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Living an Uncertain Future: Temporality, Uncertainty, and Well-Being among Iraqi Refugees in Egypt
Abstract
While displacement has always involved the refiguring of space, scholars of forced migration have recently begun to consider how temporality might be crucial to an understanding of displacement. In this article, I consider the interplay of temporal and spatial uncertainty in the experience
of exile for Iraqi refugees in metropolitan Cairo. By examining how Iraqis understand displacement as uncertain and how this uncertainty is a cause of significant distress, I show that an attunement to temporality can help us to understand refugees' experiences of displacement. Iraqi refugees
spoke of exile in Cairo as 'living in transit'—a condition in which disjuncture between their expectations about exile and its realities contributed to an altered experience of time in which the future became particularly uncertain and life was experienced as unstable. One solution sought
by refugees is resettlement, a process that often renders the future even more uncertain, at least in the short term.
... This is partly related to the events' uncertain nature as there are no guaranteed outcomes and persons are, therefore, unable to know whether they will live or die, recover with or without long-term disability, or be able to rebuild their lives materially. Such threat-related uncertainty (McCornick, 2002) can shake us to the core and has been shown to lead to a greater risk of developing physical and mental health problems (Ahir et al., 2018;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Kuchler, 2022;Masterson, 2022;Stewart, 2003). ...
... Studies that found a negative relationship between uncertainty and mental health often used language indicating a causal relationship. Typical 'causation words' included: 'caused' (Berterö et al., 2008;Bjertrup et al., 2018;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Fitzsimons et al., 2000;Furlotte & Schwartz, 2017), 'produced' (Hirsh et al., 2012), 'created', 'led to' (Almgren et al., 2017;Barnes et al., 2002;Stewart, 2003), 'affected' (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Grace et al., 2018), and 'impacted' (Cleanthous et al., 2013;Furlotte & Schwartz, 2017;Hartley et al., 2017). In such studies, the experience of uncertainty was considered to be intrinsically negative in and of itself. ...
... Studies that found a negative relationship between uncertainty and mental health often used language indicating a causal relationship. Typical 'causation words' included: 'caused' (Berterö et al., 2008;Bjertrup et al., 2018;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Fitzsimons et al., 2000;Furlotte & Schwartz, 2017), 'produced' (Hirsh et al., 2012), 'created', 'led to' (Almgren et al., 2017;Barnes et al., 2002;Stewart, 2003), 'affected' (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Grace et al., 2018), and 'impacted' (Cleanthous et al., 2013;Furlotte & Schwartz, 2017;Hartley et al., 2017). In such studies, the experience of uncertainty was considered to be intrinsically negative in and of itself. ...
Reports highlight that the ‘golden age of stability and predictability’ in the latter half of the twentieth century has abruptly drawn to a close and been replaced by a phase of great uncertainty. Quantitative research has established an association between high levels of uncertainty with worsening mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and psychological distress. Important research gaps remain including how people experience and understand uncertainty; what coping mechanisms people use to navigate and manage uncertainties; and what mental health and psychosocial support services are available to those who need them. This paper aims to fill these knowledge gaps through a qualitative scoping review. Our results show the relationship between uncertainty and mental health is co-constitutive and dynamic as people draw on various personal, social and cultural resources to manage and deal with their situations and people’s ability to cope with uncertainties are linked to the environment and social contexts in which they live and which are in a constant state of flux. We recommend that mental health care and social support responses to experiences of uncertainty be promoted at all social-ecological levels and involve all relevant stakeholders beyond the medical sector.
... future (Khoo et al., 2008;Axelsson, 2017;Robertson, 2019). Previous research focusing on solely refugees' experience of temporality also stated the negative effects of uncertainties on refugees' future plans, decisions, mental and general well-being (Mansouiri and Cauchi, 2007;Biehl, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Icduygu and Sert, 2019). However, the effects of uncertainties on their children's education were largely missing. ...
... Furthermore, living in uncertainty is often considered as an inevitable part of the refugee situation (Williams and Balaz, 2012;Afifi et al., 2013). Regardless of how refugees experience uncertainty, their situation is often described as being in "limbo" as they are in-between either receiving, or being rejected from having a legal status, or waiting to settle in a third country (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Loyd et al., 2017). ...
... When asylum seekers' or refugees' displacement is prolonged longer than anticipated, it further affects their imagination and plans for the future because of the permanent insecurity (Mansouiri and Cauchi, 2007;Biehl, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015). A study on Iraqi refugees in Egypt examined how "living in transit" and uncertainty affected their experiences and found that unpredictability often causes anxiety, fear, and concern (El-Shaarawi, 2015). ...
Around a million school-aged minors from Syria have been living in Turkey with temporary protection status over an unanticipated extended period. This prolonged temporariness leads to uncertainties and unpredictabilities for Syrian families regarding how long they will be staying in Turkey. Drawing on 17 interviews with Syrian mothers and 3 couples, this study examined the ways in which uncertainties shaped parental decisions on minors' education. The findings indicated that uncertainties played a key role in shaping the educational decisions of Syrian parents, particularly in their children's Turkish language acquisition and educational performance. This study not only fills the gap in understanding the effects of uncertainties in parental educational decisions emanated from a prolonged temporariness, but also argues that living in an uncertain context causes hurdles in language acquisition which has major educational and social consequences for children.
... In hostile host countries, afraid or unable to return home, these refugees experience permanent impermanence and limited agency. Protracted "temporary" settlement, often in a country neighboring their nation of origin, where refugees frequently experience inhospitable subhuman conditions with limited access to clean water, sanitation, education, health care, and nutrition, has received less research attention (see Boenigk et al. 2021;Brun 2016;Clayton 2020;El-Shaarawi 2015;Subramanian, Finsterwalder, and Hall 2022). Yet, many refugees live years, decades, or lifetimes in these conditions, and long-term displacement becomes the new normal (Brun and Fábos 2017). ...
... While digital nomads and executive road warriors traverse the globe with liquid suitcases of billable assets of skills, reputation, and education (Atanasova, Eckhardt, and Husemann 2023), the emic experience of refugee informants reveals a state of liquidity, uncertainty, lack of agency, few consumption choices, and loss of hope. Refugees' necessity to resource hope is thus framed by circumstances of protracted uncertainty and forced liquidity (Bauman 2002), which result in unimaginable suffering, including long-lasting ill-health effects (El-Shaarawi 2015). These circumstances make hope a critical social resource-they reveal "the conditions in which hope is manifest and put to use," as Zigon argues (2009, p. 262). ...
The global refugee crisis presents a complex challenge, with millions experiencing protracted displacement in inhospitable conditions. This study examines the lived experiences of Syrian refugee women in Lebanon, focusing on how they resource hope and maintain well-being amid forced liquidity and uncertainty. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with 26 Syrian refugee women, we uncover the profound effects of changed consumer roles and the critical function of agentive anchoring acts of consumption in resourcing hope. Our findings reveal that refugees employ four types of anchoring acts—domesticity, spirituality, self-care, and socializing—to momentarily restore normalcy, affirm dignity, and enhance well-being. These acts serve as vessels for resourcing and mobilizing hope, allowing refugees to ‘live through’ their present circumstances while aspiring for a better future. We introduce the concept of hope as a social resource that can be collectively shared and mobilized, highlighting the dynamic interplay between hope and hopelessness in refugee experiences. This research contributes to understanding how marketing and service systems can improve refugee well-being in protracted displacement, offering insights for stakeholders to create conditions that foster rather than inhibit subjective well-being among vulnerable consumers experiencing protracted displacement and involuntary liquidity in global modernity to resource hope.
... This case is unique within the established scholarship on migration and refugee studies. For decades, anthropological explorations of living through space and time while being a refugee focused on: experiences of awaiting the decision (Andersson, 2014;Hainmueller et al., 2016;Hyndman & Giles, 2011;Schouw Iversen, 2022), immigrant detention and encampment (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2020;Hayes, 2018;Mezzadra & Neilson, 2012;Mountz, 2011;Turnbull, 2016), and temporality as opposed to stability (El-Shaarawi, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2021;Griffiths, 2013;Jacobsen, 2022), as well as on "temporal governance" of decision-making (Griffiths, 2017;Reneman & Stronks, 2021). As El-Shaarawi points out, "…[r]efugees are often understood as people in between, both in terms of their legal status and in terms of what they denote as a category" (El-Shaarawi, 2015). ...
