Paper short abstract:

For those awaiting asylum decisions in France, with precarious legal status and no right to work, 'waiting' becomes normalised. This paper explores the activities undertaken to 'spend' time and the manner in which people give meaning to their experiences.

Paper long abstract:

Today, waiting may be considered the "activity" of those who seek refuge in France and at some point an element of sweet violence of the bureaucracy in the host country. The asylum seekers I met have been waiting between six months (the "lucky" few) and four years for their claims to be evaluated. During this period they cannot work and their legal status is, at best, precarious. I would like to raise here a set of related questions: what does it mean to be waiting? What kind of waiting do they experience? What happens while waiting? I propose here to examine both the everyday activities undertaken to spend/kill/forget time and the manner in which people give meaning to their experiences. Based on a long-lasting ethnographic study in centers for asylum seekers in the Parisian suburbs which are supported by the state and managed by NGOs, the aim of this paper is to explore what happens when waiting becomes normalised.