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Sub-Saharan migrants 'in transit': intersections between mobility and immobility and the production of (in)securities
Abstract
This article argues that addressing the security threats-and protection needs-of the so-called 'transit migrants' requires an understanding of (im)mobility as a politically constitutive force. In doing so, it points to the analytical advantages of expanding critical security studies in International Relations to include the politics of mobility, as opposed to a sedentary focus on the security-migration nexus. Building on the contributions of anthropologists and geographers of migration yet with a specific focus on understanding how (im)mobility and (in)security are mutually constitutive political practices that produce migrants' travel experiences, the article problematizes the category of transit. By way of empirical illustration, the journey experiences of thirty-one sub-Saharan migrants as they traveled in Spain are reconstructed using a multi-sited ethnography, with the goal of analyzing the specific locations where mobility and immobility intersect, the co-production between (im)mobility and (in)security, and how migrants' agency is transformed at these intersection nodes.
... Restrictive migration policies, lack of protection for migrants in irregular migratory status and border closures have increased the vulnerability of distress migration in the last years (McAuliffe et al., 2022;Bojorquez et al., 2021). The unprecedented rise in the migration movements have turned border dynamics in LAC into spaces of mobility and immobility that influence the economic, social, and political dynamics of intraregional and extracontinental migrants (Iranzo, 2021;Freier and Castillo-Jara, 2022). On top of that, the closure of borders and political restrictions during and after COVID-19 have exposed distress migration to dangerous situations, increasing precarious forms of mobility. ...
... Security and safety threats along the migration journey, especially during the crossing of borders, place distressed migrants in transit in prolonged periods of insecurity and immobility (Iranzo, 2021). Neither the time spent in transit nor the destination point is clear for the distress migration, as it changes according to the migration policies at the borders and at the destination(s) (Düvell, 2012, Gil Everaert, 2020. ...
The absence of the right to health of migrants in transit has evolved into a significant global health concern, particularly in the border regions thus, this study aims to improve knowledge in this area by exploring the effects of the spatio-temporal liminal characteristics at borders in the achievement of the right to health of migrants in transit moving across two of the most transited and dangerous borders in Latin America: Colchane (Chile-Bolivia) and the Darién Gap (Colombia-Panamá). Through a qualitative descriptive multi-case study, we implemented 50 semi-structured interviews (n = 30 in Chile and n = 20 in the Darién/Necoclí) involving national, regional, and local stakeholders. The findings highlight that the fulfilment of the right to health of migrants in transit is hindered by liminal dynamics at the borders. These dynamics include closure of borders, (in)securities, uncertainty and waiting, lack of economic resources, lack of protection to all, liminal politics, and humanitarian interventions. These findings surface how the borders’ liminality exacerbates the segregation of migrants in transit by placing them in a temporospatial limbo that undermines their right to health. Our study concludes that not just the politics but also the everyday practices, relationships and social infrastructure at borders impedes the enjoyment of the right to health of distressed migrants in transit. The short-term humanitarian response; illicit dynamics at borders; migratory regulations; and border and cross-border political structures are some of the most significant determinants of health at these borderlands.
... Restrictive migration policies, lack of protection for migrants in irregular migratory status and border closures have increased the vulnerability of distress migration in the last years (McAuliffe et al., 2022;Bojorquez et al., 2021). The unprecedented rise in the migration movements have turned border dynamics in LAC into spaces of mobility and immobility that influence the economic, social, and political dynamics of intraregional and extracontinental migrants (Iranzo, 2021;Freier and Castillo-Jara, 2022). On top of that, the closure of borders and political restrictions during and after COVID-19 have exposed distress migration to dangerous situations, increasing precarious forms of mobility. ...
... Security and safety threats along the migration journey, especially during the crossing of borders, place distressed migrants in transit in prolonged periods of insecurity and immobility (Iranzo, 2021). Neither the time spent in transit nor the destination point is clear for the distress migration, as it changes according to the migration policies at the borders and at the destination(s) (Düvell, 2012, Gil Everaert, 2020. ...
... Es probable que los viajes de las personas cruzando esta frontera hayan durado semanas, meses o incluso años, con períodos de inmovilidad previstos o inesperados durante este tiempo (véase también Collyer, 2007Collyer, , 2010Iranzo, 2021). La llegada a Oujda solo significa que han A ...
... Número 54 • Octubre 2023 -Enero 2024 Grupo de Estudios de Relaciones Internacionales Universidad Autónoma de Madrid concreta dentro de la ciudad. Los continuos están aún por desarrollarse, ya que es probable que esa localidad situada cerca de la frontera con Argelia sea sólo un punto en el camino, siendo una posibilidad el intento de cruzar la frontera terrestre hacia las ciudades españolas de Ceuta o Melilla, o la travesía marítima a través del Mediterráneo o el Atlántico (por ejemplo, Kynsilehto, 2019Kynsilehto, , 2023Iranzo, 2021). ...
This paper argues for a need to decenter the state and (re)center the human when exploring mobilities within international relations scholarship. To make this argument we bring together feminist and critical security studies, as well as multidisciplinary insights, to address the encounter between the person on the move and the enforcement of national sovereignty. This allows us to highlight the continuums of in/security and im/mobility entwined in this encounter. In so doing, we challenge the discipline’s understanding of security that is often conceptualized from the perspective of state security only, despite critiques of such understandings that emanate from and build on different critical approaches. Furthermore, feminist international relations scholarship and feminist security studies in particular have stressed the necessity to examine security and violence as continuums that traverse across sites ranging from the corporeal and intimate to the global and transnational, and which span over time. Combined with mobility studies that focus on migrant trajectories across countries, regions, and continents with periods of chosen or unwanted immobility in between, this body of scholarship helps us understand how border enforcement impacts diversely positioned persons’ lives. Such an exercise is also useful for making visible the intended and unintended consequences of policymaking that is based on state interests only, and one that refuses to acknowledge the human beings who are caught up in these consequences. Methodologically, the paper draws on long-term ethnographic research conducted at the Mexican side of the Mexico-US border and in Morocco. We have brought together insights from our respective research projects to address border externalization and its impact in two different parts of the world, enacted by two different states (the US) and supranational entities (the EU) on their neighbors to the South, likely to be economically and politically less powerful but supposedly similarly sovereign states. The paper is organized as follows: we begin the first section by discussing the key notion of state sovereignty which is enacted at the border and demonstrate how borders of certain states extend far beyond their demarcated territories. This process, conceptualized as externalization of migration management and border control, can be perceived as contradicting the sovereignty of those states subjected to these externalization practices. We then move on to the notion of security and ask the question of whose security is at stake. Here we demonstrate how the enforcement of state security jeopardizes the safety and security of those people on the move who are located in less privileged positions in the global hierarchies of mobility. In the second section, we discuss how the perspectives outlined in the previous section manifest in our two research sites. This section focuses on the continuums of mobility and immobility and those of security and insecurity, and proposes how we could begin addressing the diversely positioned human as a manifold yet full subject. We argue that International Relations scholarship usually ignores the human altogether or, at best, acknowledges the human in high-level politics drawing on the model based on the theory on rational actorness. Moreover, the analysis of insights gained at our research sites sheds light on the ways in which mobility is unevenly distributed, and how the enactment of mobility is gendered and racialized in complex ways. We conclude the paper by reflecting what these concerns might mean for international relations scholarship at the conjuncture of human im/mobility and security, and for contributing towards mobility justice.
