Paper short abstract:

Questioning the routine assumption that associate stillness or immobility as being involuntary, as well as the formalist view of economy that assumes individual's self-interest to dictate their economic action, the paper explore motivations behind voluntarily staying put in stagnant endeavors.

Paper long abstract:

Mobility is often associated with progress and continuity, as opposed to staying still, which is seen as a state individuals are compelled to dwell in. Mobility, as studies reaffirm (Frello, 2008; Greenblatt, 2009; Salazar & Smart, 2011), goes beyond mere movement and is fraught with meaning. But so is the absence of mobility. The decision to remain in a particular place or activity often goes beyond just an inability to be mobile and entails a moral dimension.

In this paper I discuss case studies on small (family) firms collected through fieldwork in Maharashtra, India that are experiencing stagnation as a result of structural changes brought about by waves of economic liberalization in India. These owners, however, have voluntarily remained stuck in their stagnant businesses, opting out of other economically rational choices at their disposal. While their stillness has enabled the mobility of their next generation to pursue careers overseas, subsequently it has endangered the traditional mode of continuity of the firms. Against this backdrop while exploring their motivation to stay put in stagnation I uncover the role values and morality play in the continuity of such capitalist enterprises. The analysis highlights the 'embeddedness' (Polanyi, 1944) of economy in the social matrix and questions the routine assumption that associates stillness or immobility as being involuntary, as well as the formalist view of economy that assumes economic behaviour to be dictated by a self-interest to maximize material benefit.

Paper short abstract:

Since the Brexit vote, EU-migrants living in the UK are stuck in a state of limbo as they await confirmation of their future status. The paper focuses on "In Limbo", a campaign group maintaining an archive of EU-citizens' testimonials, to discuss the experience of being stuck on shifting ground.

Paper long abstract:

Britain's momentous decision to leave the EU has irreversibly altered the way EU-citizens in the UK understand their past, present and future. The UK government's assertion that "nothing will change" for them sharply contrasts with the realities of the proposed future immigration system, the deliberately introduced "hostile environment" for migrants, and a sharp rise in hate-crime against anyone perceived to be foreign. Moreover, many EU-citizens are struggling with a shattered sense of identity and belonging, while the ongoing legal uncertainty makes envisioning the future extremely difficult. Many experience themselves as being stuck in a state of Limbo - a sense of altered temporality (Knight 2017) between a lost past and a not-yet imagined future.

However, this experience has also given rise to new collective identities and practices. While-pre referendum, EU-citizens rarely thought of themselves as a distinct group, the shared experience of being 'unsettled in place' has prompted them to come together and organize. This paper focuses on 'In Limbo', a migrant-led campaign group that collects testimonials from EU-citizens affected by Brexit, and has published them in a book of the same name (Remigi 2017). Initially intended as a documentary archive, the book has sparked public events, has served as information for British friends and family, and has been gifted to politicians and decision-makers as a material artifact representing the the anguish of being stuck on shifting ground. The paper will trace the story of 'In Limbo" from its beginnings as an online community to its current work.

Paper short abstract:

Using emotionality as an entry point, this paper explores the affective, everyday ways that refugee women mobilise smartphones and ICTs in order to "make do" (De Certeau, 1984) with protracted experiences of waiting in Greece.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015, over one million migrants crossed into Europe (IOM, 2015), the majority fleeing conflict-affected countries, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, and Syria. This event of mass migration would come to be known as the "European migrant crisis." In the wake of the migrant crisis, recent scholarship has focused on representation, technology, and mobility, often in the context of migration journeys and border security. With some exceptions (see, for example, Baldassar et al., 2016; Leurs, 2016; Madianou, 2016a; Nedelcu and Wyss, 2016), literature on media and migration rarely addresses the affective entanglements of migrant digital practices. Yet, for refugee women stranded in Greece, waiting is a deeply affective and embodied experience, mediated by information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as smartphones, and tempered both spatially and temporally. This paper uses the dialectic of strategies and tactics (De Certeau, 1984) to explore the situated and contested experiences of women waiting in a Greek refugee camp. Using emotionality as an entry point, this paper explores refugee women's digital practices as tactical interventions, and the ways in which digital technologies are mobilised in order to "make do" (De Certeau, 1984). It presents three empirical cases of "making do": non-mainstream news consumption; co-(present) parenting; and nature photography. Within all of these, emotionality is a constant, and, in the context of dehumanising strategies of migration containment, prioritising personal emotional welfare is an agential act of resistance.

Paper short abstract:

Living in the United States as an undocumented migrant from Mexico greatly affects people's mobility, constraining their geographical scope of action. Examining a Zapotec community in Los Angeles, I seek to investigate alternative forms of movements arising in this state of immobility.

