Resettlement as a temporal border: infrastructural promises and future-making among migrants and officials in Niger

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

Resettlement is a safe pathway to the Global North, but only few refugees in the Global South receive it. This article argues that beyond being a highly selective durable solution, resettlement can also operate as a temporal border intended to delay migration by making elusive promises of a better future to transiting refugees if they abandoned migration and waited for resettlement. This was the case in the major transit country Niger where resettlement was established in 2017 as a part of UNHCR’s Mixed Migration policy to contain EU-bound migration. Based on an ethnography in Niger in 2018–2019, the article identifies three modes of future-making by refugees and officials in response to these resettlement promises: risk assessment, temporal reordering, and experimentation. In acts of risk assessment, refugees weighed the risks associated with waiting for resettlement and its alternatives against each other. In the asylum procedures, state officials foregrounded refugees’ resettlement hopes over their past persecution and present protection risks. This temporal reordering could lead to rejecting their asylum applications. In acts of experimentation, refugees developed alternative futures when their resettlement eschewed. By developing resettlement promises as a temporal border, the article highlights the role of promises and future-making for migrant containment and its subversion.

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer14
ZeitschriftComparative Migration Studies
Jahrgang13
Ausgabenummer1
Anzahl der Seiten17
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 12.2025

Bibliographische Notiz

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.

DOI

Zuletzt angesehen

Publikationen

  1. PPC Task Plan Sourcing - Synchronization of Procurement and Production. A Model-based Observation
  2. Reform of the Injunctions Directive and Compensation for Consumers
  3. Managing invasive species amidst high uncertainty and novelty
  4. Arbeitsvertrag, befristeter
  5. Compression behaviour of wire + arc additive manufactured structures
  6. Anmerkung zu BVerwG, Urt. v. 2.3.2017 – 3 C 19/15
  7. You Can't Always Get What You Want
  8. The multipole resonance probe
  9. A global quantitative synthesis of local and landscape effects on wild bee pollinators in agroecosystems
  10. Ergebnisse einer Sparkassen-Umfrage
  11. Saproxylic beetles in the Gartow region of Lower Saxony, a hotspot of invertebrate diversity in north-western Germany
  12. Mechanical behaviors of extruded Mg alloys with high Gd and Nd content
  13. Selbstöffnung und interpersonaler Input in der psychodynamischen Gruppenpsychotherapie – Eine explorative Studie
  14. Information Communication Technology as Creativity Support Tools?
  15. Places of Memory, Topologies of Remembrance
  16. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
  17. Isolation Playground
  18. Article 15 Scope of the Law Applicable
  19. The Folding of the American Working Class in Mad Men
  20. Too precise to pursue
  21. Possibilities of Place in Continental Thought
  22. Gunmen, Bandits and Ransom Demanders: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Study of the Construction of Abduction in the Nigerian Press
  23. Distinktionsgefühle
  24. Intensity of Time and Income Interdependent Multidimensional Poverty:
  25. Newest developments on the manufacture of helical profiles by hot extrusion
  26. Balibar/Wallerstein's "Race, nation, class"
  27. Accelerated increase in plant species richness on mountain summits is linked to warming
  28. Geisteswissenschaften in der Offensive
  29. Schwarz-weiß in Farbe
  30. Junge Generation
  31. Erich Jansen Lesebuch
  32. Die Zeitgenossenschaft der Hochmoderne
  33. Product diversification and stability of employment and sales
  34. Subjektivierung durch Normalisierung
  35. Bonus
  36. What Kind of Veto Player Is the Italian Senate?
  37. Inhalt des Kondiktionsanspruchs und Wegfall der Bereicherung
  38. Global patterns of vascular plant alpha diversity