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- Convenors:
-
Alexandra Szőke
(Centre for Economic and Regional Studies)
Cecília Kovai (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies)
Réka Geambasu (Babes-Bolyai University)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel explores how people make sense of and accord values to different forms of immobility in an era dominated by the over-valuation of mobility. By focusing on the ostensibly immobile, we aim to unwrite hegemonic discourses about both social and spatial mobility.
Long Abstract:
Our current era is often described as that of accelerated mobility or hypermobility. But what happens to those who are not mobile, who are “stuck”, “inactive”, “waiting”, “remaining”, “slow” or “left behind”? How do societal expectations and dominant discourses on mobility influence their experiences, perceptions, aspirations and practices? How can they make sense of their immobility, or accord it with meaning and values?
Mobility can mean movement from one place to another and between social positions (the two often coincide). However, social and spatial mobility is not only an increasingly prevalent practice but also a dominant discourse and normative expectation, which renders certain forms of mobility more valuable than others. These expectations also affect those who are seen as immobile; how they perceive themselves and construe their practices and aspirations. Yet these experiences of immobility are often overshadowed by the academic, political, and social prioritisation of mobility. Prevalent discourses furthermore often conceal the inequalities and the financial, emotional, and social costs behind moving, including how these influence those who are “immobile”.
We invite empirically grounded contributions that explore the above issues by examining different forms of immobility (e.g. being unemployed, staying put in peripheral regions, being “left behind” by the migration of family members, being “stuck” due to caring responsibilities, being “inactive” due to age/sickness, awaiting asylum decisions). By focusing on the experience of the “immobile”, we hope to contribute to the unwriting of the dominant discourse of (hyper)mobility as well as the inequalities it creates and hides.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines an affective state of boredom and explores how everyday immobility becomes paradoxically both alienating and reassuring for Chinese migrant shopkeepers in Jamaica.
Paper Abstract:
The life trajectories of Chinese shopkeepers in Jamaica are marked by mobility, as the country is often envisioned as a transient waypoint. Many imagine returning home or migrating to more "developed" countries in North America after accumulating sufficient wealth. Their homemaking efforts are thus always directed toward somewhere else in the future. Yet, their present reality is defined by immobility: confined to shops guarded by iron wire mesh, their routines are shaped by fear, insecurity, and prejudices toward Jamaican society. Once seated at their managerial platforms, shopkeepers rarely move throughout the day, relying on Jamaican employees to provide for their needs. Their primary task is monitoring to prevent theft and robbery, a static vigilance that engenders hours, days, and years of profound boredom.
This paper examines this affective state and explores how everyday immobility becomes both alienating and reassuring for these migrant shopkeepers. Through ethnographic scenes and dialogues, I illustrate how their boredom is not only endured but, paradoxically, sustained – if not desired. Rather than integrating into Kingston’s vibrant multicultural landscape, these migrants choose to inhabit this affective stasis, maintaining a deliberate separation from their surrounding otherness. This paper interrogates immobilization in feelings, and feelings, as ever, remain deeply complex.
Paper Short Abstract:
Recent scholarship argues that formal education is a form of power, which tacitly indoctrinates children to middle-class values. Even if these virtues are difficult to be shared by students from lower-class families, especially by marginal Roma, whose situation is burdened by institutional racism and a complex system of ethno-racial classification, too (Mészáros, 2024). Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork in an urban Roma ghetto in Romania, this paper tries to highlight the gap between institutional discourse and practices of the local school (based on middle-class values) and the clearly articulated expectations of the socially and racially marginal local Roma parents towards it. According to its findings, the Roma families, whose children are seen as “lazy” or “non-cooperative” by the institution, have well-defined ideas on what a “good school” (Szőke et. al., 2024) means: not a place of knowledge-transmission, but one, which teaches mostly practical issues, and where children are treated well and nicely. It demonstrates, that these families, seen as immobile by the formal education, are in fact able to give meaning to their aspirations. By overlooking or silencing claims of local Roma parents, educational institutions involuntarily re-enforce social and ethno-racial marginality, which – according to the discourse – they intend to combat.