Paper long abstract:

For the roughly six million Mexican migrants living in the U.S. without legal documentation, their legal status has significant implications for their (in)ability to travel to Mexico: Since the United States started implementing more repressive border control measures in the 1980s, many have considered visiting Mexico too risky. They have become immobilized, confined to a life within the U.S. borders.

Based on fieldwork on a community of Zapotec Mexican migrants in Los Angeles, I seek to explore how its members deal with the situation of living geographically constrained lives and how this "stuckness" impacts the community. Despite being immobilized, mobility characterizes people's lives. Patron saint festivities on the one hand and the second generation on the other play a crucial role in this respect. First, patron saint fiestas that are celebrated in the Mexican home town and have become an integral part of community life in L.A. have not only given rise to cross-border flows in terms of cultural traditions such as dances and music. The celebrations are moreover linked with the movement of money and goods between Mexico and the U.S., with affective connections, with political power vested across borders, and with social status, upward mobility and community building in the U.S. setting. A second dimension of movement despite legal constraints is the second generation, people's U.S. born children, who are able to travel in place of their parents. These forms of mobility within "stuckness" might contribute to an enhanced sense of agency.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores meanings of (im)mobility for young Serbian entrepreneurs caught up in the politics of brain drain.

Paper long abstract:

What does it mean to stay in a context so many others leave? My paper will investigate this question in relation to the "problem" of brain drain from Serbia and the solution proffered by the country's political elite: entrepreneurship. Attention to the cultural meanings of mobility in Serbian has tended to emphasize desires for "escape" (Erdei 2010) from conditions of "entrapment" (Jansen 2009). Yet it is significant that this framework reflects conditions in the country before liberalization of the European visa regime in 2009. My research, based on 15 months of fieldwork in Belgrade in 2014-2015, has shown that the recent shift in the conditions of possibility of travel also marked a shift away from the idiom of escape toward more nuanced stancetaking in relation to mobility. In focusing on young entrepreneurs resolved to stay in Serbia but with experiences of international travel, this paper takes up the panel's invitation to explore how "stuckness" is embedded in mobility. My interlocutors have had experiences of travel that would have been impossible a decade earlier. How do such travels shape expectations of life at home and efforts to materialize economic opportunities? How do those who embrace entrepreneurialism as value system and lifestyle take up or reject the political discourse that posits entrepreneurship as solution to brain drain? This paper homes in on the multidimensional meanings of (im)mobility for a generation that came of age when Serbia was considered an international pariah but who have taken advantage of renewed opportunities for travel.

Paper short abstract:

Protests of 'Porozumienie Rezydentów' (Junior Doctor's Association) in Poland were caused by worsening situation in the Polish healthcare system. This presentation aims to analyse work attitues of doctors who decided not to emigrate despite bad working conditions in the context of those protests.

Paper long abstract:

For many years the situation in the Polish healthcare system has been worsening. This led to the reactivation of the 'Porozumienie Rezydentów' (Junior Doctor's Association) in 2015. The organization's objective is to influence the situation of Polish junior doctors: the demands include higher wages, better working conditions, better quality of training and changes in the form of the training. The recent protests organised by the Association revealed the attitudes of young doctors towards their work. Those attitudes might be crucial in the debate concerning the present state of Polish healthcare. Taking into account the massive emmigration of Polish doctors caused by welcoming job offers from EU countries, the decision not to leave becomes an unobvious choice. This presentation aims to take a closer look at attitudes of Polish doctors who decided to stay in Poland and engaged in the activity of 'Porozumienie Rezydentów'. The analysis strives for an overall account of what drives young doctors to stay in the context of their attitudes to their job and an anthropological analysis of the subject - expecially in the light of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms.

Paper short abstract:

Migration defines the lives of youngsters who do not migrate in multiple and radical ways, mainly, providing hopes for reunification, but especially, encouraging their own action and decision making of staying and going against parent's imaginations of their futures.

Paper long abstract:

A dramatic financial and political crisis in the late 1990s caused hundred of thousands of Ecuadorians to migrate to Spain. A great number of women left behind families and homes. They reunited some children and left other 'waiting for reunification' that took long time or never realised. Some youngsters waited for reunification, other not, but desires and ambiguous feelings to leave were common. Promises of reunion defined youngsters' lives. Waiting became their way of living and feeling, but also their way of action. "Stuckness," as an experience of 'standby life' however, has not stopped their agency, nor for children neither for parents. While youngsters have got some relief in their 18 years old birthday since they do not longer apply for reunification as dependent minors, parents however continue to animate these hopes to move by multiple enormously creative methods. The relief cannot last as long as young people desire. Transnational live is full of ambiguities, promises that never end or never realise, but "stuckness" is always a dynamic experience.