New article in the Journal of Intercultural Studies on 'Migrants’ Multifocal Sedentarism: Ambivalent Belonging and Desired Recognition in Transnational Social Fields Connecting Pakistan and Norway''. This article starts from the empirical observation that many migrants lead lives characterized by sedentarism, not mobility, within transnational social fields. Migrant belonging is often stretched across multiple locations spatially, resulting in what Marta Bivand Erdalcalls multifocal sedentarism. The article argues that the reality of multifocal sedentarism, which many migrants’ lives are characterized by, necessetiates the need for more inclusive and plural conceptions of belonging. Such conceptions should both recognize the (potential) spatial multiplicity of belonging, and reject zero-sum and static approaches to belonging.
Drawing on qualitative data from the transnational social field spanning Pakistan, Norway and elsewhere, the article discusses how sedentarism may be seen as a key trait of migrant lives in transnational social fields. It explore how migrants enact and experience belonging in ways which are spatially multiple, and analyses how ambivalence comes to the fore in the dissonance that emerges when juxtaposing the sedentarism of migrant lives, with their (often contested) spatially multiple belonging.
Acknowledging multifocal sedentarism helps to understand migrants’ spatially multiple belonging as contingent on desired, but not always experienced, recognition, here, there and potentially elsewhere.
