Beyond the eternal present of migration. Time and biographies in migrants’ collective action

The proliferation of media, political and academic discourses on migration has contributed to the construction of an often fixed and stereotyped image of migrants, built in a context of ever-present crisis. A key feature of this process of objectification is a temporal stasis that traps people in what can be described as an eternal present of migration: an existence that begins with the act of migrating, to which one is continually brought back and reduced. This paper engages in a reflexive critique of the quasi-objectified status of migrants by focusing on the empirical case of migrants’ collective action. It examines the micro-level of participants who mobilize as migrants in the public sphere and explores how they make sense of the term migrant itself. Building on the analysis of life histories of participants, this paper outlines a temporal approach that gives primacy to their subjective time. Findings suggest that the experience of migration itself plays a marginal role in the decision to mobilize for migrants’ rights: friendships, family and community histories, experiences at work, ties with the local movement area provide complementary or alternative sites that trigger participation. Bridging the biographical and temporal dimensions, this work explores the internal reasons and meanings that sustain participation, beyond externally imposed labels that trap participants in the eternal present of migration. The temporal approach proposed complements the literature on migrants’ collective action, which has generally privileged a focus on space, and has wider implications for the study of activism by marginalized and precarious actors.