeoh 2018; Bhatia and Canning 2021; Griffiths 2021). Displacement is typically regarded as a temporary state of violence-induced spatial mobility that ends after the displaced person has found protection at a safe place (Zetter 2019). Yet, the notion of protracted displacement points to displacement as an ongoing experience of existential uncertainty and a deeply entrenched condition of precarity and rightlessness (Kraler, Etzold, and Ferreira 2021). Being drawn back to the past through memories, a lack of control over one’s own time in a presence that is marked by repetitions, periods of waiting and ‘stuckness’, and existential uncertainty over the future – are all key temporal features of protracted displacement (Brun 2015; Jefferson, Turner, and Jensen 2019). Refugee camps have, for instance, been installed to provide temporary protection for displaced persons but in practice they have often become permanent structures that further prolong displaced persons’ fragmented journeys (Turner 2016). Camp life can be seen as a prime example of displaced persons’ sense of stuckness and of the politics of time, that is governance techniques geared towards controlling routines and rhythms of life (Tazzioli 2017; Lilja, Henriksson, and Baaz 2018). By forcing people ‘on the move’ to stop their journeys and by making them wait successively and indefinitely ‘a regime of temporal control [is imposed] on the wild and uncontrollable unfolding of the imperceptible and excessive movements’ (Tsianos and Karakayali 2010, 385).

Empirical evidence that underscores such a reading of migration governance through time (Griffiths 2021) appears in Papatzani et al. (2022, #6). They elaborate on migrants’ systematic immobilisation and deceleration through encampment – dedicated ‘waiting rooms’ on the Aegean islands and the Greek mainland. The slowness of bureaucratic procedures, because of a lack of resources and capacities in the Greek administration, overcomplicated systems within an EU-wide reception apparatus, or systematic prolongation as a means of deterrence, is another facet of migration governance through time. The fluidity of the Greece border and asylum regime itself constitutes a further temporal dimension. The geopolitics of the region, the legislation and systems of reception, the responsibilities of national and international actors have changed frequently, and often radically, over the past years. Social navigation through such ever-transforming figurations has become more complex, for migrants and international organisations, local NGOs and activists. Ferreira et al. (2022, #9) do not describe the politics of time but the power-shifts over time in the governance of migration and asylum. Their figurational analysis shows that the governance logics of the migration-security-figuration has come to dominate the debates and actions, while the ‘humanitarianism-refugee-relief’ figuration and the ‘protection-rights figuration’ have been gradually side-lined. As a result protracted displacement in and around Europe is reproduced, rather than reduced.

Adugna et al. (2022, #3) explore temporalities of displacement for the case of Ethiopia. On the one hand, they show that encampment contributes to protracting a displacement situation rather than resolving it: ‘the longer one stays, the less likely it is that one will find a way out’ (2022, #3, page x). On the other hand, they describe Eritrean refugees’ experiences of waiting, which are not limited to life in Ethiopian refugee camps. The displaced have gone through different stages of waiting along their journey, from years of forced military service in Eritrea, times of precarity in camps, and still not ending after moving to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. There, many wait once more for work permits, livelihood opportunities, or reuniting with family abroad. A common thread in their narratives is that the Eritrean refugees felt they had ‘wasted’ the most valuable years of their lives and that they were ‘not in the driver’s seat’ towards their own futures.

Christ and Etzold (2022, #8) finally demonstrate that while displaced persons enter new societal constellations through their journeys, the figurations in which they are normally embedded also transform over time. Change in family figurations can have different contours. The displacement trajectory leads to transformations of spatial settings in which displaced persons are ‘doing family’. A family figuration can become relocated as a whole, if they stay united, or become translocalized or transnationalised, if they are forced to separate. As figurations are transformed in their setup and spatiality in the wake of displacement, the positions, gender roles, and identities within a displaced, separated or reunited family change, too. Family members are constantly forced to adapt to these changes, which can lead to moral dilemmas, identity crises and conflicts. Tobin et al. (2022, #5) consider such figurational changes within the family from the perspective of those ‘left behind’ in Jordan. They counter the narrative of the collapse of family networks due to dwindling resources. Even though family relations have been heavily strained and substantially altered over time, they would still play a decisive role in Syrians’ everyday lives and for their futures. The contributions in this special issue thus show that figurations of displacement do not only have a distinct spatiality but also a distinct temporality: they evolve, transform and dissolve over time because of structural transformations, changes in power hierarchies, and specific routines and rhythms of social practices.

