On the move: Troubling categories of (im)mobility

On the move: Troubling categories of (im)mobility is inspired from conversations with the GRABS project team, and the horrific, yet hopeful, sight of bird nests built on top of razor wire fences at the entrance of Calais, France (you can read Izzy’s blog post on our trip to Calais in January here). After the original illustration, I made a composite with a long list of these troubling categories and their definitions using various glossaries, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. Finally, I wrote a short commentary piece to accompany the illustration.

By Juan Manuel

On the move: Troubling categories of (im)mobility

Disparate, dreamed, despaired, disputed, disjointed… in the context of migration, categories of (im)mobility are troubling not only because they fail to grasp the complex and myriads of realities driving a person, a family, a community to move, but also because they evidence an inability (or unwillingness) to engage with the processes of migration over space and time (Crawley & Skleparis 2018). The latter is because policy and conceptual categories have been developed with the intention to differentiate between ‘refugees’  and other ‘economic’ migrants by depicting processes of migration as binary, regular, linear events: a person leaves from country of origin A (either because they escape conflict, disaster, persecution, refugee, or because they are in the search for better economic opportunities, a better life, migrant) to country of destination B, while they are in transit through another (set of) region(s) or country(ies) XYZ.

The disjuncture between, on the one hand, the legal and normative frameworks of international protection regimes and bordering policies behind categories of (im)mobility, and, on the other hand, the complex drivers and changing lived experiences of those on the move are not new phenomena and have been long examined by migration researchers and policy-makers (Zetter 2007; Bakewell 2008; 2011; Kunz 2020; Gallo, Ngeh & Diallo 2024).

For a long time, migration scholars and policy-makers have struggled with the challenges of ‘where and how to draw a line between voluntary and forced migration’, and the powerful implications that the drawing of such a line entails – in terms of the inclusion/exclusion, more deserving/less deserving of protection, rights, and resources – for people based on where they come from (Crawley & Skleparis 2018). To what extent, under what circumstances, up to what moment in time and space, is a migration a fully planned choice? Things get complicated the moment someone asks So, why move? What led you to migrate? Sure, one might say, some migrations are not forced, but instead are born out of carefully, methodically planned and executed choices, – some are even the fruits of privileged mobilities which I cannot delve into now… material for a future post (one can read, for instance, Kunz 2016; 2020 in the meantime) – but the question is whose choices? How did those choices come about? What moves a person to leave a life, a place, a community of friends, a neighbourhood behind?

In contexts of prolonged socio-economic disruption, of material and human resources extraction, of wider geopolitical upheaval, and of protracted conflict, things are blurry. Choices and decisions to migrate become entangled; originally intended destination countries become transit ones; and short, temporary migrations become long-lasting, permanent moves. A person may not be directly, physically affected by a conflict or disaster, they may not be personally threatened or persecuted on grounds of race, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, type of work or political views. However, that same person’s ability to live fully (i.e., have a birth certificate, access education, healthcare and basic services, travel to work, earn a livelihood, enjoy culture, access green spaces, live in community with others, …) may become severely restricted, if not unbearable, when the social fabrics, economic infrastructures, and rule of law around them are undermined (Crawley & Skleparis 2018).

The problem with categories is that they matter because while they represent and reflect our worlds, they also create and limit them (Moncrieffe 2007). As Crawley and Skleparis argue, while we cannot simply do away with categories, we can and must critically challenge and examine their process of construction, their purpose, and the implications of the boundaries, differential value, and differing degrees of protection, rights and resources that they entitle (Crawley & Skleparis 2018: 59-61). 

Categories featured in the illustration

For all readers’ accessibility, the text below contains a non-exhaustive, and I emphasise non-exhaustive, list of categories with their working, operational definitions as they appear on the illustration, and always within a migration-related and international law on mobility context. Some definitions are lacking specific country, regional descriptions and/or connotations (for instance, the category relocation in the EU also refers to a relocation scheme developed during the 2015 ‘migration crisis’ whereby individuals, in clear need of international protection, arriving from certain countries of origin, after 25th March 2015, to either Greece or Italy could be transferred to other participating countries in the relocation scheme. I have not included this meaning in my illustration for reasons of space). Other categories have been grouped together for consolidation, even though they denote separate, yet related processes of mobility/migration, such as dependant, family member (see for example IOM 2015 « Glossary on Migration » entries for ‘dependant’, p.44, and ‘members of the family’, p.131). The text for each description has been extracted, paraphrased, shortened, and simplified using the following three main glossaries: The European Migration Network’s (EMN) Asylum and Migration Glossary (last updated online version as of 2023); the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Master Glossary of Terms (latest updated online version as of 2021); and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) Glossary on Migration (published in 2019). In addition to these glossaries, I have used online  encyclopedias and dictionaries to complement the list where some terms were not present or lacking information, including: Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford English Dictionary, and Wikipedia.