... Tras la entrada de España en la UE en 1986 y la consiguiente firma del Protocolo de Acceso al Acuerdo de Schengen en 1991 -y hasta el momento del alzado de las vallas-, las fronteras terrestres de Ceuta y Melilla actuaron como umbrales relativamente fáciles de cruzar. De este modo, las ciudades fueron integrándose de forma gradual en las trayectorias de parte de la inmigración subsahariana hacia la UE 6 (Iranzo, 2021;Lahlou, 2015;Collyer, 2007;De Haas, 2007;Schapendonk, 2012). Ante la fortificación administrativa que implicaba el despliegue de un régimen de visados Schengen cada vez más restrictivo (Van Houtum, 2010), las fronteras terrestres de las ciudades se irían transformando en vías de acceso alternativas. ...
El artículo traza la evolución de los regímenes fronterizos de Ceuta y Melilla, desde el ingreso de España en la UE en 1986 hasta la actualidad. Pese al no reconocimiento de la soberanía española de las ciudades —ni, en consecuencia, de la legitimidad de las fronteras de la UE en África—, Marruecos se ha convertido en un actor indispensable en el esquema de gobernanza fronterizo-migratoria desplegado en Ceuta y Melilla, y ha rentabilizado esta nueva ventaja estratégica en el marco de sus relaciones bilaterales con España y con la Unión Europea. La lógica de externalización de las políticas de control fronterizo ha allanado el camino a un amplio abanico de prácticas de control migratorio en torno a las ciudades norteafricanas. Dichas prácticas han sido escrutadas en profundidad desde ópticas académicas, periodísticas y activistas. Su análisis ha arrojado luz, por un lado, sobre la lógica de excepcionalidad que rodea al régimen fronterizo de la UE en las ciudades y, por otro, sobre cómo los migrantes y activistas han desafiado, denunciado y resistido a dicho régimen, contribuyendo así a su constante reconfiguración. El texto concluye analizando las consecuencias de dos factores interrelacionados que han ejercido de vectores de cambio: por un lado, la «crisis» diplomático-fronteriza de mayo de 2021 y, por otro, la subsiguiente reapertura parcial de los pasos fronterizos de Ceuta y Melilla en mayo de 2022, tras dos años de cierre iniciado con el estallido de la pandemia de covid-19. Ambos factores han conducido a una nueva reconfiguración de la gestión de la movilidad transfronteriza en la región. Como ilustran los sucesos letales sucedidos en la valla de Melilla de junio de 2022, los cambios han desembocado en la consolidación de la cooperación operativa hispanomarroquí y en un nuevo recrudecimiento de las prácticas de obstaculización migratoria en la frontera exterior de la UE.
... There is a lack of studies focusing on the immobility experiences of Nigerians living within the country. Extant research has primarily focused on the experiences of those who have moved across Nigeria's borders (Haugen, 2012;Ahrens, 2013;Veale and Andres, 2014;Antwi Bosiakoh, 2019;Berriane, 2020;Gross-Wyrtzen, 2020;Iranzo, 2021). ...
While prevailing research on migration predominantly concentrates on individuals fleeing adversities, this approach results in an underrepresentation of communities that exhibit a desire for immobility even in adversity. Thus, the decision of some community members to resist displacement and stay put in communities exposed to adversity, such as violent conflict—eco-violence, is underexplored; this article addresses this gap. In this article, grounded in the concept of collective memory, a reflexive thematic approach is used to analyze data collected in May 2022 from focus group participants in Benue and Nasarawa states in the North Central region of Nigeria. Among other things, the findings highlight the role of collective and materialized memories in shaping the attachments of community members to their ancestral land and their subsequent voluntary adoption of immobility. This article enriches the literature by presenting a perspective on how people’s memories shape the dynamics that support their quest for immobility within their conflict-affected communities, in this case, in the Nigerian context.
... (5) Aunque la migración se considera una oportunidad de superación y desarrollo cuando se trata de decisiones propias, la literatura documenta que casi siempre está asociada a situaciones forzadas ocasionadas por problemas de seguridad nacional, control de fronteras, entre otros factores. (6,7,8) Es ahí cuando el ingreso de migrantes de condición irregular genera inseguridades en los países receptores, ya que involucra el ingreso de indocumentados, refugiados, asilo político, trata de personas, etc. (9,10,11) Para ingresar a un país en la calidad de inmigrante, el proceso involucra el cumplimiento de normas o protocolos establecidos por cada país, donde las solicitudes están respaldadas por propósitos concretos. (12) Para el caso del contexto peruano, tomamos la Encuesta Dirigida a la Población Venezolana que Reside en el País (ENPOVE), donde las situaciones de inmigrante otorgadas fueron de Solicitante de Permiso Temporal de Permanencia (PTP) (50,2 %), Permiso Temporal de Permanencia (26,7 %), Visa de Turista (4,1 %), Carnet de Extranjería (4,0 %), Cédula de Identidad (3,9 %), Situación Irregular (3,2 %), etc. ...
