Time(S), Space(S) and Shapes of Vulnerabilities in the Belgian Asylum System
摘要
This Chapter examines asylum seekers’ subjective experiences of time and temporalities in the Belgian asylum procedure. Based on a field study of the experiences of 39 asylum seekers, complemented by those of social workers, lawyers and, more generally, decision-makers, this Chapter argues that time is not a simple (trivial) parameter in the asylum procedure, but acts as a vector of vulnerability. Indeed, this work highlights that time here establishes a temporal order that is created by certain practices in various time-spaces connected to asylum (e.g., reception centres) leading to asylum seekers being exposed to certain risks that generate situations of vulnerability. These situations are articulated through different temporalities of asylum to which asylum seekers are subjected through their process in Belgium: temporalities of the road, administrative temporalities and more generally “imposed” temporalities. Those show that time has a real political dimension, in its dispossessing effects in the asylum system, that creates lack of predictability, and as a result, great uncertainty and disempowerment. Because it seeks to reflect on the effects of time and the vulnerabilities resulting from political practices, this Chapter is also an attempt to integrate the issue of vulnerability into existing work on time and migration. In this perspective, this work combines a legal approach (which legally clarifies the issue of vulnerability and the principle of reasonable deadlines) and a ethnographic one based on fieldwork with asylum seekers and more generally, “asylum stakeholders”. All in all, it aims to demonstrate how asylum practices over time characterize the experiences of asylum seekers by shaping their vulnerabilities in their daily interactions with asylum bodies in Belgium.