Resettlement as a temporal border: infrastructural promises and future-making among migrants and officials in Niger

Abstract Resettlement is a safe pathway to the Global North, but only few refugees in the Global South receive it. This article argues that beyond being a highly selective durable solution, resettlement can also operate as a temporal border intended to delay migration by making elusive promises of a better future to transiting refugees if they abandoned migration and waited for resettlement. This was the case in the major transit country Niger where resettlement was established in 2017 as a part of UNHCR’s Mixed Migration policy to contain EU-bound migration. Based on an ethnography in Niger in 2018–2019, the article identifies three modes of future-making by refugees and officials in response to these resettlement promises: risk assessment, temporal reordering, and experimentation. In acts of risk assessment, refugees weighed the risks associated with waiting for resettlement and its alternatives against each other. In the asylum procedures, state officials foregrounded refugees’ resettlement hopes over their past persecution and present protection risks. This temporal reordering could lead to rejecting their asylum applications. In acts of experimentation, refugees developed alternative futures when their resettlement eschewed. By developing resettlement promises as a temporal border, the article highlights the role of promises and future-making for migrant containment and its subversion.