... For decades, anthropological explorations of living through space and time while being a refugee focused on: experiences of awaiting the decision (Andersson, 2014;Hainmueller et al., 2016;Hyndman & Giles, 2011;Schouw Iversen, 2022), immigrant detention and encampment (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2020;Hayes, 2018;Mezzadra & Neilson, 2012;Mountz, 2011;Turnbull, 2016), and temporality as opposed to stability (El-Shaarawi, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2021;Griffiths, 2013;Jacobsen, 2022), as well as on "temporal governance" of decision-making (Griffiths, 2017;Reneman & Stronks, 2021). As El-Shaarawi points out, "…[r]efugees are often understood as people in between, both in terms of their legal status and in terms of what they denote as a category" (El-Shaarawi, 2015). Thus, their experiences may be characterized by limbo, where people are caught between places and times, and experience long-term uncertainty. ...
While German migration policies aim to provide temporary protection and integrate Ukrainian refugees into German society as early as possible, the procedures and ideas of integration might be perceived differently by the beneficiaries. The feeling of “permanent temporariness” has been persistent among Ukrainians since March 2022. In this situation, some of the refugees renounce their agency and put responsibility on decision-making onto the state, while others oppose the idea of “being integrated” since they see their time in Germany as temporary, and their future in Ukraine as soon as the security situation allows them to return.
Drawing on the experiences of single Ukrainian women who received protection in Germany, the paper presents an anthropological perspective on person–state interactions in the context of refugees’ future-planning. How do German policies for supporting Ukrainian refugees impact their “stay or return” decision-making? Do the policies address their needs now and allow them to make investments for the future, or, on the contrary, contribute to their decision to return to Ukraine, which appears to be “simpler” and “more predictable”? How does the experience of going through bureaucratic procedures contribute to the sense of having agency and being capable of shaping their today and tomorrow? To answer these questions, I am going to present the reasonings and emotions concerning bureaucratic procedures that are closely intertwined with the planning of their future by Ukrainian refugees in Germany.
... Second, we examined participants' intolerance of uncertainty and experiences in dealing with uncertain situations, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Intolerance of uncertainty was investigated as a pivotal, potential risk factor that has not been studied in this specific population, although it is particularly salient for immigrant youth because of the uncertainty around their legal status and the outcomes of the migration process (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Urzúa et al., 2023). Third, we explored the associations among friendship attachment style, intolerance of uncertainty, and psychological distress. ...
... The second aim was to examine intolerance of uncertainty, a construct that has largely been neglected among the UIM population despite their existential condition of uncertainty in relation to their legal status (El-Shaarawi, 2015). In answers to open-ended questions, participants admitted to be affected by worry and concern about the future, but they also felt confident in their planning and coping strategies to overcome the uncertainty connected to the pandemic. ...
Introduction
This cross‐sectional study used a convergent parallel mixed‐method design to investigate friendship attachment style, intolerance of uncertainty, and psychological distress among unaccompanied immigrant minors (UIMs) during the second wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Italy.
Method
Participants were 80 male UIMs (Mage = 17 years, standard deviation = 0.84) hosted in residential care communities. Individual interviews comprising questionnaires and open‐ended questions assessed the constructs of interest. Qualitative data were analyzed through thematic content analysis, whereas descriptive statistics and regression analysis were computed on quantitative data.
Results
Several UIMs mentioned positive relationships with peers, but more than half also felt reluctant to trust others and build new friendships due to events experienced before and during migration. However, in quantitative data, 69% identified themselves with the secure friendship attachment style. Regarding intolerance of uncertainty, participants expressed feelings of worry about the pandemic, but also emphasized their resources in terms of confidence, optimism, and planning skills, as well as being accustomed to uncertainty; indeed, levels of this variable were low‐to‐medium. In regression analysis, insecure attachment and higher intolerance of uncertainty were each associated with greater psychological distress. Moreover, psychological distress was lower among securely attached UIMs with low (vs. high) levels of intolerance of uncertainty.
Conclusion
The findings suggest that, even in conditions of societal insecurity, UIMs display resilience and employ effective coping strategies; however, a lack of trust in peer relationships and the inability to tolerate uncertainty may undermine their psychological adjustment. Implications for developmental theory and practice are discussed.
... This institutional uncertainty (Pannia, 2021) is the product of governmental laws, policies, and practices, as well as of conflictive and competing societal interests (e.g. that of political parties, employers, civil society actors, etc.) around the immigration issue, but it can also be conceived as a technique of migration governance that (more or less intendedly) endorses an authoritarian over a rights-based approach. Research has underscored that uncertainty affects migrants with precarious statuses, in particular (rejected) asylum seekers and irregular(ised) migrants (see El-Shaarawi, 2015;Horst & Grabska, 2015). While dynamics of uncertainty have been widely documented in refugee reception and removal centers (Turnbull, 2016;Whyte, 2011), uncertainty permeates all major aspects related to the obtainment (and loss) of any legal status, from the conditions tied to acquiring (and losing) them to the (more or less favorable) rights attached to them. ...
... All these aspects concur in disrupting the individual capacity to navigate the instability of borders and strategically advance toward desired statuses. Unlike situations where migrants can (somewhat) rationally weigh probabilities and outcomes before taking a given course of action, when uncertainties become substantial migrants experience difficulties in taking important decisions because resulting outcomes and probabilities are largely unknown and unpredictable (El-Shaarawi, 2015). ...
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led the Italian government to enact a regularization programme, the first in eight years, which also allowed asylum seekers to switch from a humanitarian to an employment-based status. This study sheds light on how this re-categorization opportunity was concretely experienced by (potential) applicants by examining 21 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and Salvadorean asylum seekers. Drawing on emerging literature on uncertainty and temporality, we argue that the institutional uncertainty characterizing the programme compromised Salvadorian asylum seekers’ ability to act strategically toward the attainment of a less precarious status.
... This creates significant pressure to constantly envision and work towards a better future, often requiring a proactive and optimistic outlook. Adopting a future-oriented perspective presents substantial challenges for refugee entrepreneurs, given the temporal disintegration they often experience (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Holman and Silver, 1998). The expectation to focus on longterm goals may clash with the psychological reality of refugees who are often more concerned with immediate survival and security than with future planning (Horst and Grabska, 2015;Sagbakken et al., 2020). ...
Entrepreneurship support services for refugees provide a wide range of services to support venture creation and build resilience. However, mental health supports to address issues of trauma are often not included in these programmes. This is problematic as trauma experienced by refugees can negatively influence elements of entrepreneurship critical for success and the entrepreneurial journey carries a risk of retraumatisation. We propose a framework for a trauma-informed approach to refugee entrepreneurship support that integrates insights from the literature on trauma-informed care. The framework emphasises three key components: temporal reorientation, identity reconstruction and preventing retraumatisation. Temporal reorientation helps refugees reconnect with the present and envision a positive future using tools like mindfulness and bridging practices. Identity reconstruction focuses on developing a cohesive entrepreneurial identity, enabling refugees to rebuild their sense of self through narrative identity work and cultivating a collective entrepreneurial identity within their communities. Preventing retraumatisation involves creating safe, culturally sensitive environments that foster trust while empowering refugees through holistic, peer-supported interventions. This framework offers a novel approach to addressing the unique challenges refugee entrepreneurs face, integrating mental health considerations into entrepreneurship support and paving the way for future research focused on trauma’s impact within entrepreneurship.
... Ethnographically analysing the dispositif of mobility reveals its true nature as a prism (Della Puppa & Sanò, 2021b) whose faces serve to irradiate the multiplicity of spaces, times, and existential experiences found along the jagged trajectories typical of "subjects in transit" (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Fontanari, 2019). ...
... This uncertainty manifests at multiple scales (Scoones, 2019). But more importantly, in post-conflict settings, where past experiences offer little guidance (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Innis and Van Assche, 2023;Kaufmann, 2017;Korf, 2013), actors find it challenging to orient themselves amid the changing social landscape lacking stability and predictability (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998;Vigh, 2009aVigh, ,b, 2010. ...
Development requires action, adaptation, and transformation of both governance and physical infrastructure. Energy infrastructure unfolds as the infrastructure that facilitates the growth of other infrastructures and development. This paper argues it is critical to examine the complex, non-linear evolution of energy infrastructure and policy alongside the intricate, non-linear evolution of governance in general, and planning specifically , in southern cities, particularly those with a history of instability, scarcity and incomplete infrastructure. Monrovia, Liberia, provides a compelling example of the intricate co-evolution of policy, infrastructure and practices in unpredictable and unstable contexts that require adaptability, resilience and innovation. Understanding such a landscape is important because governance reflects characteristics of constant evolution, improvisation and searching within a broader system that is also evolving. The objective is to better grasp how the double and coupled processes of 'searching' and 'planning' interact to shape the landscape of options for tackling incomplete electricity infrastructure. The incompleteness of both governance and infrastructure retains benefits whilst the interplay of searching and planning can allow for positive adaptations in terms of governance and infrastructure; however, we equally know adaptation can take place in unsustainable contexts, thereby engendering the potential for risks and missed opportunities.