At risk of stating the obvious, our team at GRABS does not necessarily agree with all of these categories.

• Asylum seeker A person who is seeking international protection because of (fears of) persecution, abuse, risk of death, torture, inhuman and/or any other type of degrading treatment in their native/home country or usual place of residence.
• Citizen, National A person having a legal bond with a State.
• Criminalised A person who is treated or classified as criminal with regards to the legal framework of the country where they are present. Actions or processes can also be criminalised, e.g. solidarity towards migrants in situations of irregularity.
• Dependant, Family member A person who is granted entry into a State for the purpose of family reunification, or other dependent relationships for migration purposes such as minor children (i.e., under 18 years of age) or spouses.
• Deported, Expelled, Removed A foreign person (non-national, not a citizen) who has been ordered by administrative act and/or judicial decision to return to their home country, or be deported (expelled, removed) from the country where they are currently present.
• Destitute, Dispossessed A person who is destitute and/or dispossessed lacks material possessions, resources, and security. Dispossessed also entails being extracted, robbed of their possessions, resources, etc.
• Detained A person deprived of personal liberty for migration-related reasons (deportation enforcement, pending status decisions, lack of documents). In some countries, detention can be applied without any legal order and/or without clear duration, this is known as indefinite detention.
• Diaspora A group of migrants or descendants of migrants whose identity and sense of belonging are shaped by their migration experience and background.
• Diplomat A person working as a government official who is recognised as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country. Here it is important to distinguish between diplomatic immunity(the privileges and protections enjoyed by foreign state and/or international bodies’ officials when abroad), and diplomatic asylum(the refuge granted by States beyond the boundaries of their territory to an individual seeking protection).
• Displaced A person or group of persons forced to flee, leave their homes, either across an international border or within a State (internally displaced persons), because of or to avoid/escape armed conflict, generalised violence, human rights violations, sudden or progressive climate and/or environmental change, or natural or human-made disasters.
• Emigrant, Immigrant From the perspective of a country of departure and vis-à-vis that of a country of destination, an emigrant is considered as someone who leaves their country of origin (departure), while an immigrant is someone who arrives in a new country (destination).
• Evicted A person, family, group of persons, and/or communities who are removed against their will from their homes and/or land.
• Excluded, Marginalised A person who is prevented from entering, or given restricted entry to a place, or barred from participating, being considered or included in a social group or community; and/or who is expelled from a place or community. Related, and often resulting from exclusion, a person who is marginalised is relegated socially, economically and/or politically to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group.
• Exiled, Banished A person who is punished with their prolonged expulsion and banishment from their country of nationality/origin by the  relevant vested authority.
• Expatriate Legally, a person who voluntarily renounces their nationality. Also, and most often, a colloquial and neo-colonial term associated with wealth, social status, and race, and which denotes a person who leaves their home country by choice and takes up residence in a foreign country…essentially an ‘economic migrant’.
• Extradited A person who is surrendered between two States on grounds of a criminal offence committed against the laws of the requesting state.
• Foreigner, Alien, Non-national A person who is not a national of the State where they are present.
• Guest In migration parlance, a person generally considered to be a migrant worker from ‘poor’ country and recruited for a restricted time of residence and employment.
• Homeless A person who is lacking stable, safe, and functional housing (i.e. lives on the streets, between family’s or friends’ homes, in boarding houses with no security of tenure, and/or leaves their home because of civil conflict and is refugee within their home country or place of residence).
• Indigenous, Native A person who descends from the populations which inhabited a country, or a geographical region located within a country, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present State boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, traditions, and systems.
• Integrated, Assimilated Both terms entail, with varying degrees, a process where a person integrates into (incorporates) or assimilates (subsumes) their language, traditions, values, mores and behaviours to those of the hosting (receiving) society and/or community. Here, while integration implies to a two-way process of mutual adaptation and responsibilities between migrants and the societies in which they live, assimilation, is a one-directional approach to integration policies whereby person (usually from a minority ethnic or social group) adopts the cultural practices of another (usually the majority ethnic or social group) of place.
• Irregular, Clandestine, Illegal A person or group of persons whose migration takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from the State of origin, transit or destination. A person may be made ‘irregular’ or ‘clandestine’ due to procedural delays, administrative negligence, bureaucratic hurdles, and/or infrastructural obstacles. The term ‘illegal’ is often and wrongly used interchangeably, with ‘irregular’, ‘undocumented’, and ‘clandestine’. However, no person is ‘illegal’.