Paper Abstract:
Many transnational policy-makers state, that providing access to good-quality education, would automatically lead to social mobility of the Easter European Roma. Anthropological tradition in the field of Romany studies have always pleaded for a more nuanced approach of the issue. Recent scholarship argues that formal education, as a form of power, tacitly indoctrinates to middle-class values, however these are difficult to be shared by students from lower-class families, especially by marginal Roma, whose situation is burdened by institutional racism, too (Mészáros, 2024).
Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork in an urban Roma ghetto in Romania, this paper highlights the gap between the institutional discourse of the local school and expectations of the local Roma parents towards the institution. According to its findings, the Roma families, whose children are seen as “non-cooperative” by their teachers, have well-defined ideas on what a “good school” (Szőke et. all., 2024) means: a place of transmitting (not theoretical) but practical knowledge, an institution where children are treated well.
Experiences of these Roma parents result from their individual and collective experiences on the labour market of contemporary Romania. The country became a supplier of cheap workforce for western companies, but - in a racist social climate - to many Roma is very difficult to reach even these fringes of the formal labour market (Vincze et al. 2019).
Thus, by overlooking or silencing claims of these Roma parents, educational institutions involuntarily re-enforce social marginality, which – according to their official claims – they intend to combat.
Paper Short Abstract:
Being in insecure house-ing processes can both mean being stuck or hypermobile - in the spatial sense. Biographies of people living in an urban segregated area in Pécs, Hungary, speak of abandonment, physical and emotional trauma, adaptation - trying to live, trying to make a home.
Paper Abstract:
Being in insecure house-ing processes can both mean being stuck or hypermobile - in the spatial sense. Biographies of people living in an urban segregated area in Pécs, Hungary, speak of abandonment, physical and emotional trauma, adaptation - trying to live, trying to make a home.
Who is stuck and who has achieved their goals in this social and physical space? What meanings do the actions or happenings of immobility and hypermobility include in relation with homemaking processes, abilities, and feelings of home? What values, (in)equalities or social relations are shown or confronted in an ethnically and socially diverse urban area when one moves there, stays there for a long time, or moves away (inside or outside the area)?
Based on current anthropological fieldwork and conducting biographical and house-ing story interviews I intend to speak about the unwritten homemaking processes of individuals and households in an insecure space, contextualised by biographies and house-ing/household stories, and local interpersonal relations and knowledges.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper reflects on the experience of immobility in Venezuela, introducing "immobile migration" based on narratives of those who despite remaining immobile, identify as migrants due to human mobility reshaping their social landscapes and the crises transforming their daily lives.
Paper Abstract:
More than 8 million Venezuelans have migrated in the past two decades to pursue their life projects. This migration constitutes 25% of the total population of the country and represents one of the largest human movements globally. This process of demographic transformation is faced by those in immobility, through the material effort to reorganise their routines and responsibilities in response to the absence of individuals with whom they now maintain spatial-distant relationships. They must also confront the emotional consequences of their affective environments (family, friends, community) shifting around them. On the other hand, Venezuela is not in a state of war or armed conflict. This massive human mobility exists within a complex humanitarian emergency that not only results in millions leaving their country but also creates a context in which those who remain in a state of immobility, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, must coexist and face significant vulnerability.
That said, this article proposes a theoretical-epistemological reflection on the experience of remaining in immobility, taking the Venezuelan case as an ethnographic reference. I seek to give visibility to those subjects who remain in their homeland (in)voluntarily, who are considered ‘immobile migrants’ as the diaspora moves away from them and leaves them deprived of their social networks, and constant contingencies threaten and transform their lives in times of crisis.
Paper Short Abstract:
This study explores the life of R., a Tuscan craftsman who practices radical immobility as an act of resistance. Living in a renovated mill near the Chiantishire, R. rejects modern conveniences and tourism-driven commodification, opting instead for a lifestyle rooted in self-production and immobility. Paradoxically, his retreat from modernity has made him a focal point for visitors intrigued by his alternative existence, particularly after the pandemic. R.'s story emphasize the choice of immobility in a world characterized by hypermobility and illustrates how personal resistance can challenge the commodification of rural spaces.