Conclusion

Protracted displacement is often taken to imply powerlessness, disconnection, immobility and stasis. Displaced people are believed to be passive and ‘stuck’, awaiting durable solutions that may be offered to them by states. In this special issue, we argue that such a simplistic understanding belies more complex empirical realities. The contributions gathered here demonstrate that failing to account for migrants’ multiple connections and mobilities, locally, within countries and across borders, limits understandings of both the dynamics of broader displacement constellations and the agency of people caught in precarious conditions of protracted displacement. We have suggested that the framework of ‘figurations of displacement’ provides a suitable conceptual foundation for rethinking protracted displacement as dynamic social and political constellations, rather than fixed situations. Adopting a relational and process-oriented perspective through grounding our reflections in figurational sociology has helped us to analyse key dimensions of protracted displacement along four major axes.

We first focussed on the power dynamics at the macro-level to highlight the political impasse due to which the temporary conditions of displacement have become almost impossible to resolve. The articles here document how displaced people live with and adapt to structural constraints under a variety of circumstances, ranging from the DR Congo, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Jordan to Greece, Italy and Germany. We have summarised these constraints as displacing, marginalising and immobilising forces that limit displaced people in their agency and fulfilling their potential. A conclusion at this macro-level is that conditions of protracted displacement remain unresolved as long as the prevailing relations of power are maintained and the range of opportunities for displaced persons are purposely narrowed by states. The hegemonic grip of the migration-security-nexus in the policies and practices of the European Union and its member states’ (see Ferreira et al. 2022, #9) and the sustained efforts to immobilise displaced people illustrated why conditions of displacement in the European fringe continue to intensify.

Second, we demonstrate the fundamental role that family networks and other interdependent relations play in the social constellations of protracted displacement. Arguing against individualistic framings of displaced persons’ self-reliance and a simplistic understanding of displaced persons as excluded and disconnected, the contributions to this special issue show the diverse forms of sociality and solidarity under conditions of displacement. Moreover, they demonstrate that displaced persons’ agency to rebuild their lives and to be(come) mobile again, is more often than not grounded in the web of relations they have spun, either locally at their respective place of living or translocally, within or across national borders. A key insight from the contributions here is that displaced persons’ entanglements in social relations have not only shaped their displacement trajectories and their everyday lives, but fundamentally structure – both enabling and constraining – their paths out of protractedness.

Third, we argue that a portrait of protracted displacement as entirely consisting of involuntary immobility (Lubkemann 2008), confinement or ‘stuckness’ (Jefferson, Turner, and Jensen 2019) at single places is inaccurate. In contrast, the case studies of diverse contexts presented here show how displaced persons’ lives are being shaped by local and translocal connections and mobilities. Failing to account for these, limits understandings of the dynamics in social constellations and the agency of people caught in displacement. A resulting caveat is, however, that mobility and translocality as such do not offer definite solutions to displacement, as they entail significant risks. Failing to take the networked, pluri-local and in many cases highly mobile reality of displaced people into account however further constrains the options of IDPs or refugees to sustain their livelihoods, to live a dignified life and to build their own futures.

Fourth, temporality and transformations are a central, yet often overlooked, dimension of protracted displacement. On the one hand, prolonged experiences of livelihood insecurity, social marginalisation, reliance on external assistance, and legal limbo seem to imply that displaced persons are stuck in a present they cannot escape. On the other hand, dynamics due to policy changes or transforming rhythms of everyday lives, as well as their sustained efforts to build futures based on their own priorities, need to be accounted for. Protracted displacement can then be understood as a transition phase in individuals’ life courses, a liminal experience. Displaced people are not passive victims who are awaiting solutions by states, but are actors who develop their own solutions while countering the aforementioned structural forces. Refugees and IDPs seek to re-appropriate their time, coping with the past and planning for their futures, thus resisting the multiple techniques of governance that have been put in place to control their mobility and to ‘steal their time’. Inspired by figurational thinking, such an approach theoretically and empirically unsettles the notion of protracted displacement, and may thus prise open spaces for more humane policies and practice in its wake.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Transnational Figurations of Displacement (TRAFIG) is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 research and innovation project. From 2019 to 2022, 12 partner organisations investigated long-lasting displacement situations at multiple sites in Asia, Africa and Europe and analysed options to improve displaced people’s lives. Further information on the project can be accessed at https://trafig.eu/. We gratefully acknowledge the funding of the European Union under grant number 822453. We also would like to thank Christina Miliou Theocharaki at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex, for her valuable editorial assistance in preparing the articles for publication. In addition, we would like to thank the peer-reviewers for their critical and constructive feedback that helped to improve the contributions to this special issue.