Introducción: la migración es un fenómeno social que afecta la estructura y distribución de la población, siendo motivada por la búsqueda de mejores oportunidades y condiciones de vida. En tal sentido, la migración irregular representa un desafío para los países receptores, dado que conlleva la entrada de individuos sin la documentación correspondiente, pudiendo comprometer la seguridad nacional y el control fronterizo de los países.Objetivo: evaluar la aplicación del algoritmo no supervisado DBSCAN para clasificar a extranjeros según el nivel de riesgo de inmigración irregular en la Superintendencia Nacional de Migraciones del Perú.Métodos: empleamos el algoritmo DBSCAN sobre un dataset proveniente de la Superintendencia Nacional de Migraciones, clasificando a extranjeros en clústeres según su nivel de riesgo de inmigración irregular, además, usamos los coeficientes de Silhouette, Davies-Bouldin, y Calinski-Harabasz para evaluar la calidad de la clasificación.Resultados: DBSCAN clasificó a los extranjeros en cuatro clústeres según el nivel de riesgo de inmigración irregular: alto, medio alto, medio bajo y bajo, donde el desempeño del índice Silhouette fue de 0.5338, el desempeño del índice Davies-Bouldin fue 0.6213 y el desempeño del índice Calinski-Harabasz fue 3680.2359.Conclusiones: evidenciamos que el uso de DBSCAN en la Superintendencia Nacional de Migraciones clasificó eficazmente a extranjeros según el nivel de riesgo de inmigración irregular, esta herramienta respalda decisiones informadas de inspectores migratorios, favoreciendo la regulación migratoria peruana.
... The reconfiguration of the Spanish border regime which followed Spain's EU entrance in 1986 ran parallel to the reshaping of migratory dynamics in the North of Africa. In the mid-nineties, the growing flows of sub-Saharan migrants heading the EU implied that Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco started consolidating as key transit countries, but also as destination countries (Iranzo, 2021;El Ghazouani, 2019;Lahlou, 2015;Collyer, 2007;De Haas, 2007;Schapendonk, 2012). Consequently, migratory dynamics in Ceuta's and Melilla's hinterlands went through huge transformations. ...
This contribution examines the evolution of the border regime of Ceuta and Melilla since the cities joined the EU in 1986, and became crucial Mediterranean nodes of migrant (im)mobility towards the Schengen Area. The logic of border externalization has paved the way for a wide range of controversial migration control practices around the North African cities. These practices have been scrutinized from academic, journalistic and activist perspectives and their analysis has shed light, on the one hand, on the logic of exceptionality that governs the EU border regime in these cities, and on the other, on how both migrants and activists have challenged, denounced and resisted this regime, thus contributing to its constant reconfiguration. The text concludes by analyzing the consequences of two interrelated factors that have acted as vectors of change: firstly, the diplomatic-border “crisis” of May 2021, and secondly, the two years of border closure after the Covid-19 pandemic. Both factors have led to a new reconfiguration of cross-border mobility management in the region and, as the deadly events at the Melilla fence in June 2022 illustrate, to the consolidation of Spanish-Moroccan operational cooperation which entails the recrudescence of migratory obstruction practices at the EU external borders.
... Primero, hacia una mayor interdisciplinariedad, llamando a la Ciencia Política y las Relaciones Internacionales a producir más conocimiento cruzado con la Antropología, Geografía y los Estudios Culturales, entre otros. Y, segundo, un giro hacia un análisis que cruce el estudio de la política del "tránsito migratorio" en América Latina con las prácticas en otras regiones como África, Europa y Asia (Bredeloup, 2012;Ikizoglu y Kaşlı, 2016;Iranzo, 2021). ...
La migración es un tema político que, en el siglo XXI, está claramente incorporado en las agendas de gobiernos nacionales, organizaciones internacionales (OI), ONG y espacios de producción científica. Migrar, moverse de un lugar a otro, es una práctica que revela complejas asimetrías de poder (ej., desigualdad, reconocimiento, agencia, seguridad e incluso vida/muerte); por tanto, es una cuestión ineludible para las agendas de investigación de la Ciencia Política y las Relaciones Internacionales.
... Contrary to our expectation that multiple factors of discrimination would be predictive of higher depressive symptoms, only one factor-being unable to move to another placewas significantly associated with depression status. Previous studies on (im)mobility among migrants demonstrated how structural factors such as discrimination and socioeconomic inequality can produce immobility and constitute the sense of insecurity [84,85]. A large portion of our sample also reported coming to Chile as a temporary destination, with the hope of migrating to other countries such as the United States in the future-and the recent situation had pushed some of them to make the decision to leave Chile. ...
This paper explores the migration experiences, perceived COVID-19 impacts, and depression symptoms among Haitian migrants living in Santiago, Chile. Ninety-five participants from eight neighborhoods with a high density of Haitian migrants were recruited. Descriptive statistics, univariate analysis, and logistic regression analysis were conducted. Chi-squared tests were used to confirm univariate results. We found that 22% of participants had major depressive symptoms based on the CESD-R-20 scale, 87% reported major life changes due to COVID-19, and 78% said their migration plans had changed due to the pandemic. Factors associated with more depressive symptoms were being in debt (OR = 3.43) and experiencing discrimination (ORs: 0.60 to 6.19). Factors associated with less odds of depressive symptoms were social support (ORs: 0.06 to 0.25), change in migration plans due to COVID-19 (OR = 0.30), and planning to leave Chile (OR = 0.20). After accounting for relevant factors, planning to leave Chile is significantly predictive of fewer symptoms of depression. Haitian migrants living in Chile had a high prevalence of depression. Planning to leave Chile was a significant protector against depressive symptoms. Future studies should explore how nuanced experiences of uncertainty play out in migrants’ lives, mental well-being, and planning for their future.
This article takes a close look at Venezuelan migrants' experiences throughout the Andean corridor of cross-border mobility during the COVID-19 emergency. It focuses on the differentiated characteristics of their fragmented journeys to trace the potential of struggles in reclaiming autonomy in contemporary migration. Conceptually, it expands on Nicholas De Genova’s ‘viral borders’ to explore the ways migrants rechannelled, reimagined, and remade their trajectories amid the recent wave of violent, nationalist border controls, expanded in the name of public health. The article argues that, to cope with the consequences of COVID-19 management, Venezuelan migrants made mobility choices related to their differentiated access to social and material resources, enmeshed in prevailing racialised, classed, and gendered social structures. Meanwhile, migrant struggles enabled autonomy amid fragmented journeys opposite Covid-19-related attempts of nationalist (re)bordering. It is suggested that, as legacies of viral borders become more evident, autonomy and struggle remain key in shaping mobility amid the exclusionary post-pandemical border regime.