... Migrants have been found to experience and respond to 'living in transit' (El-Shaarawi, 2015), experiencing a form of 'suspended living' (Dennler, 2023) or a period of inertia (Brun, 2015) due to high levels of uncertainty, differently. Brun (2015), for example, conducted interviews with internally displaced persons living in 'collective centers' who had fled war-affected areas between their native Georgia and the disputed Abkhazia region. ...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 resulted in one of the largest refugee crises in Europe since World War II. A significant number of Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, have sought asylum in Germany, where they have been granted temporary protection status. These refugees found themselves in a state of protracted displacement, with uncertain futures. This article examines how middle-class Ukrainian women, with children, envision their futures and how this shapes their present. Engaging with the literature on protracted displacement and the concept of ‘agency-in-waiting’, we examine how this relatively privileged group variously respond to living in transit. To enable closer analysis of these variations, we extend examinations of protracted displacement with Grzymala-Kazlowska’s idea of anchors. This allows us to consider how previous social-class positioning, and also other external and internal structures in places migrated to, intersect to reveal the anchors facilitating or constraining ‘agency-in-waiting’.
... Temporal continuities and discontinuities play an important role in shaping refugees' well-being (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Lögdberg et al., 2020). Our study suggests that adolescent refugees' temporal (dis)continuities support their wellbeing by facilitating the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness, and safety. ...
Adolescent refugees confront a complex interplay of trauma arising from forced displacement, resettlement, and the challenges of transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Using photovoice methodology, this study engaged 14 Iraqi and Syrian adolescent refugees now residing in the United States with the aim to illuminate their well‐being experiences. Our findings show that temporal continuities and discontinuities in adolescent refugees' lives contributed to their sense of well‐being by helping satisfy their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness, and safety. Temporal continuities involved drawing upon past resources and formulating future career aspirations based on present experiences. Temporal discontinuities encompassed contrasting past and present and processing adversities endured. This study underscores that, beyond current circumstances, the interpretation of life experiences over extended timeframes influences the well‐being of adolescent refugees.
... Much work has analyzed the "mysterious" (Adam) temporalities of resettlement processes experienced by refugees, and the impenetrability of the system (Clark-Kazak & Thomson, 2019;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Gale, 2008;Jansen, 2008;Ozkul & Jarrous, 2021;Sévigny, 2012). I use the concept of administrative or informational work to name efforts to understand these processes. ...
In recent years, refugee response in Jordan has centred on self-reliance, aiming to support individuals in displacement and contain further movement. However, non-Syrian refugees have been largely overlooked. This article explores the relationship between self-reliance and resettlement for Sudanese refugee men in Amman. Drawing on conceptualizations of work beyond paid labour, I show how refugees have pursued resettlement through relational, emotional, physical, and administrative work. I contribute to understandings of how forced migrants work towards long-term solutions to displacement and add to the limited literature on Sudanese displacement in Jordan.
... The causes for uncertainty range from access to education and healthcare, exposure to violence, and so on (34,35). The emotional instability experienced by migrants is a consequence of the complex interplay of political and social factors linked to their displacement, resulting in a pervasive sense of uncertainty that significantly affects their overall well-being and mental health (36,37). Disasters often have a profound impact on the population living in affected areas. ...
Objectives
On February 6th, 2023, a doublet earthquake struck Türkiye, impacting more than 15 million people including migrants, and resulting in over 50,000 deaths. The Syrian migrants experience multiple uncertainties in their daily lives which are further compounded by multifaceted challenges of the post-disaster environment. Social media was used intensively and with impunity in this environment and thereby provides a window into the explicit and implicit dynamics of daily life after a disaster. We aimed to explore how a post-disaster environment potentially generates new uncertainties or exacerbating pre-existing ones for migrants through social media analysis with an indirect perspective, in the context of 2023-Earthquake in Türkiye and Syrian migrants.
Methods
Social network analysis was used to analyze Twitter-data with the hashtags ‘Syrian’ and ‘earthquake’ during a 10-day period beginning on March 22nd, 2023. We calculated network metrics, including degree-values and betweenness-centrality and clustered the network to understand groups. We analyzed a combination of 27 tweets with summative content analysis using a text analysis tool, to identify the most frequently used words. We identified the main points of each tweet and assessed these as possible contributors to post-disaster uncertainty among migrants by using inductive reasoning.
Results
There were 1918 Twitter users, 274 tweets, 124 replies and 1726 mentions. Discussions about Syrian migrants and earthquakes were established across various groups (ngroups(edges > 15) = 16). Certain users had a greater influence on the overall network. The nine most frequently used words were included under uncertainty-related category (nmost_frequently_used_words = 20); ‘aid, vote, house, citizen, Afghan, illegal, children, border, and leave’. Nine main points were identified as possible post-disaster uncertainties among migrants.
Conclusion
The post-disaster environment has the potential to exacerbate existing uncertainties, such as being an undocumented migrant, concerns about deportation and housing, being or having a child, inequality of rights between being a citizen and non-citizen, being in minority within minority, political climate of the host nation and access to education or to generate new ones such equitable distribution of aid, which can lead to poor health outcomes. Recognizing the possible post-disaster uncertainties among migrants and addressing probable underlying factors might help to build more resilient and healthy communities.
... Uncertainty can also affect the decision to have children(Robertson 2014). Further, the extended period of waiting marked by unresolved legal status has implications for mental and physical health(El-Shaarawi 2015). The fear of outcome and the threat of deportation or refoulement associated with a negative outcome contribute to a 'downward spiral of invisibility, marginalisation and division'(Bailey et al. 2016: 135).Further, the protracted nature of this condition acculturates migrants to their marginal position. ...
ABSTRACT
Migration represents one of the epoch-making themes in recent European and Italian policy and political discourses, particularly during the recent soi-disant “refugee crisis”, with many countries coming out with a remarkable range of internal and external restrictive measures to contain and deter further migratory inflows. These have created many livelihood challenges for the migrants’ inclusion and integration into the host society, including reception, housing, legal, employment, education and healthcare. While many scholars have problematised the migration question in several ways recently, there is a comparative lack of in-depth empirical and theoretical research on the reception, settlement and housing dimension of migrants in European cities, particularly in mid-sized cities. This thesis thus aims to contribute to the migration scholarship, exploring how (public) institutions — specific policies, laws and practices — shape different migrant groupings’ daily-lived experiences. In particular, I investigate the institutional production of migrants’ housing precarity, temporal aspects of “assistance” embedded in reception policies and their effects on refugees’ housing outcomes, and local reception policy for asylum-seekers and integration outcome dynamics. Much of the study and conceptual framework is rooted within the qualitative research tradition, drawing on literature from sociology, geography, urban studies and migration and refugee studies. A qualitative approach is used to analyse the empirical data gathered through conversation, observation, documentary analysis and 92 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (from public and private institutions) and sub-Saharan African (SSA) migrants —“economic migrants”, refugees, (refused) asylum-seekers and irregular migrants — in the mid- sized city of Bergamo, Italy. The thesis comprises a collection of three scholarly articles, investigating separate but interrelated issues using three concepts discretely in each paper: precarity, temporality and integration. Article 1 investigates the migrant housing question in Italy, focusing on the causal factors internal to the housing regime and how their interplay with public institutions shapes precarious housing outcomes. I extend the precarity concept’s usage beyond the labour market to the field of housing, mobilising two main epistemological dimensions of the concept: its identification of different, concurrent causes of such conditions and its political and institutional production. To give substance to our arguments herein, quotations from the SSA migrants (economic migrants, refugees, (refused) asylum-seekers and irregular migrants) in Bergamo are used. The findings show that all migrant groups face precarious housing situations during their migration process, albeit to varying degrees. Article 2 explores the longitudinal housing experiences of refugees (people with political asylum, subsidiary and humanitarian protection status) within the city of Bergamo. It looks at how temporalities and temporariness embedded in reception programmes shape refugees’ housing outcomes. The analysis indicates that state limitations on the length of housing and economic support, lack of post-reception policy, and legal and bureaucratic barriers negatively affect housing quality and stability post-exit reception. The study contributes to our understanding of the effects of state employment of temporalities on migrant integration. Article 3 explores integration outcomes of a “unique” and novel local asylum-seekers’ integration model, “l’Accademia per l’Integrazione”, in Bergamo. Employing a “scout/militaristic” approach, the model seeks to integrate asylum-seekers starting from their arrival through obligatory Italian language classes and civics, “socially useful” work, acquisition of skills and access to the labour market. The findings show mixed and multifaceted results, including a questionable approach and below-par integration outcomes. Notwithstanding these upshots, the model’s conceptualisation of integration of asylum-seekers as a “two-way” process that starts upon arrival in the host society is worth implementing in other local settings in Italy and beyond.
