Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Global Networks
Publisher
Wiley
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
64650
Funders
University of Western Australia Research Training Program / Open access publishing facilitated by The University of Western Australia, as part of the Wiley -The University of Western Australia agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.
Abstract
In the past two decades, Australia has shifted from being a settler nation that promoted state-supported permanent migration to one where the scale and relative importance of temporary migration schemes have grown significantly. In 2017, Australia was the second largest issuing country of temporary visa permits after the United States, with temporary migrants applying, on average, for 3.3 temporary visas and spending 6.4 years in this multi-step visa journey to achieve permanent residency. As part of a broader research project on the social implications of temporary migration programs, we examine how Argentine temporary migrants exchange care to navigate temporary visa restrictions and the permanent temporariness in which they live. Our central argument is that transnational and local expressions, practices, and processes of care are co-constituted in particularistic temporary migrant care configurations that facilitate prolonged migration projects and continuity of care over time, despite the precarity that permanent temporariness brings. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Argentine temporary migrants, we illustrate the dynamics in which economic, accommodation, personal, practical, emotional and moral care is exchanged. The findings reveal the central role that transnational economic and practical as well as local, including local virtual, proximity care has in the everyday lives of Argentine temporary migrants. Ironically, their fragile temporariness may be an incentive to develop local support networks or maintain strong transnational ties to survive living in limbo.
DOI
10.1111/glob.12464
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Dewey, B., Baldassar, L., & Fozdar, F. (2023). Managing the permanent temporariness of prolonged migration: The role of local and transnational care circulation among Argentine temporary migrants in Australia. Global Networks. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12464