The increasing fortification of borders produces new urban forms of irregular migration. This paper invokes the concept of “borderzone departure cities” as urban constellations created where global migration routes meet blocked borders in cities which become jumping‐off points from which migrants try to depart. The paper examines Athens and Calais as borderzone departure cities located at both sides of the EU Schengen area. By focussing on the Athenian City Plaza squat and the makeshift Calais Jungle camp as emblematic yet relational spaces of departure, the paper moves beyond the squat/camp divide to better understand how irregular migrants struggle against hostile bordering apparatuses through urban practices of meanwhile inhabitation and mobile commoning. The paper illustrates how these spaces were variously assembled, run, and experienced to form the conditions for movement and stay, each holding different potentials for creating solidarity infrastructures and negotiating forms of migrant citizenship to support the uncertain urban realities of those stuck on the move.
How do African migrants become stuck-in-place and experience stuckedness in China? This article interrogates the concepts of stuckedness and social navigation to examine what it means to be ‘stuck-in-place’ using the stories of four Nigerians—a woman and three men—in
Guangzhou City. Two modes of stuckedness were observed: ‘truncational stuckedness’ and ‘identity stuckedness’. While the former resulted from being spatially stuck in Guangzhou on their way to South Korea and Hong Kong, the latter was a product of identity appropriation, where a migrant uses the passport of another country. Despite the constraint of stuckedness and the precarity that those without valid immigration papers faced, migrants managed to reinterpret their situations and stayed put while being opened to emplacement in Guangzhou—albeit a transitory kind. In calibrating their practice of ‘moving on’ in Guangzhou, however, economic integration, the local and transnational networks of migrants, hope, prolonging one’s stay and management of micro-mobilities of the everyday were deployed singly or in combination with one another. The article advances debates
in China-African relations and Afro-mobilities in East Asia while also contributing to discourses on migrant trajectories, stuckedness, and mobilities studies.
When Spain joined the Schengen Agreement in 1991, the North African city of Ceuta started to gradually turn into a key hub of irregular sub-Saharan migration to the European Union. Since then, both the increasing securitization of its border and the fluctuant – though persistent – arrival of migrants have transformed the socio-spatial nature of this territory. These transformations have subsequently influenced migrants’ perceptions vis-à-vis the destinations and trajectories they take into consideration during their decision-making process. They have had an impact on spatial behaviour in key migration routes towards the European Union. In this light, the present chapter addresses how the two different borders of Ceuta, the land border with Morocco and the sea border with the Iberian Peninsula, influence the opportunities of migrants en route toward the EU.
This article suggests that there is a mobility bias in migration research: by focusing on the “drivers” of migration — the forces that lead to the initiation and perpetuation of migration flows — migration theories neglect the countervailing structural and personal forces that restrict or resist these drivers and lead to different immobility outcomes. To advance a research agenda on immobility, it offers a definition of immobility, further develops the aspiration-capability framework as an analytical tool for exploring the determinants of different forms of (im)mobility, synthesizes decades of interdisciplinary research to help explain why people do not migrate or desire to migrate, and considers future directions for further qualitative and quantitative research on immobility.
Este artículo tiene por objetivo analizar las resistencias que desarrollan mujeres subsaharianas que huyen de sus países por persecución por motivos de género y que emprenden el dificultoso, largo y violento camino hacia Europa. Partiendo de la dimensión activa de la vulnerabilidad como capacidad de agencia y, por tanto, de resistencia, se explora —a través de Producciones Narrativas co-construidas mujeres residentes en el País Vasco— cómo la agencia no se limita a la oposición de los sistemas de dominación, sino que puede desplegarse al interior de los mismos, a través de performar y habitar las normas sociales dominantes de manera heterogénea. En el actual contexto, donde las políticas de despojo, exclusión y violencia se extienden a pasos agigantados por el cuerpo social, arremetiendo especialmente contra los cuerpos de las mujeres, las narrativas cuestionan la dicotomía vulnerabilidad versus agencia y enfatizan cómo el contexto y las estructuras sociales son determinantes para posibilitar o impedir la autonomía y agencia de las mujeres.
The existence of camps for refugees and migrants poses important questions for
the way in which the politics of life is organized, and especially for the way modern
sovereign states transform undesired groups of people into biological entities
and deprive them of their historical and political rights. The aim of this chapter
is twofold. It will investigate issues related to the politics of life as located within
a well-defined spatial context – the refugee detention centre – the camp, the space
of absolute subjugation and domination par excellence. The chapter will also question
the extent to which acts of resistance become possible within a space whose
politico-juridical structure and geographical setting aim precisely to negate and
eliminate any opportunities for the subject to emerge. Moving from a dominant
conceptualisation of camps, and of migrants/refugees inside the camps, the
chapter will depart from prevailing analyses and explore the extent to which
camps might be transformed into spaces of resistance, into spaces where political
life struggles against any reduction to bare life, and hence into spaces where
sovereign power encounters opposition and challenge.
This chapter introduces the space of inquiry that opens up at the intersection of security and mobility. It begins with briefly setting the stage of the security/mobility dynamic, after which a conceptual exploration follows. Security is regarded as a discourse revolving around threat. Distinct about security today is it being premised on openness which encourages intervention upon and thus regulation of mobility. Mobility is regarded as socially produced motion and concerns the ways in which the fact of displacement is made possible. Attention is then directed at the productive effects of both concepts and their interaction: they bring about particular relations of power, thereby privileging certain forms of security and mobility. The introductory chapter ends with an overview of the structure of the book and the individual chapters.
Building on the scholarship that theorises the restructuring of cities within neoliberal globalisation, this article calls for a comparative scalar approach to migrant settlement and transnational connection. Deploying a concept of city scale, the article posits a relationship between the differing outcomes of the restructuring of post-industrial cities and varying pathways of migrant incorporation. Committed to the use of nation-states and ethnic groups as primary units of analysis, migration scholars have lacked a comparative theory of locality; scholars of urban restructuring have not engaged in migration studies. Yet migrant pathways are both shaped by and contribute to the differential repositioning of cities. Migrants are viewed as urban scale-makers with roles that vary in relationship to the different positioning of cities within global fields of power.
