Production(s) of and navigation through waiting spaces in the context of the European ‘deportation regime’

Waiting can be considered an integral element of migration experiences and the everyday life of people on the move. In recent years, waiting as a conceptual framework to analyze migrant experiences and questions of temporality in general gained more prominence in migration scholarship. Enriching this discussion, the project analyzes waiting spaces and waiting experiences in the specific context of potentially being detained and/or deported.

The construction of waiting spaces in this light is understood as a legal and social ‘vernacularization of borders’ with an immediate impact on everyday lived experiences – i.e. in view of individual (im)mobility and existing temporal horizons. With this in mind, the concentration on how affected people perceive their present and engage possible futures in a seemingly powerless situation shifts the attention to questions of migrant agency, as well as everyday practices and perceptions.

In order to zoom in on this issue, the project aims at analyzing local manifestations of waiting spaces connected to the European ‘deportation regime’ in Luxembourg and the surrounding Greater Region by making use of qualitative and ethnographic research methods.