Forced to leave? The discursive and analytical significance of describing migration as forced and voluntary

Abstract

This article examines voluntariness in migration decisions by promoting the acknowledgement of forced and voluntary migration as a continuum of experience, not a dichotomy. Studies on conflict-related migration and migration, in general, remain poorly connected, despite calls for interaction. This reflects the forced-voluntary dichotomy's stickiness within and beyond academia, which is closely connected to the political implications of unsettling it and potentially undermining migrants' protection rights. We delve into notions of the 'voluntariness' of migration and argue for the analytical need to relate evaluations of voluntariness to available alternatives. Drawing on qualitative research with people from Afghanistan and Pakistan coming to Europe, we hone in on three particular renderings of migration: migrants' own experiences, scholarly qualitative observations and labelling by immigration authorities. Analysing migration as stages in a process: leaving -journey (and transit) -arrival and settlement -return or onward migration, we highlight the specific effects of migration being described as being forced or voluntary. Labelling as 'forced' (or not) matters to migrants and states when asylum status is on the line. For migration scholars, it remains challenging to decouple these descriptions from state systems of migration management; though doing so enhances our understanding of the role voluntariness plays in migration decisions.

Aspiration, desire and drivers of migration

“…All of the articles in this special issue can be seen in this light. They address the generation and sustenance of migration as something that is distributed across borders, in transnational social and economic linkages (Carling and Schewel 2018;Collins 2018;Erdal and Oeppen 2018;Van Hear, Bakewell, and Long 2018) or within migration's imaginative dimensions as they are constituted across borders (Meyer 2018;Scheibelhofer 2018;Yang 2018). In perspective, the figure of the migrant as an autonomous agent located in one place is disrupted by an emphasis on migrants as situated in social fields that cross borders and play a role in enabling and shaping migration processes and outcomes.…”

“…Some article authors situate migration in relation to particular feelings about the places they are in (Collins 2018;Meyer 2018); others refer to the imaginative dimension of migration and either explicitly (Yang 2018) or implicitly (Carling and Schewel 2018) draw attention to the emotional valences that run through his. Moreover, we argue that drawing attention to emotions is critical to humanising migration, thus allowing our scholarship to blur boundaries between different types of migration (Erdal and Oeppen 2018) and to see the subjectivity and identity of migrants as always in formation rather than predetermined by place of origin and mode of arrival.…”

“…It also bolsters a view that migrant 'decision-making' occurs at a singular moment in time, or at least within a relatively defined period before departure that involves the gathering and assessment of available information in an objective fashion. The authors in this special issue collectively present migration in a way that is much more temporally distributed: aspiration as socially situated but also future-oriented (Carling and Schewel 2018); the on-going-ness of migratory processes (Erdal and Oeppen 2018); opening and blockages that can start but also end migratory pathways (Collins 2018); and even the more structural account of mediating drivers as part of maintaining and shaping migratory flows (Van Hear, Bakewell, and Long 2018).…”

Nexus between Climate Change, Displacement and Conflict: Afghanistan Case

“…It is also often difficult to distinguish between forced and voluntary environment-induced migration [47][48][49][50]. Categorizing environmental migration as forced may be rather indisputable in cases of an environmental disaster.…”

Identifying trafficked migrants and refugees along the Balkan route. Exploring the boundaries of exploitation, vulnerability and risk

“…He calls for more policy irrelevant research, to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that underpin practice, to bring about significant change in the lives of forced migrants [5]. Similarly, others argue that while labelling is needed for migration management, migration scholars must move beyond these clear cut categories to better understand and analyse migration decisions and experiences [19].…”