Paper short abstract:

This paper explores uncertainty in the context of mobility experiences and rules. It reflects on the lived experiences of qualified migrants who face the multiple predicaments of mobility, and who engage with work future in the face of uncertainty.

Paper long abstract:

The condition of uncertainty is now becoming ordinary for many people who live the effects, emergencies, and rhythms of our contemporary times, including migrants and an increasing number of workers. Undoubtedly, these are times in which “reality is experienced as contingent and uncertain, with lasting forms yet to be made” (Thomassen 2014: 117), in which humans are confronted with an unprecedented sense of precariousness. If we agree with Baumann when he says that “what is novel is not uncertainty; what is novel is a realization that uncertainty is here to stay,” now more than ever it becomes urgent to “develop an art of living permanently with uncertainty”, to accept and cohabit with the ambivalence of being in between multiple and uncertain routes, meanings, and events that represent the fabric of our lives. This paper explores uncertainty in the context of mobility experiences and rules. In particular, it looks at the lived experiences of qualified migrants, who face the multiple predicaments of mobility, and who engage with work future in the face of uncertainty. I draw upon my fieldworks with qualified migrants in Switzerland, including refugees and partners of professional migrants. These migrants are frequently encouraged to endorse those ‘mobility rules’ that exacerbate their uncertain position, and that immobilize them in a limbo situation where planning a career becomes difficult. And yet, these qualified migrants can use immobility as space and time for building upon their capacity to aspire and envisioning alternative futures in spite of uncertainty.