The epilogue makes an effort to close the bracket that this introduction has opened. Arguing from the disciplinary perspective of critical security studies, it takes a step back and evaluates which lessons can be learned from an agenda of security/mobility. The epilogue underlines the need for critical security studies to incorporate the notion of mobility more strongly, particularly with regard to its theoretical underpinnings and empirical and material manifestations. Moreover, it calls to take into account the multiplicity of actors that shape and influence any politics of movement, and to pay attention to (globalised) narratives of mobility and risk.
This chapter examines the implications of the increasing involvement of Private Security Companies (PSCs) on the formulation and practices of European immigration and border control. At the outset, it is argued that the European borders are not static geographic phenomena, but rather borderscapes, that is, dynamic and multifaceted sites of interventions from public and private actors. These interventions can be conceptualized as processes of borderscaping, whereby the political, epistemological and physical elements of borders are dissolved, redefined and re-territorialized. The notion of borderscape contracts is suggested as a way of highlighting the role played by PSCs in these processes. Some examples of PSC borderscape contracts are examined. These include the UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) outsourcing of border enforcement functions to G4S, Finmeccanica’s role in the construction of Libyan border control capacities and PSC involvement in the European external border surveillance system (EUROSUR) project’s numerous advanced borders projects. It is argued that PSCs role in externalization and their development of new, advanced technologies securitizes and thus transforms the day-to-day governance of the European borders. This, in turn, leads to serious questions regarding the opaqueness of borderscape budgets, lock-in effects making it difficult for public actors to reverse PSC militarization of borders and the humanitarian consequences of this for migrants. It is argued that PSC lobbyism through formal and informal forums reinforce a market dynamic where the industrial suppliers of border control technologies create a demand for their products in order to facilitate these systemic shifts. Some examples include the European Organization for Security (EOS), and the Frontex Agency’s Research and Development (R&D) Unit’s cooperation with PSCs on drones for border control. Moreover, several ”blurred” public/private EU forums, like the European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB) and the European Security Research and Innovation Forum (ESRIF) have been granted a large influence in the formulation of the EU’s priorities on security research, One notable outcome, it is ventured, has been increased EU subsidies to PSC research into high-tech borderscapes exemplifying how PSCs are involved in the multileveled governance of the European borderscapes. The chapter then traces the financial flows underpinning PSC borderscaping back to powerful financial actors, like the international banking sector, investment management firms and EU Member States’ export credit agencies (ECAs). The activities of these actors, it is argued, show that the militarization of Europe’s borders is grounded not only in a desire to prevent immigration, but also in European politics of supporting military and control exports with public funds even if this leads to increased debt in especially developing countries. The influence of PSCs and their financial supporters on the European border politics presents severe problems for the democratic transparency and humanitarian standards of European borderscapes.
Violence experienced by persons attempting to cross the borders of the European Union outside of authorised channels is generally considered as a sign that EU border controls are dysfunctional. Some consider this violence as evidence that the EU is betraying its normative commitments to the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals. Others consider this violence as the indication that EU border control policies are ineffective and in need of improvement.
Yet, taken as an analytical category, should violence be considered as pathological? A number of powerful sociologies (Elias, Weber, Tilly) have shown the mastery of violence in the context of competitions for control over territories and populations to be eminently productive. Attempts at monopolising and organising violence are historically central to the formation of the contemporary state system. Modern states are the effect of processes of both accumulation and concentration of coercion and capital (Tilly 1990), involving elimination struggles between various competing authorities (Elias 2000, 275-344). Accumulation and concentration of coercion and capital also result in the formation of “adjunct monopolies”, over such modalities as the legitimate means of taxation (for Elias) as well as the legitimate means of movement across and within state borders (Torpey 1998). Historically, state formation has operated through the persecution, by means of deportation, displacement, internment and death of specific categories of populations (e.g. Zolberg 1983).
Following these insights, this contribution argues that we should examine violence as productive in that it participates in the shaping of border control practices brought about by overlapping claims to authority from the part of the EU and its Member States. In other words, this contribution does not investigate what causes or explains violence in the context of EU border control practices, but rather asks: what is this violence part of? In order to examine this question, the paper unfolds as follows. It firstly unpacks the meaning of contemporary border control, problematising it through the notions of capture and apparatus. It then proceeds to examine how these two notions give us tools to reconsider the control of EU external borders, both in terms of their contemporary rationale and of the conditions of possibility of this rationale.
This second report on mobilities considers some key themes in mobilities research by (mostly) geographers over the last two years or so. Following on from some of the themes outlined in the first report, this report explores accounts of historical geographies of mobility in order to put claims to ‘newness’ in perspective. Second, it surveys how mobility research has influenced methodology focusing, in particular, on ‘mobile ethnography’. Third, the report looks at the blossoming arena or research on the forms of waiting, stillness and stuckness that have become an important component of our understanding of mobility. The conclusion reflects on the continuing importance of the politics of mobility and urges greater consideration of the mobility of ideas alongside people and things.
Mobility studies emerged from a postmodern moment in which global ‘flows’ of capital, people and objects were increasingly noted and celebrated. Within this new scholarship, categories of migrancy are all seen through the same analytical lens. This article and Regimes of Mobility: Imaginaries and Relationalities of Power, the special issue of JEMS it introduces, build on, as well as critique, past and present studies of mobility. In so doing, this issue challenges conceptual orientations built on binaries of difference that have impeded analyses of the interrelationship between mobility and stasis. These include methodological nationalism, which counterpoises concepts of internal and international movement and native and foreigner, and consequently normalises stasis. Instead, the issue offers a regimes of mobility framework that addresses the relationships between mobility and immobility, localisation and transnational connection, experiences and imaginaries of migration, and rootedness and cosmopolitan openness. The introduction highlights how, within this framework and its emphasis on social fields of differential power, the contributors to this collection ethnographically explore the disparities, inequalities, racialised representations and national mythscapes that facilitate and legitimate differential mobility and fixity. Although the authors examine nation-state building processes, their analysis is not confined by national boundaries.
Long and dangerous ‘fragmented journeys’ have become a common feature of global migration systems. These are more than simple
responses to stricter migration controls and are associated with related developments in technology and communications. They
are therefore a structural change in migration systems which require a re-examination of the ways in which protection is offered
to migrants. This has become an important theme of international discussion since 2005 but the humanitarian situation of international
migrants on particular routes remains of concern to aid groups and many in the international community. This paper, based
on research in Morocco, considers the protection needs of three groups of ‘stranded’ migrants: yet to be recognized refugees,
previously recognized refugees and those with other protection needs. It examines migration histories to identify reasons
why this third group of individuals may be unable or unwilling to return and the nature of humanitarian assistance they require.
