‘I can't even buy a bed because I don't know if I'll have to leave tomorrow’: temporal orientations among Mexican precarious status migrants in Toronto

Villegas, Paloma E.

doi:10.1080/13621025.2014.905269

Cited by 65 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…An irregular migrant can also be a former asylum seeker whose application for refugee status was rejected. Despite the categories of legal and illegal fixed by law, people with no status may acquire a legal status, just as legal entrants or legal workers may fall into irregularity (Cvajner and Sciortino 2010: 214;Villegas 2014). Given the permeability between the categories of irregular migration and asylum and the malfunctioning of the asylum system, migrants may fluctuate between different legal and policy categories such as transit migrant, irregular migrant, or asylum seeker (Collyer and De Haas, 2012).…”

Section: Researching Irregular Migration As 'Migrant Illegality'mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Governance of International Migration

Üstübici¹

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction 3.1 Deportability as part of daily experience Deportability at the borderlands Deportability in urban life After the King's speech 3.2 Illegality in (semi-)settlement Settling into violent neighbourhoods 'The problem is work' 3.3 Access to public healthcare and education Healthcare between formal recognition and bureaucratic incorporation Public education: Bureaucratic sabotage and self-exclusion 3.4 Reversing illegality through mobilization Emergence of civil society networks Migrants' self-organizations Brothers in arms: What makes alliances possible? Mobilization for individual mobility 4 Turkey Depoliticized illegality and a quest for legitimacy 4.1 Migrant deportability beyond the EU borders Experiences of deportability: Between tolerance and arbitrariness 4.2 Illegality in (semi-)settlement: Incorporation into informality Settling into informality 'We arrived, slept, and the next day we started working' Limits of labour market participation Opening access to healthcare? Education 4.4 Reversing illegality: Mobilization or moving sideways? Civil society working on immigration issues Legal sidesteps in the absence of mobilization 5 Migrant illegality beyond EU borders Turkey and Morocco in a comparative perspective 5.1 Deportations and perceptions of deportability 5.2 Socioeconomic participation and daily legitimacy 5.3 Access to rights through institutions and the role of 'streetlevel advocacy' The genesis of this book was my PhD dissertation, which I defended at Koç University and the University of Amsterdam in 2015, it further evolved during my post-doctoral fellowship at MiReKoc and assistant professorship at Koç University. I would like to thank all of the academic and administrative staff at both institutions for providing me with intellectual homes during the fieldwork and writing stages. I would like to thank Koç University, the Bucerius PhD Scholarship Program Settling into Motion, the Center for Gender Studies at Koç University (KOÇKAM) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for their financial support at different stages of my doctoral research. This book is indeed a product of the long physical, intellectual and mental journey that I have taken alongside several wonderful people to whom thanks are due. Unfortunately, I can only mention a few of them in this short piece. I would first like to thank my supervisors, Prof Ahmet İçduygu and Prof Jan Rath for their invaluable guidance. Additionally, Dr Sebastien Chauvin, Dr Özlem Altan, Prof Deniz Yükseker and Prof Mine Eder were always ready to read earlier drafts of my chapters and discuss my ideas. Conducting fieldwork in two different countries would not have been possible without the valuable help of precious people. In Morocco: Apostolos, Babacar, Fatima, Moussa, Cewad and Najat, among others, helped me immensely in navigating my way in a land where I considered myself an outsider. Without the help of Deniz Sert, Deniz Karcı, Biriz, Uğur and Fattah, and many others, fieldwork in Turkey would have been...

show abstract

Section: Researching Irregular Migration As 'Migrant Illegality'mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Governance of International Migration

Üstübici¹

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ahmad also draws attention to the 'temporal paradox' of the Pakistani workers in London who, Ahmad (2008, 313) claims, "lose great chunks of their lives working in order to secure futures that may never arrive" as precarious work-time arrangements become an ongoing condition rather than a transitional phase, placing family life or the purchase of a property out of reach. Also focusing on the experiences of migrants, Villegas (2014) emphasises the importance of temporal contingency for understanding the impact of immigration policies on migrants' ability to plan for the future. In the Canadian context, the permanently temporary status of migrants serves to place them in what Coutin (2000, quoted in Villegas, 2014 has called a 'temporal void' in which all decisions about the future are put on hold.…”

Section: The Times and Temporalities Of Precarious Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

On waiting, work-time and imagined futures: Theorising temporal precariousness among Chinese chefs in Sweden’s restaurant industry