... Prolonged conflicts often engender prolonged waiting, which arouses the feeling of being stuck in a hopeless present with a future that is not clearly defined. This will prompt new possibilities of altered loyalty and strategy toward alternative futures (Ahlqvist, 2022;Brun, 2016;El-Shaarawi, 2015). However, what happens when the NSAGs and the state military forces become a ''protector'' and an ''invader'' of human security at different times in specified places? ...
This article examines the dynamics of interactions between civilians, armed groups, and the state in frontline states. Drawing on a 6-year ethnographic study of armed conflicts in the Lake Chad Basin region, the article argues that civilian loyalty becomes multiple and overlapping when the roles of the state and armed groups become indistinguishable in insecure spaces. A range of actions and outcomes can be observed from civilians' navigating strategies: individual and collective bargaining, false compliance and co-optation with Boko Haram, Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) and other militias to mitigate the risks of multiple competing authorities. The coupling of emerging individual and collective actions exemplifies self-organization that shapes the state response, armed groups' behaviors, and their legitimacy at the local scale. Thus, civilians result in hedging loyalty between the state and armed groups to reduce the potential harm that the non-zero-sum control of conflict-torn spaces would otherwise cause.
... A number of studies point out temporality's salience in defining contemporary migration and asylum regimes (Biehl, 2015;Horst & Grabska, 2015;Nassar & Stel, 2019Pascucci, 2016). Temporality emerges as a vital element in governing asylum at borders, refugee camps, reception centres, detention units or urban spaces in Europe, Americas and elsewhere (Andersson, 2014;El Shaarawi, 2015;Griffiths, 2014). Linking temporality with the concept of governance, we approach temporality as a strategy that is intentionally produced to control and manage displaced people by governing actors. ...
... A number of studies point out temporality's salience in defining contemporary migration and asylum regimes (Biehl, 2015;Horst & Grabska, 2015;Nassar & Stel, 2019Pascucci, 2016). Temporality emerges as a vital element in governing asylum at borders, refugee camps, reception centres, detention units or urban spaces in Europe, Americas and elsewhere (Andersson, 2014;El Shaarawi, 2015;Griffiths, 2014). Linking temporality with the concept of governance, we approach temporality as a strategy that is intentionally produced to control and manage displaced people by governing actors. ...
... Post-migration stressors affecting mental health include delayed asylum procedures, the associated uncertainty, as well as the residence status. Moreover, a lack of social support and compromised housing conditions have been identified as crucial determinants of mental health [4,[8][9][10]. Research in low-and middle-income countries indicated that low living conditions in refugee camps were strongly associated with poor mental health outcomes [11,12]. ...
Background
Providing adequate living conditions for forcibly displaced people represents a significant challenge for host countries such as Germany. This study explores refugee mental health’s reciprocal, dynamic relationship with post-migration living conditions and social support.
Methods
The study sample included 325 Arabic- or Farsi-speaking asylum seekers and refugees residing in Germany since 2014 and seeking mental health treatment. Associations between reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression and the subjective quality of living conditions and perceived social support were analyzed using a two-level approach including multiple linear regression and network analyses.
Results
Post-migration quality of living conditions and perceived social support were significantly associated with negative mental health outcomes on both levels. In the network, both post-migration factors were negatively connected with overlapping symptoms of psychiatric disorders, representing potential target symptoms for psychological treatment.
Conclusion
Post-migration quality of living conditions and social support are important factors for refugee mental health and should be targeted by various actors fostering mental well-being and integration.
... On the other hand, waiting time could also involve possibilities of encounters with positive effects on the resettlement process; at the same time, it has negative connotations insofar as it implies a loss of social and professional status as well as generic stigmatisation (Mzayek, 2017). In brief, for Mzayek as well as other authors working in other refugee contexts, waiting is a liminal experience consisting of many nuances going from anticipation to frustration, from hope to dread, expressed both in routine activities and changes of status (El-Shaarawi, 2015;Siganporia, 2016). ...
... Migration and displacement have long been positioned as primarily spatial phenomena, leaving their temporal dimensions under-examined (Griffiths, 2014;Griffiths et al., 2013). Migration scholars have only recently begun to consider temporality within displacement (El-Shaarawi, 2015). Migration is not just about space and spatial movements; it is also about time and temporalities -the ways in which refugees encounter particular moments of time as they move along their migration journeys (Tefera, 2021, p. 1). ...
Several recent studies have examined experiences of waiting and spatial and temporal immobility among refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. This paper investigates recent migrants’ experiences of waiting and (spatial and temporal) immobility in the context of COVID-19 lockdowns, and against the background of pandemic isolation and boredom. It asks how public health measures affected ‘recently’ arrived migrants’ and how these migrants experienced waiting and immobility differently before and during the pandemic. We argue that differences in recent migrants’ status and housing situations shape how they experience immobility during and beyond the pandemic. This paper contributes to research on immobility in migration by highlighting the importance of diverse emotional geographies of loneliness and frustration; it concludes that immobility is situated along an isolation-to-agitation continuum.
... Waiting for the future opportunity to become a mobile agent again forms part of Anca's daily life and remains a source of uncertainty in the context of COVID-19 when the future remains undecipherable. However, in her case, uncertainty is not totalizing (El-Shaarawi, 2015). In these narratives, it is clear that for waiting is a condition that offers hope. ...
This article deals with the recent COVID‐19 pandemic and how it has affected mobilities in Northern Ireland. Drawing on the findings of in‐depth interviews with migrant women and elements of autoethnographic research, the author discusses how migrant women reshape their mobilities in the context of global pandemic. The article looks into how COVID‐19 has reinforced the existing mobility regimes and how waiting has become an important part of migrant women strategies. To this end, it examines waiting as both passive and active condition. It then explores politics of mobility and transgressive powers involved in migrant women trajectories.
... The structural violence that is exercised remains invisible and unquestioned as it becomes part of the wider and processual structures in society (Davies et al., 2017). Furthermore, this exercise of power may ultimately serve as a deliberate means to constrain onward migration, as well as potentially force some of the migrants back to their home countries as a "politics of discomfort" (Darling, 2011, p. 264) or a body politics (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987) which in both temporal and spatial dimensions deliberately rules out any sense of security or belonging, and which determines the level of uncertainty of being an asylum seeker (Biehl, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Horst and Grabska, 2015). Thus, another result of the structural violence our participants are exposed to is constant liminality; they remain "liminals" (Chavez, 1994) without the possibility to become citizens in the new society. ...
Asylum seekers are in an extraordinary situation as their future life depend on decisions made by authorities in a bewildering, bureaucratic system, with excessive waiting and unpredictable timeframes. Those that are not granted asylum, and not able to return to their country of origin, can neither spatially nor temporally visualize if, when or how a potential change is going to occur. This paper is part of a larger study based on narrative interviews with asylum seekers and refugees in asylum centers in Norway, exploring their experiences before, during, and after flight. As we found that the life circumstances for those being refused asylum, were highly different from other participants in the project, we chose to address this particular group in a separate paper. The participants in this part of the study consisted of 21 individuals (of a total of 78 participants) in the age range 18–44, of whom eight were female and 13 males. Trough qualitative interviews and participant observation the aim of this study was to explore and describe the life condition and mental health situation of rejected asylum seekers in Norway. We found that the gradual loss of rights, opportunities and finances are experienced as a form of violence that leads to extreme mental and social suffering. This policy clearly conflicts with Human Rights incorporated in the Norwegian constitution, and we argue that it legitimizes treating asylum seekers as a group of undesirable and underserving political bodies, with serious consequences for their mental health and wellbeing.
... This in turn, has the potential to adversely affect both their capacity to heal from past traumas, as well as their ability to negotiate the many challenges of life in protracted displacement. This pattern is consistent with a growing literature on the mental health implications of precarious legal status, which has similarly revealed the ways which unequal social structures such as liminal status, displacement and exclusion cause "existential and health-related ruptures in people's lives and bodies" (Mattes and Lang, 2021, p. 2;El-Shaarawi, 2015;O'Reilly, 2018). However, further research is needed to elucidate the multiple pathways by which the protracted displacement environment may increase refugees' susceptibility to mental health problems. ...
