Thinking about the meaning of time among temporary labor migrants in Israel

Abstract

When thinking about time and migration, time appears to be the obvious unchangeable independent variable—linear, uniform, and constant—affecting migrants’ experiences. However, what if we reimagine time as a dependent variable affected by migration? Time, thus, is not linear but layered, malleable, and potentially even liquid. Migrants weave time with space, generating past, present, and future, forming multiple simultaneous “heres,” “theres,” and “in-betweens.” A subset of migrants, temporary labor migrants, provides an interesting opportunity to consider how migration affects time (including the perception of time). States permit temporary labor migrants to immigrate only because they consent to emigrate after a predetermined, contracted period. In this paper, we consider what it means to enter into such “migration time” arrangements that warp, transform, and curtail time for migrants, their children, employers, community members, left-behind families, and the state. Migrants’ children who typically exist outside state-brokered labor migration deals develop alternate timescapes from their migrant parents. Based on the analysis of interview data and complementary follow-up conversations with 43 temporary labor migrants in Israel from 11 different countries, we examine how the migration process creates nonlinear time and how migrants discover, lament, manage, enjoy, and struggle with multiple timescapes. Building on the work of Saulo Cwerner, we replicate his model on time and migration to show general patterns for immigrants and modes particular to temporary labor migrants including time ruptures, freedom time (short-term opportunities), and ambiguous time (fuzzy continuities).