Wayward Migration: On Imagined Futures and Technological Voids

Moving on

“…As noted earlier, this body of work has focused on the experiences of those who remain in a locality from which there is a large amount of migration (Gaibazzi 2014;Gardner 1993;Gardner 2008;Vigh 2009). In relation to this, drawing on Bourdieu, Vertovec (2004) has coined the phrase "transnational habitus" to describe the extent to which transnationalism structures the experience, dispositions and practices of even those who never migrate.…”

“…The disappointment of those who aspire to migrate but ultimately never leave their homelands has been extensively discussed in anthropological literature on migration (Carling 2002;Gaibazzi 2014;Jansen 2009;Vigh 2009). Examining migrant experiences in Italy, in this article I place the focus on those who have migrated but who still feel as though they have failed due to their lack of onward mobility.…”

“…Studies conducted in places with high levels of emigration show that understandings and imaginations of "home" and "away" are structured by unequal global power relationships in which material success and personal development are only thought to be achievable through migration (Bal 2013;Gaibazzi 2014;Gardner 1993;Gardner 2008;Vigh 2009). Focusing on the continued feelings of disappointment and personal failure experienced by those who have already migrated highlights how "hierarchies of globalisation" (Carling 2002: 37) mean that while most are incorporated into a globalizing world market, not everybody is able to benefit from it (Bal & Roos Willems 2014: 255).…”

The chronopolitics of exile: Hope, heterotemporality and NGO economics along the Thai–Burma border

“…The liminal character of the lives of migrants, refugees, and persons in exile, arises from both their marginality and the temporariness of their experiences. Such ''involuntary immobility'' is particularly germane to the experiences of persons who wish to move out of their stasis but are unable to do so (Carling, 2002;Vigh, 2009). The condition of statelessness and displacement similarly conjures a repertoire of images of the refugee in a liminal, uchronic state.…”

Strategies of Navigation: Migrants' Everyday Encounters with Italian Immigration Bureaucracy

“…I show how while the ambiguity and uncertainty that characterize the bureaucracy is frustrating and anxiety inducing, it also allows for flexibility. Through engagement with the arbitrary and uncertain 'terrain' (Vigh 2006(Vigh , 2009) of immigration bureaucracy, migrants learn to develop strategies to manipulate the law's loopholes and help them have applications accepted: they learn the 'real' rules. Consequently, and paradoxically, therefore, through their practice of Italy's exclusionary and uncertain documentation regime, over time migrants become cultural insiders.…”