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Follow the People! Examining Migration Regimes through the Trajectories of Unauthorized Migrants

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Was ist ein Migrationsregime? What Is a Migration Regime?

Part of the book series: Migrationsgesellschaften ((MIGRAGS))

Abstract

This article combines the perspective of the migration regime with a mobile research perspective focused on migratory trajectories to make visible the experience of unauthorized migrants navigating through a series of migration and border regimes between their original starting point and their eventual point of arrival. It draws on two case studies from our own research: Anna Lipphardt’s study on the transnational trajectories of Holocaust survivors from Vilna/Vilnius in the aftermath of the Second World War and Inga Schwarz’s on-going postdoctoral project on current movements of unauthorized migrants to, through and beyond Europe, by taking the Tri-State Area between Switzerland, Germany and France as a node and transit point. The concluding section addresses key conceptual and ethical challenges for trajectory analysis and discusses the insights to be gained from the conceptual integration of trajectory analysis into migration regime analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    While the term Eigensinn carries neither a negative nor a positive connotation in German, equivalent terms in English such as obstinacy or stubbornness carry more negative weight. We have therefore decided to retain the German term for this article.

  2. 2.

    The respective English and French terms originate in military contexts, whereas the German term Handlungsspielraum refers to a theatrical context and literally means “the space (Raum) in which action (Handlung) happens (spielen)”. It implies room to try things out, but also limiting constraints.

  3. 3.

    Because of its multiethnic character, there are several toponyms for the city each inscribed with diverging political claims. In Yiddish, the city is called Vilne. In this chapter, Vilnius is used for the postwar context, while the English (and neutral) toponym Vilna is used for the prewar context, when the city was under Russian, and later Polish, rule.

  4. 4.

    Following Coutin (2005), we favor the term unauthorized to describe the movements of people without legal permission. Terms such as illegal, clandestine, irregular etc. carry negative connotations, which stretch beyond a mere description of the lack of legal authorization to enter a state’s territory or stay there. Scholarly consensus exists around the state-centered nature of these terms and their negative connotations (Kubal 2013; Andersson 2014; Smart and Zerilli 2014). In contrast, unauthorized refers to the state perspective, without implying a broader ‘illegality’ of the human being in question.

  5. 5.

    The account presented here is based on the historical introduction of the ethnographic study Lipphardt (2010), which explores communal memorial and cultural work in the aftermath of the Holocaust. It draws on three types of sources: (1) primary literature and archival material from the immediate post-war period, (2) memoirs and testimonies written (often decades) after the resettlement and (3) qualitative interviews with Holocaust survivors conducted between 2001 and 2004.

  6. 6.

    The available literature presents a highly fragmented picture of Jewish migration after the Holocaust, divided along conceptual lines based on the paradigm of national historiography and/or an epistemological framework attached to a specific place or area. For a more detailed discussion see Lipphardt (2015, p. 226 f.).

  7. 7.

    This number also includes some survivors from adjacent Jewish communities who came to the city after the ghettos in their hometowns had been “liquidated”.

  8. 8.

    This account is based on her memoire, Margules (1999). See also Lipphardt (2010, p. 147–149).

  9. 9.

    Fictitious name.

  10. 10.

    Brahim describes both periods of mobility and immobility on the travel route as burdensome whenever they represented a lack of the possibility to make his own decisions. Being in deportation centers was equally as problematic for him as being stuck in a dense network of people at a point of departure without outside contacts, experiencing inhuman working or housing conditions and enduring travel phases in which he was unable to rest his body and mind.

  11. 11.

    All citations in italics in this chapter stem from interviews conducted in November 2014 as part of the ongoing research project described above.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cultures of Mobility in Europe, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Anna Lipphardt & Inga Schwarz

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  1. Anna Lipphardt
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  2. Inga Schwarz
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Correspondence to Anna Lipphardt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IMIS, Universität Osnabrück , Osnabrück, Germany

    Andreas Pott

  2. FB Kultur und Sozialwissenschaften, Universität Osnabrück , Osnabrück, Germany

    Christoph Rass

  3. Moderne Geschichte, Universität Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

    Frank Wolff

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Lipphardt, A., Schwarz, I. (2018). Follow the People! Examining Migration Regimes through the Trajectories of Unauthorized Migrants. In: Pott, A., Rass, C., Wolff, F. (eds) Was ist ein Migrationsregime? What Is a Migration Regime?. Migrationsgesellschaften. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20532-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20532-4_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-20531-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-20532-4

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