• Itinerant, Frontier worker A person who resides in one State and travels to another State or States for short periods, due to the nature of their occupation.
• Migrant An umbrella term, not defined under international law, referring to a person who moves away from their place of residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons.
• Naturalised A person (or their legal representative, agent) who applies for and acquires another nationality after birth, or who is granted a nationality by a State public authority.
• Nomad A person, group of persons, or community, without a fixed place of residence, who move from one site to another, usually according to well-established, traditional patterns of seasonal, geographical mobility.
• Protracted A situation in which refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and/or other forcibly displaced persons have been unable to return to their habitual residence for three years or more, and where the process for finding durable solutions, such as repatriation, integration in host communities, settlement in third locations or other mobility opportunities, has stalled.
• Refugee A person who (a) is persecuted in their home country on grounds of their race, religion, nationality, gender and/or sexual orientation), type of work (e.g., journalist, activist, politician, intellectual, artist), or political opinion, and (b) has been granted international asylum protection under the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) mandate, or  as part of the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) process of a host State as per the 1951 UN Convention. A de facto refugee is a person in a refugee-like situation, who may receive subsidiary international protection, but has not had their asylum claim assessed (yet) through the RSD process. The rights, protections, and basic services granted to refugees and de facto refugees are not the same in scope, nature, and duration.
• Relocated Within migration context, relocation is related to the settlement (transfer and integration) of internally displaced persons into a geographical area within the same country other than their place of origin or the place where they first arrived when displaced. In the context of humanitarian emergencies, relocation refers to internal or cross-border humanitarian evacuations.
• Repatriated The personal right of a prisoner of war, civil detainee, refugee, or of a civilian to return to their country of nationality under specific conditions laid down in various international instruments (e.g., armed conflicts, humanitarian crises, natural disasters).
• Resettled A person who is a refugee or in a refugee-like situation and is transferred from the country in which they have sought protection to another State that has agreed to admit them – as refugees – with permanent residence status.
• Resident A person who has a physical presence (lives, works, studies) in a place for some time. Long term residence may or may not equate to ‘legal’ status (allowed to stay) in a country.
• Slave A person deprived of their liberties as human being and over whom any or all the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.
• Smuggled A person who is or has been the object of the crime of smuggling (secretly and illegally taken into or out of a country), regardless of whether the perpetrator is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted.
• Stateless A person who has lost or is not considered as a national by any State.
• Stranded A person who is unable to return to their country of origin, cannot regularise their status in the country where they reside, and do not have access to legal migration opportunities that would enable them to move on to another State. It also refers to migrants who are stranded because of humanitarian or security reasons in the country of destination, transit or origin preventing them to return home while they are also unable to go elsewhere.
• Tourist A person who does not reside in the country of arrival and is admitted to that country temporarily for purposes of leisure, sport, recreation, holiday, visits to friends or relatives, health or medical treatment, or religious pilgrimage.
• Trafficked A person who is or has been recruited, transported, transferred, harboured by means of threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation (including, but not restricted to, sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs).
• Traveller A person who moves between different geographic locations, for any purpose and for any duration.
• Unaccompanied, Separated Children An unaccompanied child or minor, as defined in Article 1 of the UN 1989 Convention on the Right of the Child, refers to children who have been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so. A separated child or minor, refers to children who have been separated from both parents, or from their previous legal or customary primary caregiver, but not necessarily from other relatives. These may, therefore, include children accompanied by other adult family members.
• Undocumented A non-national person who enters or stays in a country without the appropriate documentation.  People can find themselves as undocumented either when they have documentation that acts as proof of identity, but they do not have documentation that proves their right to enter and stay in the country, or such documentation is fraudulent or no longer valid; and/or when they do not hold any form of documentation that proves their identity, nor do they have any other proof of their right to enter and stay in the country.
• Visitor A non-national person authorised to stay temporarily on the territory of a State without participating in a professional activity.

Sources consulted

Glossaries

• EMN Asylum and Migration Glossary (2023);
• IOM Glossary on Migration (2019)
• UNHCR’s Master Glossary of Terms (2021)

Encyclopedias, dictionaries

• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Wikipedia

Academic references