Multiple studies have found that refugees significantly underutilize mental health services. Yet, little is known about how refugees who live in contexts of protracted displacement cope with and recover from violence, trauma and chronic stress. The unique experiences of refugees living in Israel, particularly those fleeing the violence of Eritrea, is even less understood. This study sought to explore strategies of coping used by Eritrean refugee men and women living in Israel. In-depth interviews were conducted with 34 Eritrean refugees aged 26–40 having been identified as suffering or having suffered from psychological distress. Participants reported experiencing severe violence and upheaval in Eritrea, during flight, and struggled with daily life in Israel. Reported coping strategies were rooted and shaped by the Eritrean cultural context, systems of knowledge, values, and cultural perspectives. They included concealment, silence and forgetting, engaging in religious and spiritual practices, seeking social support, and, for some, accessing formal health and psycho-social services. Our findings underscore the profound effects of protracted displacement, with participants noting the anxiety, stress, uncertainty, and inability to build their lives brought forth by their liminal status. Findings also reveal the ways in which structural considerations in Israel, particularly law and policies, negatively impact upon the daily lives of Eritrean refugees, contributing to their ongoing distress. Taken together, these elements may deplete refugees’ coping resources and undermine their natural processes of recovery and healing. Our findings justify the need to re-think traditional models of trauma and recovery, integrate spirituality and cultural healing into interventions, consider how structural realities impact daily experience, and account for refugees' unique perspectives on distress within the care process.
... It has furthermore been shown that their dependence on officials' decisions about their legal status forces asylum-seekers into passivity as it is mostly beyond their power to influence these decisions (Kramer and Bala 2004). At the same time, studies also show that uncertainty offers space for hope (Besteman 2014;Brun 2015;El-Shaarawi 2015) and can promote individual and social transformation (Griffiths 2014). 'Uncertainty implies an at least preliminary lack of closure and hence a space for hope' (Kleist 2016: 4). ...
Even though a migration-uncertainty nexus has been widely acknowledged, several of its dimensions are strikingly understudied and under-theorised. This special issue contributes to the debate by focussing on migration movements that are linked to an extraordinary degree of uncertainty: refugee and forced migration. This introductory article highlights key points arising from the contributions. The articles look at both the migrants’ perspective and the perspective of local organisations dealing with refugee and forced migration, including the state. The special issue puts into sharper focus the relevance of further theorisation of uncertainty in migration processes at the local level, as it reveals several dimensions of uncertainty, namely as a fundamental experience, a challenge as well as a governing tool. Furthermore, we are able to bring together the micro- and meso-levels and to substantiate our theoretical contribution with ample empirical material.
... Exploring the concept of uncertainty and its connection to mental health was considered appropriate as the course convenors had just embarked on a new research project on this topic to fill an important research gap. Despite the growing literature in other conflict-affected contexts (Biehl, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Farhat et al., 2018;Schiltz et al., 2019), no information is currently available on how the uncertainty of daily life affects mental health and wellbeing. By engaging participants in this project, we provided them with contextual information, taught them how to identify a research gap in knowledge, and encouraged them to develop a research project. ...
To address the gap in locally driven mental health capacity strengthening initiatives in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), researchers from Birzeit University (BZU) and King's College London (KCL) developed a unique short course focusing on the intersection between methods, mental health, and conflict. The course was delivered in the West Bank at BZU, aiming to strengthen mental health research capacity among local researchers, health professionals and administrators. Twenty‐eight participants from the West Bank and East Jerusalem completed the course. Participants accepted on the course from the Gaza Strip did not receive permission by the Israeli authorities to travel to the West Bank and were thus unable to attend. A pre‐training assessment was completed before the start of the course and identified a gap in participants’ key qualitative and quantitative research skills. The post‐evaluation showed that all participants agreed that their qualitative research skills improved, and the majority agreed that their quantitative research skills improved. Several participants considered the quantitative part too intensive, requiring more training time. The majority of participants were highly satisfied with the course. Our initiative offers a model for strengthening the local research capacity required to tackle the burden of mental illness in conflict‐affected areas. This annual course can be scaled up to other conflict settings.
... Many of the participants expressed hope, but it is a hope that cannot be anchored in a defined future experience. The participants experienced the waiting for something that would define their lives for better or worse, but with limited possibilities to influence the outcome: one can try again to cross a border or send a new application, but those who decide are outside their sphere of influence (Biehl, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015;Horst and Grabska, 2015). ...
Most studies on refugee populations are organized around trauma-related issues and focus on explaining pathological factors. Few studies are anchored in general developmental psychology with the aim of exploring normal age-specific developmental tasks and how the special circumstances associated with forced migration can influence how developmental tasks are negotiated. This study is part of a larger mixed method study seeking to identify resilience-promoting and resilience-inhibiting factors, on individual and contextual levels, among asylum seekers and refugees on the move (passing through Serbia) and settled in reception centers in Norway. A strategic sample of 20 adolescent and young adult refugees/asylum seekers during flight in Serbia (10) and after arrival in Norway (10) was chosen from a sample of 178 refugees interviewed in depth in Serbia and at receptions centers in Norway. The sample reflects the focus of this paper, which is to explore adolescent and young adult refugees/asylum seekers’ psychological and social needs and resources during flight to and after arrival in the host country, including how developmental tasks are negotiated. Through qualitative analysis, experiences associated with the developmental changes the participants experienced before, during, and after flight are contextualized. Their sense of self, their relationships with their families and their perceptions of their situation as adolescents or young adults in a highly unpredictable situation are presented in the light of relevant theory and findings from similar refugee studies. All the participants have fled from dangerous and intolerable situations in their home countries. They describe extreme dangers during flight in contexts that are unpredictable and where they feel lonely and unsupported. Most have unmet psychosocial needs and have received little support or help for their mental health issues during flight or after arrival in Norway. Suggestions for interventions and resilience-promoting actions are given based on the findings of the study.
... In situations where displacement becomes protracted, the focus on the present can produce a sort of humanitarian 'Groundhog Day', stalling time, as measures that go beyond alleviating immediate suffering to instead restoring rights are pushed into the future (Brun, 2016: 402;Vandevoordt and Fleischmann, 2021: 190). Indeed, displaced persons frequently spend decades awaiting a solution to their displacement (Brun, 2015;El-Shaarawi, 2015;McNevin and Missbach, 2018;Singh, 2019). ...
This article contributes to the existing literature on the politics of waiting by discussing occupations led by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia. This literature has emphasised both the power that waiting frequently entails and, increasingly, the agency it can comprise. Yet less has been said about the potential role of waiting in generating resistance. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of power as intimately tied to resistance, this article explores how waiting can, in some instances, produce resistance. It uses fieldwork conducted in Bogotá, Colombia, between October 2017 and August 2018, including ethnographic observations and 120 interviews conducted with IDPs and state officials, to explore the centrality of waiting to IDPs’ experiences of displacement in Colombia. Contrary to those who would argue that such waiting encourages passivity, the article draws on a discussion of a two-year-long occupation by IDPs in Bogotá to argue that the long waiting periods facing the occupation’s participants prior to partaking in it were instrumental to facilitating the occupation. Waiting enabled the occupation in two major ways: by bringing together a group of people who would not have met had they not been forced to spend prolonged time together in close quarters and by constituting a key source of frustration motivating the occupation.
This article explores children in the majority world’s experiences of the stringent health security practices implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on original empirical research in five majority world countries, it examines children’s own accounts of their experiences of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. Our analysis of the children’s narratives draws out the spatial, temporal, and affective dimensions of home-making under stay-at-home orders. In turn, we highlight complex and ambivalent connections between the notable and the mundane, between security and the everyday, and between home-making and world-building, and offer conclusions informed by majority world children on the ‘(important) banality of security and security politics’.
This chapter investigates the wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals in Israel, considering the influence of the country’s sociocultural background on this issue. Embracing the theoretical framework of Life Course Theory, which emphasizes lifespan development, the chapter presents research findings on the wellbeing of Israeli LGBTQ+ individuals across distinct life-stages: younger and childfree individuals, parents, and older Israelis.
By examining the interplay between Israel’s societal characteristics of patriarchal norms, masculinity, pronatalism, and familism, which significantly shape the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals, this chapter offers valuable insights into their wellbeing experiences throughout the life span within a non-Euro-American context. The findings reviewed in this chapter contribute to the broader field of wellbeing research and provide exciting perspectives on the hedonic (life satisfaction and positive emotions) and eudaimonic (life meaning) aspects of happiness among the LGBTQ+ community in Israel.
This paper considers anxiety in the Thailand-Burma borderland, specifically as it relates to (mostly ethnic Karen) refugees in the Mae La camp, which has been in existence for over thirty years. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, it argues that refugee anxiety in Mae La is no longer rooted in uncertainty or makeshift living conditions in the camp, but rather in recurring threats of camp closure. Counter to conventional notions of refugee camps being temporary and of refugees living a life in a suspended state, waiting to either resettle or return, Mae La reflects a quite different dynamic. Its long-term nature has led to temporally very different dynamics. Refugee anxiety and uncertainty have given way to an attention to the present, which is channeled through building infrastructure. This has anchored refugees and attached their lives to the camp. Anxiety has thereby morphed into anxiety about a future in which they might be forced to leave behind their lives and everything they have built.