This paper proposes an approach to mobility that takes both historical mobilities and forms of immobility seriously. It is argued that is important for the development of a politics of mobility. To do this it suggests that mobility can be thought of as an entanglement of movement, representation, and practice. Following this it argues for a more finely developed politics of mobility that thinks below the level of mobility and immobility in terms of motive force, speed, rhythm, route, experience, and friction. Finally, it outlines a notion of constellations of mobility that entails considering the historical existence of fragile senses of movement, meaning, and practice marked by distinct forms of mobile politics and regulation.
Los estudios sobre el papel de las fronteras en los procesos de migración internacional, reportan un nuevo giro político y de las políticas: la transformación que experimentan las fronteras territoriales de los Estados como mecanismos del control migratorio. Esta transformación ocurre mediante procesos de desterritorialización de las fronteras, al mismo tiempo en que se produce la externalización de las políticas migratorias. Ambos procesos, son canalizados mediante políticas y prácticas de control y cooperación, en torno a la gestión de fronteras y la contención de flujos migratorios irregulares, en un contexto global de securización que ha convertido la relación entre migraciones y fronteras en una nueva hipótesis de conflicto. Mediante la revisión de la literatura pertinente, académica y normativa, se describen y analizan las políticas y prácticas definidas por la Unión Europea y sus Estados miembros en el Espacio de Libertad, Seguridad y Justicia (ELSJ), y su implementación en la frontera España-Marruecos, lugar estratégico en el subsistema migratorio del sur de Europa por sus relaciones con los países del Mediterráneo Sur, África del norte y África Subsahariana.
Despite a growing interest in transit migration and border controls along migration routes, there is relatively little work on the production and operation of the category of ‘transit’ itself. This article investigates how Niger emerges as a country of migration ‘transit’ and what impacts this categorisation has had on security and development interventions targeting the country. Building from the literature on the governance of transit migration and on the ‘migration state’, this article theorises transit as a political label. It argues that Niger’s status as a transit country is constructed through a ‘polyvocal’ process involving the discourse and everyday assumptions of international and local actors. The article locates this shared understanding in official texts, everyday routines, and sub-state diplomatic practices. It goes on to argue that these framings, despite divergent rationales, have effects visible in the evolution of security intervention in Niger. These include shifts in the location of border security, the blurring of migration into other transnational threats, and the creation of new domestic institutional practices. The article contributes to theorising the political construction and specificity of transit-ness and provides a fresh case for the research agenda on inter-state relations around migration governance.
This special issue consists of a collection of papers that aims to gain a better understanding of the experiences, practices and politics of mobility in a geo-political context in which movement is not self-evident. In so doing, it focuses on the mobility trajectories of migrants coming from the global South. These trajectories are characterized by specific spatial dynamics (e.g. detours, transit points, changeable networks) as well as spatial frictions (e.g. borders, waiting, detention), the latter being produced by stringent mobility regimes. This specific empirical focus on trajectories, as we argue, helps us to re-route the geography of migration in two important ways. First, we re-direct the attention of migration related discussions to im/mobility processes and, as such, we move away from dominant discussions on migrant incorporations and state-led integration agendas. Second, as the term re-routing refers to a process of continuous adjustments and constant navigations for the migrants in question, it creates further insight into the geopolitics of transnational mobility, as well as the multiple spatial transgressions involved. This introduction to this special issue outlines the theoretical and methodological starting points of the trajectory approach that serves as the common ground the individual papers begin from.
While mobilities research is cognisant of the need to theorise the politics of mobility, the extent to which a political theory of movement has been developed is debateable. In this paper, I develop a more substantive theorisation of movement as a constitutive political relation in light of the empirical advances generated by mobilities research. This account of kinetic politics is an important conceptual development that holds promise for the closer alignment of mobilities research with critical security studies, which in turn raises the possibility of a fuller understanding of movement in global politics.
In this article, I draw attention to the way that critical security scholars have privileged governing nodes in their accounts of circulation and have consequently overlooked practices of security that are conducted between these nodal sites. As a result, the potential and actual mobilities of circulating entities (and their implications for security) have also been viewed within nodes. This has resulted in circulation being effectively reduced to lines between two or more points. I consequently call for security researchers to attend better to entities’ journeys. I use the case of natural gas’s movements within UK pipelines to demonstrate how such movements are productive of a variety of forms of (in)security and, in the process, highlight the role that the mobilities literature can play in bringing about a shift towards a broadened account of circulatory security.
In this paper, I critically interrogate efforts to govern circulations of non-EU citizens to and within the Schengen area. I do so by dwelling on the functionalities of information systems used, among other purposes, for border security. My argument is twofold. First, I contend that circulations are governed within nexuses of technologically mediated control practices (practice-networks) performed outside, at the edges of, and inside the Schengen area. Second, I show that information systems, borders, mobile bodies, and security rationales do not remain fixed throughout the process of governing circulations, but emerge, mutate and multiply through their ongoing (re)enactment within practice-networks.
This article offers a process-mechanism explanation of securitization. To make the case for a process-mechanism account more concrete, I use interpretivist process tracing to explain the crisis episode of the Sun Sea, a Thai cargo ship carrying Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and the securitization of irregular migration in Canada. Drawing on interviews and grey literature, the article shows how securitization was possible and under what conditions, and argues that ideational dispositions of security organizations induced state officials toward a security interpretation of the the Sun Sea. The article aims to demonstrate that process-mechanism explanations represent a compelling methodological alternative with which to trace and explain securitization. The article sees itself as part of a broader refinement of a sociological variant of securitization theory. It seeks to examine and enhance the contribution that this ‘post-Copenhagen’ approach – its core assumptions and theoretical framework – makes to the analysis of securitization.
