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Paper short abstract:

This paper traces transformations of bodily practices and experiences of legally precarious Syrians as these unfold in sensory contact zones connected to relations with host state authorities. It argues that such transformations forge new common ground on which belonging unfolds.

Paper long abstract:

Phenomenological approaches to issues of migrant illegality tend to highlight the ways in which legally precarious migrants are “always on guard” (Willen 2007, 18) or “constantly on the defensive” (Jackson 2008, 69). Such perspectives provide insights on the interconnections between experiential and sensorial aspects of migrant lives as they attest to the ways in which fear of deportation or lack of acceptance in your host society shape sensory attentions in everyday interactions (that again shape imaginations and self-perceptions).

Hoping to add to such perspectives and inspired by Janeja and Gill’s invitation to think through ‘sensory contact zones’, this paper argues that a unilateral focus on anxious alertness and fearful bearings in everyday encounters risks overlooking the ways in which bodily apprehensions and relaxations are co-constitutive also among migrants in legally precarious situations. Moreover, conceptualizing such experiential and sensory inclinations as “shock[ed responses to] the new” (ibid., title) is potentially problematic when studying migrants who engage in south-south migration. Among Syrian refugees in urban centers in Lebanon and Turkey, fear of authorities is not new. However, for this group of migrants specific avenues for bodily comportment in relation to authorities are newly transformed and such changes in turn shift the common ground on which belonging unfolds.

Through an ethnographic account of the ways in which Syrian refugees experience and conduct themselves bodily in public and semi-public sensory contact zones (like illegal obstetrics clinics, cafes, check points), the paper shows that transformed bodily practices shape new worlds and potentially world-views.