This paper identifies and examines three key approaches prevalent in the geographical study of migration: the displacement and mobilities approach, the transit and waiting approach, and the immigrant settlement approach. Each approach is analyzed in terms of its treatment of time and migratory experiences, critiquing them for reinforcing conventional temporal categories: the past, present, and future. It argues that these categories are problematic as they oversimplify the complex spatiotemporal nature of migration. The paper proposes the concept of “temporal logics” to problematize and de-reify these categories, enabling a more nuanced analysis of time in migration, mobility, and displacement processes.
This article explores the uncertainty experienced by Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel, with a focus on the role of institutional mechanisms in engendering this sentiment. It highlights the Israeli government's reliance on ambiguous and frequently modified policies as a form of policing aimed at maintaining the temporary status of asylum seekers. This approach, conceptualised as legal violence (Menjivar & Abrego, 2012), exacerbates feelings of instability and powerlessness among the immigrant community. Utilising mixed research methods, the study identified two primary factors contributing to this uncertainty: a shortage of accessible and credible information, and a lack of control over their lives. A disparity was observed along the gender axis, with female asylum seekers having less access to reliable information and fewer opportunities to exercise control over their lives compared to their male counterparts. Interestingly, these disparities do not correspond to a heightened sense of uncertainty among women. In a paradoxical twist, traditional gender roles, which typically necessitate women's reliance on men for information and decision-making, appear to have shielded the women, mitigating their perception of uncertainty. By focusing on the Sudanese community in Israel as a case study, this article contributes significantly to the discourse on the forced migrants' sense of uncertainty. It adopts a dual perspective, studying both the macro-level impact of state policies, and the micro-level of individual experiences, in order to understand how these elements jointly influence the day-to-day lives of refugees and asylum seekers. Additionally, the article examines the gendered aspects of uncertainty, shedding light on how cultural and social norms result in distinctly different experiences for male and female refugees. The findings of this study offer insights into the challenges faced by the Sudanese in Israel, while also broadening our understanding of the inherent sense of uncertainty central to the worldwide refugee experience.
How are im/mobilities articulated, imagined and practiced in relation to multiple futures? A critical examination of im/mobilities raises questions as to how power relations and crisis-driven futures enable, inhibit or prevent mobility, what meanings are culturally constructed around im/mobilities and how they are experienced. The contributors to this volume look at entangled future mobilities and immobilities using humanities and social science approaches in diverse examples: Afrofuturist poetry, de-extinction projects, dystopian novels, a Uruguayan planned relocation program, lives of rural Zambian women, climate adaptation in Morocco and Austrian financial literacy policy.
Despite the adverse consequences associated with conflictual divorce, there is a dearth of understanding regarding how individuals navigate the enduring process of marital dissolution, perceive encountered difficulties, and undergo inner changes. Consequently, this study aims to elucidate the experiences of divorcees by developing a grounded theory that delineates the transition of the self amidst a protracted conflictual divorce. This involves an exploration of its defining characteristics that either facilitate or impede its timely occurrence. Employing a constructivist grounded theory and a longitudinal qualitative research approach, we systematically collected and analysed data through two waves of interviews with 16 females and five males who had either been living separately or had officially initiated divorce proceedings at least six months prior. The findings reveal that the process of self-transition during divorce follows a trajectory of temporal self-disruption, progressing towards the pursuit of inner (re)balance. However, this journey is markedly strained within the liminal space, characterised by an elevated perception of being assailed by multiple external sources and trapped in perpetual, absurd uncertainty. The resourcefulness of supporting means and self-strengthening strategies is intricate and contingent upon an individual’s broader situational and circumstantial context. The identified elements coalesce to form the grounded theory of “strained liminality.” This theory elucidates a process of identity reconstruction wherein the transition to a new, clearly defined self remains incomplete or significantly protracted, as individuals find themselves entangled in an ambiguous and highly conflictual space necessitating resolution and closure. Drawing from these findings, the study offers practical recommendations and implications for various involved specialists and individuals undergoing divorce.
This article draws on a study with Syrian refugee youth and their teachers to examine how young people, holding liminal social and legal statuses in Jordan, manage uncertainty. Through an analysis of students' experiences, this article describes the varying strategies that they developed to protect their sense of hope across time by maintaining ontological security, or an understanding of self. These findings suggested that refugee youth, unable to navigate uncertainty through their educational spaces, explored alternative ways to actively build hope and sustain a sense of control in their lives. They nurtured hope by constructing a continuous narrative of their experiences, exploring their skills and potential, and forming attachments to ideas of place and possibility. Buildings on these findings, this article argues for the importance of integrating practices within education which respond to refugee youths’ needs to maintain ontological security and hope in the face of uncertainty.
By examining the changes that have occurred in migration policies over the last decade, which have radically transformed the mobility trajectories of migrants, the article analyses the im-mobility produced by these policies through existential, spatial and temporal perspectives. Going deep into two ethnographic settings in Calabria (Southern Italy), one rural and one urban, the article investigates how people involved in the process of going through the reception system can enhance their aspirations, hopes and desires in the attempt to find greater existential, work and housing stability. Together with the initiatives of local groups and social networks, the ‘“capacity to aspire’” of individuals is, in fact, the basis of the possibility to navigate the im-mobility produced by migration policies as well as to imagine and practice the future in present-times.
This study used collage-making and a virtual focus group to explore the impact of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition on the mental health of women seeking asylum in Glasgow. Research has found that post-migration stressors largely contribute to poor mental health outcomes in people seeking asylum (Solberg et al., 2020). In particular, policies such as no right to work and NRPF push already vulnerable populations further
into precarity (Dudhia 2020). This has a distinct effect on migrant women with NRPF who are at increased risk of facing ‘the fours D’s’ - disbelief, destitution, detention and deportation (McIlwaine, Granada and Valenzuela-Oblitas, 2019). Carrying out a thematic analysis, three themes were determined; “My inner self is broken”, “Waiting just kills” and “Dark stormy fairytale”. The findings of this study highlight how the asylum process infringes upon people’s identities, their sense of control over the future as well as belongingness to Scotland. Social support emerged as a critical tool to tackle some of the mental health concerns that prevail as a direct result of the post-migration environment (Salway et al., 2020).
Humanitarian migrants face a range of challenges during the resettlement process. Foremost among these is finding affordable, secure and suitable housing. Applying a liminality lens, we use two longitudinal surveys, one specific to humanitarian migrants (Building a New Life in Australia [BNLA]) and one representative of the Australian population (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia [HILDA]), to examine the effect of precarious housing on humanitarian migrants' mental health; and compare this to the greater Australian population using fixed effects regression models. Such an approach controls for participants' previous experiences and isolates, as much as possible, the causal effect of precarious housing on mental health.
Modelling of 21,462 HILDA and 2399 BLNA respondents over five years revealed a negative mental health effect attributed to unaffordable and unsuitable housing for both humanitarian migrants and the Australian population, with humanitarian migrants at greater risk of poor mental health due to unsuitable housing. Humanitarian migrants were 60 % more likely to suffer from serious mental illness due to unaffordable housing, with the risk 2.4 times higher for those in unsuitable housing. Such findings suggest housing precarity can extend the process of liminality for humanitarian migrants, and future policies should facilitate greater access to affordable housing.
Стаття присвячена проблемі зміни в орієнтації у соціальному часі особистості у ситуації війни у порівнянні з її темпоральними орієнтаціями в ситуації миру. Зауважується, що ця різниця у темпоральних орієнтаціях може бути «спусковим гачком» для розгортання тривалої екзистенційної кризи особистості. Мета дослідження – з’ясування залежності екзистенційної кризи особистості від процесів дезорієнтації у соціальному часі в ході війни і визначення можливості подолання такої кризи за рахунок антагоністичних – адаптивних – механізмів пристосування до ситуації часової невизначеності. Об’єктом дослідження виступає конструювання соціального часу в різноманітних світоглядних парадигмах, предметом дослідження – конструювання соціального часу в рамках парадигми повсякденно-буденного світогляду особистістю в ситуації миру та в ситуації війни. Дослідження виходить з аналізу різноманітних типів світогляду як специфічних моделей темпоральної структуризації і спирається на фундаментальні філософські розробки темпоральності у конструкті людської свідомості – на роботи Августина Блаженного, Ісаака Ньютона, Анрі Бергсона. Також був використаний наробок українських психологів Бориса Цуканова та Ярослава Васильєва, які довели, що у свідомості людини є специфічний, індивідуальний відлік часу, що структурує всі процеси її життєвої та сенсотворчої діяльності. Були використані також роботи сучасних зарубіжних вчених, які досліджують питання темпорологічних конструкцій в свідомості особистості, яка переживає ситуацію війни. Методи дослідження – дедуктивний, аналітичний, компаративістський, а також використовується посилання на метод феноменологічної редукції. Результати дослідження. Наголошується на тому, що в ситуації миру в свідомості індивіда наявний транзит між часовими модусами «минуле», «теперішнє», «майбутнє», у той час як у ситуації війни цей транзит може розриватися. Цей темпоральний розрив може супроводжуватися своєрідним «застряганням» свідомості людини або у минулому, або у теперішньому, або у майбутньому, що спричинює глибоку екзистенційну кризу та втрату справжньої суб’єктності. Втрата суб’єктності, у свою чергу, пов’язана з неможливістю будувати довгострокові плани на майбутнє і відповідно до них рефлексувати своє минуле, визначати теперішнє. Повернути транзит між періодами часу можливо, якщо особистість включить наратив війни у свою персональну історію і почне провадити своє життя як творчість – творчість проживання кожного нового дня.