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the precarious working conditions in the Chinese restaurant industry in Sweden -a country considered to have one of Europe's most liberal labour immigration policies. Drawing upon a theoretical framework inspired by scholarship on precarious work and time geography, the paper argues that precarious work performed by migrant labour can be usefully understood through three interrelated temporal processes that, when they work together, produce and maintain precarious work-life situations. They are: (1) work-time arrangements: that is, actual working hours per day and over the annual cycle, the pace and intensity of work and the flexibility demanded of migrant workers in terms of when work is carried out, (2) the spatio-temporal 'waiting zones' indirectly produced by immigration policies that delay full access to labour markets and in which precarious work-time arrangements consequently arise, and (3) migrant workers' imagined futures, which motivate them to accept precarious work-time arrangements during a transitory period. The paper thus also illuminates that the Chinese chefs in Sweden's restaurant industry are not just passive victims of exploitative work-time arrangements. Rather, waiting -for a return to China or settlement in Sweden -may be part of migrants' strategies to achieve certain life course trajectories.Keywords: Sweden, Chinese migrant workers' strategies, liberal migration policies, migration status; permanent residence, precarious working conditions, temporalities 2 IntroductionIn recent years, labour geography has become increasingly concerned with the intersections between migration and precarious employment (e.g. Coe, 2013;Ellis, Wright and Parks, 2007;Lewis et al., 2014;May et al., 2007; Dyer, 2007, 2009;Vosko, 2006;Waite, 2009;Wills et al., 2010). Migrant workers, it is argued, are clustered in particular jobs and segments of the labour market characterised by low pay and insecure employment. In this literature, there is an often implicit discussion about the relationship between precarious work and time. The precarious working conditions of migrant workers are linked to the proliferation of short-term, temporary or casual contracts in advanced capitalist economies (e.g. May et al., 2007;McDowell, Batnitzky and Dyer, 2009;Wills et al., 2010; also see e.g. Amin, 1994;Peck and Theodore, 1998;Rogers and Rogers, 1989;Sassen, 1991).It is also implied that precarious working conditions are not only characterised by low status and low pay but also by uncertainty about working hours, which may be both too many or too few (e.g. McDowell, Batnitzky and Dyer, 2009), and by a lack of regularity and predictability about length of employment and when work will take place (Anderson, 2007). Thus, precarious work among migrant populations, as noted by Anderson (2007), has much to do with matters of time or, more precisely, with a range of temporal uncertainties -about how long employment will last, the number of hours of work each week, and when to be available for work -which ...

show abstract

“…It also reveals the subtle distinctions of risk the immigration system produces. Immigration laws create 'illegality,' or 'irregularity,' for temporary migrants that affects the physical, emotional and economic well-being of migrants because of their lack of access to housing, healthcare, work and the fear of being deported (Goldring et al, 2009;Villegas, 2014). International students fulfill at least three of the four criteria given by Goldring et al (2009) in their definition of precarious migrant status, with the fourth, absence of work authorization, being only partially given and under strict rules and monitoring.…”

Section: Precariousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The major strength of the precariousness lens is that it examines how the system of law creates the irregular and insecure status and lives of migrants. Migrants are often restricted in their ability to challenge difficult and potentially dangerous situations in their work, highlighting how precarious work is linked to precarious status (Villegas, 2014). That connection between precarious work and status exposes the consequences that can occur when you equate the value of people in a society with their economic contribution to said society (Robertson, 2011;Villegas, 2014).…”

Section: Precariousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Migrants are often restricted in their ability to challenge difficult and potentially dangerous situations in their work, highlighting how precarious work is linked to precarious status (Villegas, 2014). That connection between precarious work and status exposes the consequences that can occur when you equate the value of people in a society with their economic contribution to said society (Robertson, 2011;Villegas, 2014). Due to the economic status that international students are classified under, one of the ways to they claim access to certain rights is by locating themselves "within neoliberal economic discourse through the positioning of their value as economic subjects as evidence of their worth as political subjects" (Robertson, 2011(Robertson, , p. 2206.…”

Section: Precariousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Hidden Voices in Transnationalism: International Post-Secondary Student Experiences of Precariousness and Belonging in Ottawa

Binka¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

International post-secondary students have been highlighted as potential solutions to the skill and talent gaps in the Canadian economy by federal and provincial governments. Despite this, there are gaps in the literature surrounding these students in relation to their lived experiences during their stay. By applying a theoretical framework composed of transnational feminism, precarious immigration and belonging and citizenship literature, this study contributes to the current research by exploring the factors that affect the experiences of international students. Additionally, through semi-structured interviews with international students and associated staff at Carleton University and policy analysis, this study investigates whether federal, provincial and post-secondary institutions are instrumental in producing a sense of belonging or precariousness for these students. The findings indicate that though there are many resources available to foster a sense of belonging and safety, the lack of integration and knowledge across institutional scales produces precarious environments for international students.

show abstract

‘I can't even buy a bed because I don't know if I'll have to leave tomorrow’: temporal orientations among Mexican precarious status migrants in Toronto

Cited by 65 publications

References 26 publications

The Governance of International Migration

The Governance of International Migration

On waiting, work-time and imagined futures: Theorising temporal precariousness among Chinese chefs in Sweden’s restaurant industry

Hidden Voices in Transnationalism: International Post-Secondary Student Experiences of Precariousness and Belonging in Ottawa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About