Re-routing migration geographies: Migrants, trajectories and mobility regimes

Abstract

This special issue consists of a collection of papers that aims to gain a better understanding of the experiences, practices and politics of mobility in a geo-political context in which movement is not self-evident. In so doing, it focuses on the mobility trajectories of migrants coming from the global South. These trajectories are characterized by specific spatial dynamics (e.g. detours, transit points, changeable networks) as well as spatial frictions (e.g. borders, waiting, detention), the latter being produced by stringent mobility regimes. This specific empirical focus on trajectories, as we argue, helps us to re-route the geography of migration in two important ways. First, we re-direct the attention of migration related discussions to im/mobility processes and, as such, we move away from dominant discussions on migrant incorporations and state-led integration agendas. Second, as the term re-routing refers to a process of continuous adjustments and constant navigations for the migrants in question, it creates further insight into the geopolitics of transnational mobility, as well as the multiple spatial transgressions involved. This introduction to this special issue outlines the theoretical and methodological starting points of the trajectory approach that serves as the common ground the individual papers begin from.