The COVID-19 outbreak caused a worldwide health emergency which disproportionately affected migrants and ethnic minorities. Yet, little is known about the psychosocial effects of the pandemic among refugees and asylum seekers. This study used a convergent parallel mixed-method design to explore knowledge and opinions concerning COVID-19 and the impact of lockdown on perceived mental health and future orientation among 42 young adult asylum seekers residing in northeastern Italy. Participants took part in individual interviews comprising both qualitative and quantitative questions. Qualitative reports were analyzed using thematic content analysis, whereas descriptive statistics and paired sample t-tests were computed on quantitative data. Results indicated that most participants were correctly informed about the nature, origin, and spread of COVID-19, expressed moderate or high satisfaction concerning the clarity of communication about safety measures, and followed them most of the time. Worries about family in the home country, loneliness, fear for own and loved ones' health, and concerns about delays in the asylum application were the most frequently mentioned stressful events. Psychological and physical distress significantly increased, and positive future orientation significantly decreased during the lockdown. However, participants also emphasized the usefulness of instrumental support from social workers and exhibited a resilient attitude characterized by the acceptance of uncertainty, sense of connectedness, and positive outlook. Overall, findings suggest that the current emergency may exacerbate psychological vulnerabilities of asylum seekers due to continued existential uncertainty. Thus, individual and contextual assets should be strengthened to promote psychosocial adjustment and coping resources in the context of the pandemic.
Forced migration refers to the forcibly induced movement of people, for example, when migrants are forced to flee to escape conflict or persecution or become trafficked. The definition also encompasses situations of enforced immobility, for example, when displaced people are confined to refugee camps and detention centers. Forced displacement may occur within or across the borders of the nation-state. According to this definition, the effect of the force causing the migratory movement is crucial, and distinguishes forced migrants—who may be termed “refugee,” “trafficked person,” “stateless person,” “asylum seeker,” or “internally displaced persons” (IDPs)—from other migrants such as economic migrants. However, as anthropologists of forced migration illustrate, such distinctions by legal, state, or international organizations are not always relevant outside of institutional logics; when backed up by the force of the state, they can undermine the livelihoods and safety of migrants.
The anthropology of forced migration is undertaken by researchers who aim to depict and capture the realities of forced migrants, and to understand the world from the perspective of the forced migrants themselves. The anthropology of forced migration also addresses the historical context that drives the displacement as well as how forced migrants interact with their cultural, social, religious, and economic environments, and how doing so compels cultural change.
By virtue of their influence in the lives of forced migrants, anthropologists of forced migration must incorporate the terminologies and classifications of international organizations and states into their analyses, since these terminologies and classifications have tangible effects on the lives of migrants. At the same time, anthropologists of forced migration interrogate these terminologies and classifications. In so doing, they prioritize the perspectives and realities of the forced migrants over external classifications and definitions. Consequently, the anthropology of forced migration is distinguished from other disciplines that also explore forced migration such as international law and some studies in the field of refugee studies and (forced) migration studies.
On a theoretical level, an analysis that centers on the experiences, perspectives, and realities of forced migrants enables novel insights into societal processes such as austerity policies, the role of borders in society and the global system, and the work of humanitarian organizations. These policies, societal dynamics, and institutions have tangible and deep effects on the lives of forced migrants. How forced migrants interact with external systems and institutions has raised vital questions on dependency and agency, which anthropologists of forced migration have discussed in their works.
Many anthropologists of forced migration also aim to be helpful in improving programs for forced migrants by conveying the perspectives and experiences of forced migrants to policymakers so that such programs are more relevant to the realities of forced migrants. Anthropologists of forced migration have also used art installations and films to convey the experience of forced migration.
For over twenty years, Italy has faced the phenomenon of so-called “forced” international migrations. By virtue of its geographic position in the Mediterranean, this country constitutes, in many cases, the first landing and the transit country for asylum seekers in their flight from wars, political crises, environmental catastrophes and depletion of resources. This also implied a growing number of “rejections” that is, asylum seekers to whom no form of protection was grantedand are unlikely to return to their country of origin. A segment of them represents an intense geographic mobility or, better to say, multiple mobilities that intersect and fuel each other.Scholars have mostly explored the trajectories of mobility of the native people or so-called “economic migrants”. Much more rarely, refugees and asylum seekers have been perceived and framed as mobile subjects, protagonists of multiple and plural geographic, social, and migration movements.Therefore, this editorial and the whole Special Issue focus on the social changes that are reshaping migration scenarios, with particular attention paid to the paths of international and national mobility of refugees and asylum seekers outside the reception system, as well as their geographical, social and migration trajectories.Specifically, after introducing the topic, this paper, on the one hand, reconstructs the framework of Italian asylum policies, progressively more restrictive and discriminatory and destined to become a model for the entire European Union, analyzing the impact of the legal system and migration policies on the construction of the material and labor vulnerability of migrants and their exploitation within the national labor market. On the other hand, it deepens and reconstructs the theoretical perspectives on the phenomenon of mobility, the intersection between spatial dimension and temporal dimensions. Particular attention is paid to the pandemic and to the sociological interpretations of this phenomenon, the “mirror function” that it performs within society and the global migration scenario, the instrumental uses that have been made of this crisis in the political, economic, legal and social fields and the impact it has had on the common ethnographic and research practices shared by the papers that make up the Special Issue. Finally, the Editorial present the structure of the Special Issue and the contents of the articles, organized according to coherent theoretical and empirical path, aimed at illuminating all the facets of the “prism of new mobility”.
This article is published as part of the Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography special issue ‘Palestinian Futures Anticipation, Imagination, Embodiments', edited by Mikko Joronen, Helga Tawil-Souri, Merav Amir & Mark Griffiths.
In this paper, I examine different treatments of the future in Palestine through four scenes. I argue that the four scenes offer a reorientation of Palestinian temporality, in which there exists a multiplicity of temporal orderings of the past and the future. I situated Palestinian futures as imagined and communicated by Palestinian artists against the hegemonic narrative of a futurity that single out the path to statehood as the ultimate future for Palestine. I show that despite the violence that the Israeli state inflicts on Palestinian daily life, which affects their ability to imagine something else outside the immediate everyday, Palestinian struggle for liberation is always already future-oriented. The four scenes suggest that the future for Palestinians resides in the working of the imaginative in which the future might evoke a past or haunt the present. Thus, when read closely, Palestinian temporality can be viewed as cyclical, not linear. In Aamer Hlehel’s play, the past haunts the future, while in Hadeel’s Assali’s letter the past describes the liberated future. The continuous loss is enfolded into future traces in the form of memory in Samar Hazboun’s work, and in the form of evidence, or daleel- in Jawad’s Al Malhi’s work.
The displaced from Iraq now constitute one of the largest refugee populations worldwide manifesting the evolving conditions
of “protracted displacement”. Unlocking this protracted crisis of displacement requires analysis of the perceptions of solutions,
durable and not-so-durable, among all stakeholders. This article focuses on the local-level perceptions of practitioners,
policy-makers, and Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. It is based on desk research and interviews in the field
in April and May 2011. Our findings show that the three classical durable solutions are largely unworkable for the majority
of Iraqis in exile in the Middle East. Their migration is often circular and involves movement in and out of Iraq as well
as across wider transnational networks in the Middle East and further afield. There is a need for an analytical shift from
transitory humanitarian (emergency) assistance to fostering inclusive local assistance and accommodation to cater to the large
group of Iraqi refugees who are increasingly “stuck” in host countries of the Middle East. It is worth exploring the possibility
of a multi-directional approach to unlocking this prolonged crisis that taps into legal, policy, and operational opportunities.
