Thinking about the meaning of time among temporary labor migrants in Israel

Abstract

When thinking about time and migration, time appears to be the obvious unchangeable independent variable—linear, uniform, and constant—affecting migrants’ experiences. However, what if we reimagine time as a dependent variable affected by migration? Time, thus, is not linear but layered, malleable, and potentially even liquid. Migrants weave time with space, generating past, present, and future, forming multiple simultaneous “heres,” “theres,” and “in-betweens.” A subset of migrants, temporary labor migrants, provides an interesting opportunity to consider how migration affects time (including the perception of time). States permit temporary labor migrants to immigrate only because they consent to emigrate after a predetermined, contracted period. In this paper, we consider what it means to enter into such “migration time” arrangements that warp, transform, and curtail time for migrants, their children, employers, community members, left-behind families, and the state. Migrants’ children who typically exist outside state-brokered labor migration deals develop alternate timescapes from their migrant parents. Based on the analysis of interview data and complementary follow-up conversations with 43 temporary labor migrants in Israel from 11 different countries, we examine how the migration process creates nonlinear time and how migrants discover, lament, manage, enjoy, and struggle with multiple timescapes. Building on the work of Saulo Cwerner, we replicate his model on time and migration to show general patterns for immigrants and modes particular to temporary labor migrants including time ruptures, freedom time (short-term opportunities), and ambiguous time (fuzzy continuities).

In their own time: Refugee healthcare professionals’ attempts at temporal re-appropriation

“…Individuals’ orientations towards their futures might collide with institutional and organisational structures that re-form these outlooks (Mozetič, 2021). Their present is decelerated and punctured by deadlines and threshold-like moments set by the asylum and integration system (Griffiths, 2014), while simultaneously being permeated by the remnants of their past lives and mental presence in far-away time zones (Harper and Zubida, 2020). The continuity of their life courses was disrupted by flight and is now once again re-attempted (Bygnes, 2021).…”

Asymmetrical understandings of the value of time between Taiwanese Working Holiday Makers and the Australian government: Cultural exchange or serving time?

“…For temporary migrant workers, their temporary status not only influences the ways their lives are tied to the worksite, but it also decides the meanings of time while on the move (Harper & Zubida, 2020). However, the meanings of time for temporary migrants are not only about the definitions given by the state or employers (such as visa length or specified durations of work time and rest time).…”

“…In other words, ‘being temporary’ can be understood as a legal constraint imposed by the visa regime and as a normative social constraint as it shapes migrants’ subjective understanding, emotions, and migration experiences of waiting, immobility, and stuck-ness (Barry, 2021; Griffiths et al, 2013; Hage, 2009). These legal and social constraints on temporary migrants’ time can potentially ‘disrupt’ a migrant’s life plan (though the government may not think so) and bring uncertainty and immobility (Collins & Shubin, 2015; Harper & Zubida, 2020; Turnbull, 2016). The consequence is that control over their own time may lie beyond the migrant’s reach (Cwerner, 2001).…”