Stay, go back, or move on: Comparing the life strategies of forced migrants in the transit countries of Colombia, Jordan, Mexico, and Turkey

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Mexico, Turkey, Jordan and Colombia are crucial transit countries in two of the most important corridors of forced migration in the world: the Middle East and the Americas. The first two countries are in a delicate position as bottlenecks and checkpoints of forced migration to the USA and the UE, the other two have become relevant transit countries of forced migration in recent decades. In general, the challenges of forced migration concentrate in the global South and in transit countries as places that were not chosen as final countries of arrival but have become unavoidable stages to reach desired destinations. Countries of transit often do not have the means to offer the adequate legal, economic, and societal infrastructure for either asylum procedures, labor market participation, or regularization of legal status. Moreover, future aspirations of migrants are often modified due to migratory processes and adjusted to perceived institutional environments at places of transit. All these factors influence migrants’ biographical projects – their routes, their stop-overs, the length of stay at each point in their journey, and, finally, their desired destinations. Given these constraints, forced migrants constantly have to redefine and develop their life course strategies and biographical projects, as they try to decide whether to stay, return, or continue their journeys. In this project, we aim to understand and explain the factors that influence the biographical projects and aspirations of forced migrants as they make these decisions. We propose a theoretical model (called VESPER) that considers the current social entanglements of migrants in their migration trajectory, their past experiences, their socialized values and attitudes, as well as their preferences, expectations, and resources. Our methodology combines mixed data gathering: a standardized, event-oriented surveys, biographical interviews with forced migrants, semi-structured expert interviews, as well as ethnographic visits to selected sites of transit migration. The project has two leading questions: 1) How do forced migrants’ projections about their future life influence their decisions to stay, return, or continue their journey? And 2) How do the factors of current social entanglements, past experiences, socialized values and attitudes, specific preferences, expectations, and resources influence these biographical projects?