The Somali word buufis is commonly used in the Kenyan refugee camps of Dadaab, referring to a person's dream of resettlement. It is an ambiguous
phenomenon, bringing hope and remittances into the camps but also removing investments from the region and, when the dream
cannot be reached, sometimes having adverse psychological effects. Buufis is triggered by the fact that, due to transnational flows of remittances and information, refugees in remote camps like Dadaab
can compare their lives in the camps to those of others elsewhere. This illustrates how the opportunities, constraints, hopes
and dreams that refugees experience locally are often determined by transnational factors. Whereas the resettlement dreams
analysed in this article are thus likely to occur in other contexts as well, it is argued that they are more intense and elaborate
amongst refugee communities with a strong culture of migration, like the Somalis.
The paper explores the marginalization of Sudanese refugees in Cairo, arguing that although socially, economically, culturally and politically marginalized, refugees participate and contribute to the transformation of urban spaces in Cairo, as they do elsewhere in the developing world. The paper finds that in terms of legal security and livelihood coping strategies, there is little difference between those refugees with legal status and those residing illegally in Egypt. Despite social exclusion and lack of access to rights and services, some Sudanese refugees balance risks and costs of marginalization to advance their livelihoods. In general, in the context of lack of full integration possibilities in Egypt and inadequate assistance provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office and international and local organizations and faith-based institutions, refugees come up with creative ways of managing their livelihoods, contributing both economically and culturally to the host society. In this context, refugees are seen as social agents, rather than an economic burden for the host country.
In most academic literature refugees are portrayed either as those who lack what national citizens have or as a threat to the national order of things. This article explores the effects of being excluded in such a way, and argues that Burundian refugees in a camp in northwest Tanzania find themselves in an ambiguous position, being excluded from the national order of things — secluded in the Tanzanian bush — while simultaneously being subject to state-of-the-art humanitarian interventions — apparently bringing them closer to the international community. The article explores the ways in which refugees in the camp relate to the international community. Ambiguous perceptions of the international community are expressed in rumours and conspiracy theories. These conspiracy theories create a kind of ontological surety by presenting the Hutu refugees as the victims of a grand Tutsi plot supported by ‘the big nations’. Finally, the article argues that refugees — being excluded from the nation-state and being subject to the government of international NGOs — seek recognition from the international community rather than any nation-state. This does not, however, destabilize the hegemony of the nation-state, as refugees perceive their own position as temporary and the international community as the guarantor of a more just international order in the long run.
This essay seeks to extend current anthropological theorizing on emotion. Although anthropologists have convincingly established the specifically cultural status of emotion, recognition also of "state" (including sociopolitical institutions of nation-states) constructions of affect has been slow in coming. The present essay seeks to expand the emerging scholarly discourse on the emotions by examining the nexus among the role of the state in constructing a political ethos, the personal emotions of those who dwell in that ethos, and the mental health consequences for refugees. This analysis is intended as a bridge between analyses of the state construction of affect, on the one hand, and the phenomenology of those affects, on the other. To illustrate, I examine the state construction of affect and its traces in the narrative and clinical presentations of Salvadoran refugees in North America. The saliency of fear and anxiety among a group of psychiatric out-patients is framed by bodily experience, knowledge of illness, and the ethnopsychology of emotion within the context of chronic political violence and poverty. Distinctions between terror and torture, distress and disease are proposed as essential to an account of refugee experience. Future directions for the study of the "state construction of affect" are suggested.
Suffering and Sentiment examines the cultural and personal experiences of chronic and acute pain sufferers in a richly described account of everyday beliefs, values, and practices on the island of Yap (Waqab), Federated States of Micronesia. C. Jason Throop provides a vivid sense of Yapese life as he explores the local systems of knowledge, morality, and practice that pertain to experiencing and expressing pain. In so doing, Throop investigates the ways in which sensory experiences like pain can be given meaningful coherence in the context of an individual's culturally constituted existence. In addition to examining the extent to which local understandings of pain's characteristics are personalized by individual sufferers, the book sheds important new light on how pain is implicated in the fashioning of particular Yapese understandings of ethical subjectivity and right action.
Despite long-standing recognition that variations exist between people's experiences of time, and that time is central to the framing of social life and bureaucratic systems, migration scholars have tended to neglect the temporal dimension in their exploration of mobility. This continues to be the case today despite it being over a decade since Saulo Cwerner, in this journal, called for migration researchers to give greater attention to time. This article seeks to reinvigorate the debate, drawing on ethnographic research with refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees in the UK to question how an appreciation of time provides insights into understandings of mobility and deportability. It argues that deportable migrants suffer from the instability and precarity created by living with a dual uncertainty of time, one that simultaneously threatens imminent and absent change. The article distinguishes between four experiential temporalities (sticky, suspended, frenzied and ruptured), and considers how the re-appropriation of time might aid individual resilience.
This paper discusses mental and psychological impacts of Australia's temporary protection visa (TPV) policy on individual asylum seekers. The paper is based on personal narratives constructed by individual asylum seekers during one-on-one interviews and aims principally to sketch the discursive manifestations of stressful events in the lives of TPV holders. The fact that refugees exhibit signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not entirely new or surprising given the level of trauma, and in many cases torture and persecution, endured in the pre-migration phase.
What is particularly revealing among many TPV holders is the fact that their pre-migration traumatic experiences are compounded by a post-migration condition of being in indefinite "temporary" protection. This is further exacerbated by an awareness of the exclusionary discourses and policies advocated by the host government. Past trauma and persecution, combined with present family separation and social exclusion, further compounded by uncertainty about the future, results in almost chronic states of anxiety and depression among a significant number of TPV holders.<br /
This study of two seemingly counter-intuitive phenomena - 'involuntary immobility' and 'socially fortuitous wartime migration - 'seeks to reveal important limitations in the theoretical framing of the interdisciplinary field of forced migration/refugee studies. In the Mozambican context, I demonstrate that the forms of disruption and disempowerment usually attributed to wartime movement were more often produced by involuntary immobility than by migration per seeven while wartime migration paradoxically resulted in forms of empowerment for at least some social actors. I argue that the implicit conflation of migration with displacement that currently serves as the definitional point of departure in forced migration/refugee studies, not only renders invisible an entire category of people who suffer a form of 'displacement in place' through involuntary immobilization, but also distorts our analysis of the experience of wartime migrants themselves. © The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Time and migration have become fundamental themes in recent debates about modernity, globalisation, mobility and other contemporary issues. However, the relationship between the two has rarely figured as an explicit object of research. And yet, the analysis of the mutual implications between migration and time can be crucial for the understanding of several theoretical and practical problems associated with immigration, nation-states and multicultural societies. This article examines some of the complex temporal dimensions of the migration process. It reveals that time has often appeared as an important dimension in various accounts of immigration. On the basis of empirical research conducted with a particular immigrant group, namely Brazilians in London, the article suggests a number of conceptual tools for the analysis of the temporal aspects of migration. This conceptual framework is based on the development of the notions of the strange, heteronomous, asynchronous, remembered, collage, liminal, diasporic and nomadic times of migration. Finally, I briefly discuss the relationship between these times, the nation-states' responses to immigration, and the constitution of new forms of transnational social and cultural practices.
The term 'asylum' has a dual connotation that generates opposing but related forms of intervention: providing sanctuary and protection vs. imposing confinement and quarantine. The proliferation of "neomodern insecurity"--intrastate violence and the specter of transnational terrorism, arising within many postcolonial, postauthoritarian and postsocialist states--generates intervention practices that reflect the dual connotations of asylum. In fragile states like Haiti, national insecurity (ensekirite) often results in the flight of traumatized populations across and within national borders. For these individuals, 'asylum' connotes the attainment of political recognition and inclusion outside Haiti's space of ensekirite. Ironically, these vulnerable persons may be viewed as threats to the nations they seek to enter. In so-called secure states like the United States, the threat of insecurity often engenders interventions to contain, manage and rehabilitate states of disorder, as well as their disordered subjects. By chronicling the case of a young Haitian refugee who sought asylum in the United States, was detained and then repatriated after manifesting the disordered signs of insecurity, I argue that the Haitian trope of ensekirite captures and prefigures the subjective experience of neomodernity, one for which there is no asylum.
This paper presents the results of a larger study conducted among Southern Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Egypt. "Illness talk" and body metaphors are the focus of the present work, which is based mainly on an analysis of the illness narratives of people attending a church-run medical clinic. The findings suggest that refugees use certain narrative styles in discussing their illnesses that highlight the interconnection of bodily ills and refugee-related trauma. The refugees narrated the histories of their illnesses in terms consistent and coterminous with their refugee histories, and articulated illness causes in terms of threatening assaults on their sense of self as human beings and as part of a distinct community and culture. The use of embodied metaphors to understand and cope with their current and past traumatic experiences was echoed in narratives that were nonillness related. Metaphors such as "the heart," "blood," and "body constriction" were consistently used to discuss social and cultural losses. Understanding the role that the body plays in experience and communication within a given cultural context is crucial for physicians and others assisting refugees.