Punctuated temporalities: Temporal borders in student-migrants’ everyday lives

Abstract

The punctuation of time through visas and residence permits intimately affects temporary migrants’ everyday lives. The temporal forms of control engendered through the global border and visa regime and their impact on fragmenting lived time have received little attention in comparison to the extensively studied spatial aspects of migration, particularly in the research context of mobility conceptualised as skilled migration. By drawing on in-depth interviews with migrants holding a temporary student status in Finland, the article examines the ways in which temporal borders bring about punctuated temporalities among non-EU/EEA student-migrants. Moreover, it demonstrates how the time limits of the student permit offer fruitful ground for the production of a low-paid labour force and how temporal borders assist in hierarchising this labour force in terms of mobility and rights. The article contributes to the sociological literature on migration and precarious labour markets by emphasising the analytical relevance of examining temporal borders as engendering a hierarchising function of the border regime and the role of temporal borders in facilitating the production of precarious migrant labour.