Exploring Imagined Temporalities in Resettlement Workers’ Narratives: Renegotiating Temporal and Emotional Boundaries in Post-Brexit Britain

Forde, L, McGovern, M and Moran, L (2024) Exploring Imagined Temporalities in Resettlement Workers’ Narratives: Renegotiating Temporal and Emotional Boundaries in Post-Brexit Britain. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 25 (3). pp. 1203-1222. ISSN 1488-3473

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Abstract

This paper develops the concept of ‘imagined temporalities’ to explore multiple temporal subjectivities, time cultures, ‘myths’, and realities evident in interviews with resettlement workers who were part of the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) in Merseyside, United Kingdom (UK). Conducted in 2019, the interviews took place as the triggering of Article 50 signalled the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU). This period of unprecedented social, economic, and political changes formed a crucial backdrop framing our interviewees’ narratives. The views of resettlement workers have been little explored and are employed here to complement the insights provided by work undertaken by others with refugees and asylum seekers. This research provides important insights into their perceptions of the interplay of factors that affect belonging and access to supports for refugees and asylum seekers, revealing wider, largely underreported, concerns.1 These include, their own personal experiences working in support services and system changes, driven by growing socio-political pressures that impact on community-building among refugees during their resettlement. Significantly, debates about “Brexit” and the UK’s political future, as well as heated public discussions of the historical legacies of colonialism which underpin the present treatment of migrants, are reflected in these resettlement workers’ views as well. Subsequently, this paper employs the concept of ‘imagined temporalities’ to explore how support workers understand the treatment of migrants by social and political systems—and their own personal struggles and hopes,—against this wider, divisive post-Brexit backdrop. Overall, the paper underlines the highly politicised space the resettlement workers operate in, where they balance the needs of service users in the midst of constraints imposed by overly rigid time regimes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	44 Human Society; 4403 Demography; 1603 Demography; 1604 Human Geography; 1608 Sociology; 44 Human society
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV7231 Criminal Justice Administrations
Divisions:	Justice Studies (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	Springer
Date of acceptance:	7 December 2023
Date of first compliant Open Access:	2 May 2025
Date Deposited:	02 May 2025 09:57
Last Modified:	02 May 2025 10:30
DOI or ID number:	10.1007/s12134-023-01110-z
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26297

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