Paper Abstract:
This study examines the life of R., a wood craftsman who has embraced immobility and radical self-sufficiency as acts of resistance in the Tuscan countryside. Over two decades ago, R. settled in a renovated mill near the Chiantishire, a region celebrated for its iconic landscapes and global tourism appeal. However, R.’s lifestyle starkly contrasts with the commodified rural idyll associated with this area. Instead of participating in its aestheticized economy, R. has chosen a radical return to peasant traditions, abandoning cars, electricity, and telecommunications in favor of self-production and walking as his sole means of transportation.
R.’s choice of immobility, rather than leading to isolation, has transformed him into a social focal point. Visitors, drawn to his unconventional way of life, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, have sought to understand or experience this alternative existence. R.’s story thus highlights a tension between retreat and engagement, as his personal resistance inadvertently fosters a relational network.
By analyzing R.’s radical immobility as both a personal choice and a form of quiet resistance, this research contributes to ongoing debates on rurality, authenticity, and the interplay between isolation and relationality in alternative living practices. The findings suggest that such forms of resistance, while grounded in individual agency, carry broader implications for rethinking the politics of rural landscapes in an era of increasing commodification and globalization.
Paper Short Abstract:
Based on extensive fieldwork in small peripheral Hungarian towns—including Roma communities—our presentation shows how the interconnection of social and spatial mobility shapes local class-based ethnic relations. We also show how normative expectations of social and spatial mobility create tensions in the livelihood strategies of local households (both Roma and non-Roma).
Paper Abstract:
We consider peripheral small towns as spaces that typically face resource outflows in the process of global capital accumulation. For example, outmigration for social mobility is mainly a loss of the middle-class population which constantly threatens the reproduction of local class and ethnic relations. In rural Hungary, notions of ethnicity and class overlap: the disadvantaged class position is associated with Roma by residents, while the idea of the middle class is linked to ‘Hungarians’. Thus, this outmigration has a strong class-based ethnic aspect: the local middle class, which in many cases also represents an ethnic 'majority' position, emigrates from the town (mainly through higher education), while the capital-poor strata (e.g. Roma) tend to remain in the local context or opt for other forms of circular migration (e.g.commuting, work abroad without emigration of the household). Consequently, migration can lead to class-based ethnic tensions as it increases the number of poor and ethnically stigmatised people in the local population.
Moreover, although the stakes are different, the normative expectation of social and spatial mobility creates tensions in the livelihood strategies of both Roma and non-Roma households. The point of these tensions is that fulfilling the normative expectation of social and spatial mobility may not only promise individuals a better social position but may also alienate them from existing resources related to locality (e.g. family relations, relational capital, housing, friends). The presentation will show how this tension is manifested in local Roma and non-Roma.
Paper Short Abstract:
Migration society is characterised by multiple belongings through remittances and high mobility. But what happens at the end of migrant life when mobility is no longer an option and return is disputed? How do elderly migrants see their new immobility, what are the experiences, practices, hopes and aspirations linked to end-of-life care and dying in diaspora? Ethnographic research shows us not only how topical the issue is but also how deeply it is linked to a sense of belonging.
Paper Abstract:
Governance of migration is focused on mobile young and healthy migrants as workforce. Until the 2000s, migration studies echoed this bias of “guestworker capitalism” in Europe and largely assumed that: “migrant workers […] do not age: they do not get tired: they do not die” (Berger & Mohr 1975, p. 64). In reality, however, 11.8% of international migrants are now aged 65 and over (IOM 2024). This growing group cannot keep up the level of mobility that used to characterize their transnational way of life. Moreover, many migrants do not wish to return and would rather die and be buried where they have spent most of their lives and where their children and grandchildren live (King & Kuschminder 2022; Anghel, Fauser & Boccagni 2019). With this situation, migration research has stated the need for an increased awareness of religious and cultural diversity at the end of life in diaspora: What are the practices, perceptions and aspirations, where do they comply or clash with dominant discourses on migration? How do individuals interact with health institutions and the municipal governance of death?
These questions are particularly urgent in Austria, where the first generation of labor migrants arrived since the 1960s, predominantly from Muslim regions in former Yugoslavia and Turkey. They and their families now face decisions about immobility and about organizing end-of-life care and death in predominantly Catholic Austria. However, although these issues are highly topical challenges, they have so far received little attention in migration research and politics in Austria.
