Paper short abstract:

Analyzing dis/placement from a subject-oriented long-term and long-distance perspective, the methodological approach of trajectory analysis offers an analytical framework to shed light on political subjectivities of those being dis/placed and positioning themselves on their migratory trajectories.

Paper long abstract:

In the context of my research project on the il/legalization of im/mobility in Europe, I am following migratory trajectories to shed light on changing conditions concerning the right to stay and the right to move. Travelling along, I am confronted with multiple struggles against dis/placement of those migrating, being placed, reallocated, deported and deprived of their right to decide whether to stay or to move. Thus, how to analytically grasp evolving dis/placed political subjectivities on different stages of migratory trajectories turned out to be a key question of my research project.

The newly emerging methodological design of 'trajectory ethnography' provides a long-distance and long-term perspective on dis/placement and self-positioning by following migratory trajectories through changing geographical, political, legal and social settings. The perspective exceeds the idea of migration as a bipolar relocation from A to B and interconnects local, regional and transnational im/mobilities as passages of the same migratory project. Taking a subject-oriented perspective it enables us to concentrate on the scope of action migrants develop at different stages of their journeys and thus offers the possibility of a differentiated analysis of changing political subjectivities being shaped by and shaping migratory trajectories. The paper argues that trajectory analysis offers a highly valuable analytical framework to follow migratory im/mobilities through changing political settings and by adopting a subject-oriented approach, offers the possibility to analyze and interconnect changing political subjectivities of those being dis/placed and positioning themselves on their migratory trajectories.