Migratory Timescapes: Experiences of Pausing, Waiting, and Inhabiting the Meanwhile of Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Mexico

<p>Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico´s southern border with Guatemala, this dissertation provides insights into contemporary experiences of migration in Mexico by engaging with the notions of movement, control, and settlement from a critical perspective. I explore these experiences through the idea of <em>migratory timescapes</em>, defined as structural temporal-relational contexts in which migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are socially embedded. In the case of this dissertation, I unpack three migratory timescapes which are situated in a regional context of growing displacement and increasingly restrictive migratory and asylum policies, what I call the <em>block-and-wait system. </em></p> <p><em></em>First, I introduce the idea of the <em>Pause</em> as moments and spaces where migrants can rest and heal their bodies, but also temporarily engage with others within a hub of concentrated resources. Pauses offer a glimpse into what social capital looks like during migratory journeys. Secondly, I describe how the Mexican asylum system has turned into a <em>waiting regime</em> and question how waiting, as a technique of domination results in a systematic denial of rights. The waiting regime operates through <em>bureaucratic violence</em>, composed by the imposition of delay, uncertainty, prolonged waiting and which is reinforced by a <em>rhetoric of deservingness</em>. Finally, chapter four investigates how migrants and asylum seekers actively inhabit and become socially engaged in spaces and communities that they consider, and wish to abandon as soon as possible, a process that I call <em>inhabiting the meanwhile</em>.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Gil Everaert, Isabel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Courtney Smith

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Nancy Foner
• James Jasper
• Jéssica Natalia Nájera Aguirre
• Alexandra Délano Alonso

• Inequality and Stratification
• Migration Studies
• Politics and Social Change
• migration
• immobility
• refugees
• time
• inequality
• Mexico
• Central America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4012

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-5074