Paper Short Abstract:
Education as a way forward is especially significant in life trajectories of young refugees. Based on empirical research, we scrutinize structural inequalities along emotional and social costs during the (im)mobilization of refugee students within the German higher education system.
Paper Abstract:
Education as a way forward, is especially significant in life trajectories of young refugees and their families. In response to refugee dynamics in Germany, institutions of higher education have installed special programs for aspirational refugees that aim at channelling their interrupted educational or professional biographies into the German labour force. Yet, conditions of access such as university entrance qualifications, almost fluent command of the German language, finances but also diverging norms and practices of the German study culture challenge the take-up or continuation of academic studies. As a result, educational trajectories are interrupted, halted, redirected or destructed, leaving aspirational refugee students with the feeling of being stuck.
In our paper, we draw on ethnographic material we collected in the preparatory program at the University of Education Freiburg in southern Germany (2016-2023) and its new program for teachers with foreign diploma. Based on participatory observations, expert interviews with course instructors, and formal as well as informal conversations with refugee participants, we argue that both a “regular discontinuity” and a “permanent temporariness” are crucial elements of the students’ backdrop that is characterized by the entanglement of legal issues, expectations of family, former educational experiences, legacies of flight and dissonances of arrival, personal aspirations and (coping) capacities, etc. As such, we scrutinize structural inequalities along emotional and social costs during the (im)mobilization of refugee students within the German higher education system.
Paper Short Abstract:
After Romania's EU accession, agricultural modernization couldn't eliminate the historically rooted institution of servitude. The presentation explores the "everyday experience" of servitude, examining the perspectives of those involved and the economic and social causes sustaining the system.
Paper Abstract:
In Romania, after its accession to the European Union, the modernization of agricultural production has not been able to eliminate the historically rooted institution of servitude. Servitude involves a rural farmer, engaged in agricultural production, establishing a long-term working relationship with agricultural laborers or their families, typically young men from poor peasant households in peripheral, economically disadvantaged settlements. While a significant portion of the Romanian population engages in labor migration to escape poverty or seek a better life, servants represent a specific employment group without the minimal resources needed for migration. These include family support, social connections, savings, or the capacity to navigate life beyond rural settings. Moreover, they often lack even the faintest hope of undertaking migration. Although servants may move from one region to another within the country, this mobility generally only means relocating from one periphery to another. They embody the "immobility" of life trajectories in a country where international labor migration has become a tool for the economic and social empowerment of entire communities.
The presentation seeks to explore the "everyday experience" of servitude, examining the positions and perspectives of those involved while addressing the economic and social causes underlying the system's operation. What obligations does participation in the institution of servitude impose on the employing farmer and their family? Why is the ethnicity of servants significant to employers?
The presentation is grounded in anthropological fieldwork conducted in various regions of Romania.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper explores how mobility remains an "illusion" among rural migrants of Western India, despite their annual cycle of migration for sugarcane cutting. Focusing on the experiences of sugarcane migrants, the paper engages in deconstructing the hegemonic discourse on socio-spatial dimensions of mobility.
Paper Abstract:
In this paper we discuss the case of sugarcane migrants in Western India who undergoes spatial mobility but fail to achieve socio-economic mobility. Migration is a seasonal phenomenon prevalent annually among rural migrants who hail from the lower socio-economic class. They practice this phenomenon every year with the hope that someday they will advance their living standards. However, such upward mobility is never achieved. Mobility in socio-economic sphere therefore remains an “illusion” among migrants. Based on ethnographic field work, the paper focuses on the illusionary dimensions of mobility through studying the annual cycle of sugarcane cutting migrants and the scale of their achieved socio-economic mobility. The paper discusses a broader question of how the migrants are stuck in being immobile despite their continuous cycle of spatial mobility; and how do they make sense of their “immobility”, particularly in the socio-economic spheres. Mobility in social sciences has been studied in two ways: the physical mobility of human society, generally understood as migration, and the mobility in terms of socio-economic advancement. Through this paper we introduce a new dimension to the mobility studies by using the phrase “mobility as illusion” and its application to the empirical case of the sugarcane cutting migrants.