Studies on the role of borders in international migration processes indicate a political turnaround and new policies: the transformation experienced by territorial boundaries of states as immigration control mechanisms. This transformation occurs through processes of border deterritorialization at the same time that the externalization of migration policies take place. Both processes are channeled through cooperation and control practices and policies on border management and migration control especially on illegal ones. The aforementioned, in a global securitization context, has turned the relation between migrations and borders in a new conflict hypothesis. By reviewing the relevant academic literature and policy, the article describes and analyzes policies and practices defined by the European Union and its member states, in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), and its implementation in the Spain-Morocco border, which is a strategic place in the Southern European Migration Subsystem due to its proximity with the South Mediterranean, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Turkey has been part of an expanding European border regime through the construct of 'transit'. Against the essentializing use of this term, this article aims to draw attention to the varied nature of 'transit' migration based on ethnographic research conducted in two cities of Turkey: Edirne and Kayseri. While both cities are subject to the EU-ization of migration and asylum management, we argue that their geographical positions cause variations in how they experience EU-ization and how they receive border-crossers and refugees. Variations are further intensified by different configurations of il/legality and il/licitness in each city. We claim that neither the state nor the European border regime, as actors and producers of il/legality, can predetermine the outcome of such configurations. 'Transit'-ing is rendered il/licit, depending on the visibility and duration of the stay of border-crossers and refugees, their impact on local economies and the attitudes of local state actors.
The ‘new mobilities paradigm’ and critical security studies share vocabularies of mobility, circulation and security. Yet, there have been only limited intersections between these approaches. This article explores the relation between mobility and security by developing a series of epistemic-political distinctions between motion, circulation and mobility. It argues that different political grammars of mobility have emerged historically and that we need to attend to the particular articulations of these grammars today, which conjugate mobility to security and subjectivity. The article starts by placing the semantics of motion and circulation, on the one hand, and of mobility, on the other, in historical context. It shows that motion, circulation and mobility are entwined with the production of particular governmental subjects and objects of (in)security. Finally, it explores how grammars of mobility shape political responses in contemporary site of intense securitisation – the UK–French borderzone at Calais.
The book critically engages with theoretical developments in international relations and security studies to develop a fresh conceptual framework for studying security.Contents 1. Politics of insecurity, technology and the political2. Security framing: the question of the meaning of security3. Displacing the spectre of the state in security studies: From referent objects to techniques of government4. Securitizing migration: Freedom from existential threats and the constitution of insecure communities5. European integration and societal insecurity6. Freedom and security in the EU: A Foucaultian view on spill-over7. Migration, securitization and the question of political community in the EU8. De-securitizing migration: Security knowledge and concepts of the political9. Conclusion: the politics of framing insecurity
The basic claim of this article is that when the ‘migration-development nexus’ is conceived through a ‘mobilities’ lens, a different account of politics is possible. I refer to this different account of politics as ‘kinetic politics’, to denote that polity formations and political relations are not spatially determined (that is, by processes of boundary formation and relations that travel across these boundaries), but are constituted through movement as people come and go. I argue for a methodological reorientation towards understanding the kinetic politics of development, in order to apprehend the ways in which migrants and migrancy are implicated in the constitution of the polities through which ‘development’ is organised. The recognition of movement as a transversal political relation that cuts across territorial boundaries has implications for the ways in which development is analysed and pursued. I propose that this line of inquiry opens up space to think critically about whether or not formal political membership will remain tethered to problematic territorial and technocratic approaches to ‘sustainable’ development. Might there be space for thinking about migrancy as the basis for rights, and political community as inherently kinetic?
In this groundbreaking ethnography, Ruben Andersson, a gifted anthropologist and journalist, travels along the clandestine migration trail from Senegal and Mali to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Through the voices of his informants, Andersson explores, viscerally and emphatically, how Europe’s increasingly powerful border regime meets and interacts with its target–the clandestine migrant. This vivid, rich work examines the subterranean migration flow from Africa to Europe, and shifts the focus from the “illegal immigrants” themselves to the vast industry built around their movements. This fascinating and accessible book is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of international migration and the changing texture of global culture.
An increasing number of migrants are living in a state of indefinite ‘transit’. In this paper, we report on interviews conducted in 2009 with 59 refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia and describe how these individuals make a life despite their circumstances. While all participants were deeply affected by their position of uncertainty and insecurity, most sought to transcend these conditions and pursue significant life projects such as getting married, having children, becoming part of the local community, and working towards a better future. The current conceptualisation of transit as life in limbo does not wholly account for such permanent, life-changing experiences. We analyse the reasons why the use of the term ‘transit’ persists in international policy settings despite its incongruities, arguing that its ongoing political valence overrides its conceptual flaws.
This book examines how western liberal states are progressively restricting access to refugees and asylum seekers, even though these states have signed international agreements obliging them to offer protection to those fleeing persecution and to advocate the spread of human rights and humanitarian principles. Watson examines how refugees and asylum seekers have come to be treated so poorly by these states through the use of policies such as visa requirements, mandatory detention and prevention/return policies. Providing extensive documentary analysis of debates on 'restrictive' refugee policies in Canada and Australia, the author addresses the relationship between security and migration, an issue of increased importance in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror. He then examines hotly-contested policies such as detention and the forceful return of asylum seekers to demonstrate how attempts to securitise these issues have been resisted in the media and by political opposition. Given the importance of providing refuge for persecuted populations, not only to ensure the survival of targeted individuals, but also to maintain international peace and security, the erosion of protective measures is of great importance today. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of international security, international relations, migration and human rights.
What practices of (in) securitization involve the notions of border and border control in the European Union? How do these practices operate? How are they assembled? In the resulting assemblage, is the notion of borders - understood as state borders - still relevant for the control of individuals and populations moving across the frontiers of the EU? Drawing on empirical observations and with a specific focus on how border control is translated into different social universes, this article seeks to show that practices of control are routinely embedded in a practical sense that informs what controlling borders does and means. This practical sense is itself informed by different professional habitus and work routines involving deterrence and the use of force, interrogation and detention, surveillance of populations on the move and the profiling of (un)trusted travellers. Its strength varies in relation to its shared dimension by most of the operators, and is adjusted to the materiality of borders as well as to the local contexts in which it is deployed. It activates, or does not activate, the maximal use of various control technologies (satellites, pre-registration and interoperable exchange of data between the state and private bureaucracies, biometrics identifiers, body-scanners). For understanding practices of (in) securitization, actual work routines and the specific professional 'dispositions' are therefore more important than any discourses actors may use to justify their activities.
