Status (Im)Mobility and the Legal Production of Irregularity: A Sociolegal Analysis of Temporary Migrants’ Lived Experiences

Abstract

By combining legal analysis with data obtained through a longitudinal and qualitative fieldwork, this article looks at the impact of time and temporality on migrants’ trajectories. We find that legal insecurity is experienced by the majority of migrants residing lawfully in Belgium as a result of temporal constraints. Indeed, we argue that enforced temporariness and the conditionality of migrants’ stay increase the risk of precariousness and irregularity irrespective of migrants’ nationality. The article also looks at the consequences of legal insecurity on individuals’ trajectories. Since legal stay may be subject to disruptions, migrants with temporary status share the feeling of living in a situation of liminal legality and liminal times. However, they can find ways to overcome these temporal constraints using coping strategies. Through a sociolegal analysis, this article sheds light on temporality as a normative constraint as well as an individual experience creating immobility.