European Union (EU) Member States have cultivated the ‘securitization of migration’, crafting a legal framework that prevents
irregular migrants, including asylum seekers, from arriving in the EU. As external and internal border controls are reinvigorated
to achieve this aim, the experiences of asylum seekers beyond the EU border, in designated ‘transit’ countries, necessitate
further inquiry. Concepts of ‘transit’ are shaped by government accounts of ‘secondary migration’ as illegitimate, and asylum
seekers as a security threat warranting containment. Based on interviews with Somali refugee women who have travelled through
North Africa to reach the southern EU Member State of Malta, this article traces the impact of the securitization of migration
on women’s experiences of ‘transit’. Women’s stories, historically neglected in the literature on migration, provide a lived
account of securitization and the gendered ways ‘functional border sites’ operate beyond the EU, enlisting state and non-state
actors in producing direct and structural violence. This article argues EU policy is blind to the lived realities of those
who seek refugee protection in the EU, and urgently needs to address the structural contradictions exacerbating violence experienced
by refugee women in transit.
The ‘mobilities turn’ in human geography and cognate disciplines has a natural methodological predisposition towards privileging mobile subjects, or the structures, policies, or authorities that constrain them. The article sets out two additions to mobility studies’ theoretical toolbox: the idea of the assemblage and the foregrounding of circulation. The civil aviation sector demonstrates the utility of this frame.
This article explores the dynamics of the space of exception at the borders of Europe in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, and the neighboring Moroccan city of Oujda. Building upon field research conducted in the spring of 2008, I ask how we can understand the political space of migration not simply as exceptional, but as shaped by the mobility of the irregular migrants moving outside of the frameworks, policies, and practices of the state. By privileging the migrant narrative and making use of Rancière's conception of politics as shaped by the demands of those who “have no part,” I suggest an alternative way of understanding the politics of exception and agency of non-citizens—that is, one of disruption and demands to open up powerful potentials for change in an otherwise rigid regime.
This article explores the historical construction of the 'transit country' as one answer to the perceived loss of control over migration that governments of the developed North have increasingly felt. A frenzy of re-conceptualisations has taken place over the past 20 years, leading to a discourse—unquestioned and accepted by policy-makers and many academics—of Migration Management. A consequence of the evolution of Migration Management is captured by the notion of 'suspension', which often refers to either the physical or the metaphorical death of a certain minority of illegal migrants. However, I argue that such 'suspended' illegal migrants have the capacity to reinvent themselves precisely because they are outside the realm of juridico-political categorisation and enumeration.
We use two trajectory ethnographies that follow the migration processes of Sudanese and Nigerians heading for the European Union across space and time, to explore how the main theoretical principles of the mobilities debate add value to transnational migration research. We thereby particularly appreciate the relational ontology of the mobilities approach and its analytical focus on the differentiation of power and experiences in mobility processes. By providing in-depth insights into how migration trajectories evolve—that is, how they are produced, facilitated, slowed down, and blocked—we argue that a thorough analysis of migrants’ im/mobilities helps us to reveal the spatial frictions, embodied efforts, and emotions that are inherent aspects of transnational engagements.
This article traces the emergence of human security as a situated political strategy for managing the circulation of pathogens relating to Burmese migrant communities in Thailand. Specifically, it focuses on the intricate and productive interplay of a range of human and non-human elements that helped to bring forth and shape the vernacular micropolitics of human security. The article documents the techno-(bio)political mechanisms of the human security intervention in two of Thailand’s provinces. By enframing, ordering and depoliticizing the complex health world of Burmese migrants in terms of simple dichotomies in which ‘unruly’ nature (pathogens, diseases, bodies) is contrasted with human techno-scientific ingenuity (scientific evidence, technological innovations, managerial effectiveness), these mechanisms render the circulation of pathogens amenable to biopolitical governance. It is here argued that in the struggle to manage pathogenic circulation, human security transforms the issue of migrant health into a technical matter concerned with the (self-)management of bodies and the governmentalization of the Thai state to the exclusion of important but difficult questions concerning a violent politics of exclusion.
This paper revisits the concept of refugee labelling I elaborated nearly two decades ago. In radically different conditions, the contemporary relevance and utility of the concept are re-examined and re-established. Formulated at a time of regionally contained, mass refugee migration in the south during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the paper argues that the concept still offers vital insights into the impacts of institutional and bureaucratic power on the lives of refugees in a globalized era of transnational social transformations, mixed migration flows, and the continuing presence of large scale refugee migration. The core of the paper argues that the 'convenient images' of refugees, labelled within a co-opting humanitarian discourse in the past, have been displaced by a fractioning of the label which is driven by the need to manage globalized processes and patterns of migration and forced migration in particular. The paper re-evaluates the concept using the three original axioms-forming, transforming and politicizing the label 'refugee'. The core argument is that in the contemporary era: a) the formation of the refugee label reflects causes and patterns of forced migration which are much more complex than in the past, contrasting with an essentially homogeneous connotation in the past; b) responding to this complexity, the refugee label is transformed by an institutional fractioning' in order to manage the new migration; c) governments, rather than NGOs as in the past, are the pre-eminent agency in the contemporary processes of transforming the refugee label, a process driven by northern interests; d) the refugee label has become politicized by the reproduction of institutional fractioning and by embedding the wider political discourse of resistance to migrants and refugees.
International human trafficking—sometimes referred to as modern-day slavery—has increasingly come to be seen as a security threat. The question remains as to what kind of threat human trafficking poses. Traditional security approaches to international human trafficking call for analysis of trafficking as a threat to the state and to state control of borders. Traditional security analyses of trafficking therefore emphasize border security, migration controls, and international law enforcement cooperation. Feminist analyses of human trafficking challenge the traditional security framework, prioritizing the security of trafficked persons and recognizing the manner in which victims are threatened by both traffickers and the state itself. I argue that feminist approaches to human trafficking are essential for understanding and combating the phenomenon. Feminists identify the ethical and pragmatic grounds for broadening the analytical focus from states to people. Feminists' most important contribution, however, lies in the investigations of the social construction of human trafficking, which highlight the destructive role that sexist and racist stereotypes play in constructing the category of trafficking victims.
This paper is concerned with conceptions of mobility and immobility. Although I argue that practically everything is mobile, for mobility to be analytically useful as a term we must focus on the contingent relations between movements. Building upon theories of mobility from geography, sociology, cultural studies and, in particular, Urry's ‘mobility/moorings dialectic’, the paper draws these ideas out using examples from the airport terminal.