The ever-changing occupancy, and hence the character of the AEO as a place of transit, makes it difficult to generate coherent findings on the perspective of the residents. In fact, given the heterogeneity of individual cases and the biographies of asylum seekers, there can be no such coherence. At the time of our survey (July–August 2016), the sample implicitly focused on a slightly more homogenous group, as during the centre’s first year, the residents were predominantly migrants from Western Balkan countries. The majority of the interviewees had already lived in (decentralized) accommodation all over Northern Bavaria, sometimes for a longer period of time. They saw themselves on a good path of integration through school attendance and regular work. Then they had to move to the ARE in Bamberg, in order to accelerate further processing. Almost all of them had had a negative decision on their application before, but had not yet been deported due to various issues such as missing documents or ongoing medical problems. This explains in a certain number of cases the disproportionately long stay in the reception centre. Those asylum seekers whose applications had been unproblematic in the bureaucratic sense, or those who recognized the futility of an asylum application in their case and stopped the procedure on their own, had already left the ARE by the time of the survey. As a consequence the sample predominantly represented a group of people whose asylum procedures had been problematic (in terms of asylum procedures). This also explains that all of our interviewees stayed much longer in the camp than the average duration of 2 months mentioned above.
For these migrants, the stay in Bamberg was often just another stage in a multifaceted migration trajectory. They are bound in an “elusive migration system” (Göler and Krisjane 2016: 2017), like those migrants from Kosovo and Albania, who act in a highly flexible, spontaneous and unpredictable way. Two biographies underline this. Firstly there was a 38-year-old Albanian citizen (I12)Footnote 7, born in Tepelena, who had lived and worked in Greece for 11 years. Due to the economic crisis there he returned to Albania in 2011. In 2015, he decided to leave to Germany “into asylum” with his family (a wife and three children). Secondly there was a 31-year-old Kosovan from Prishtina (I6) who came to Germany in 2011 and experienced slightly different conditions with liberal regulations at that time. He worked in a restaurant, then in horticulture and attended a language course. His work permit was no longer renewed from the end of 2015, and so since April 2016 he had been living in Bamberg’s reception centre after living in three intermediate decentralized accommodation facilities in Northern Bavaria.
In other cases, too, the impression emerges that for migrants from Western Balkan countries who came to Germany before 2015, the prospects of staying were not bad at first (at least in the form of an exceptional leave to remain, i.e. the imposition of a ban on deportation according to §60 of the Residence Act). I hypothesize that those migrants were indirectly affected by the “refugee crisis”. This seemed to be the case for a 28-year-old Kosovan from Gjakova (I19), who – after having spent parts of his childhood in Saarbrücken – had lived with his family in several small towns in Upper Franconia since 2014. He had worked in a fast-food restaurant for 9 months, where he was recently offered vocational training. The notice of rejection had been received 3 months previously. He had had to stop working and to cancel his apprenticeship. Since his family is obliged to leave the country, but cannot cover the travel expenses to do so, they will be deported. That will mean a ban on entry and residence in the Schengen area for the next years.
For all of our interviewees, return is not a realistic option to solve individual problems and will not be a permanent solution (see also Göler and Doka 2015; Göler 2015). All statements given by the interviewees on their plans after return point to repeated emigration – to other countries or even back to Germany, but then not in the migration channel of asylum. The tragic misunderstanding of that time, i.e. the rumours that political asylum also applied to migrants from Western Balkan countries, seems to be dispelled. Most migrants admit in a remarkably open way that wrong information, given by family members, a far too blue-eyed migration decision, or, especially in the case of Kosovans, false promises from human smugglers led to a misguided migration project.
Some of the statements indicate that there are still deficits of information. The view that “if you work here, if you are informed and integrated, then you have the right to live here” (I6) may be understandable from an individual perspective, but it does not lead to a residence permit being granted. I5 constructs a completely bizarre definition of political asylum: “I applied for political asylum because I am disappointed with the politics in Kosovo.” Similarly, the expectation “I was sure that I would get asylum, because France is now dominated by the non-white race and I read that Germany wants to avoid that through the immigration of white, Albanian migrants” (I18) is wholly misguided. This indicates again that evidently wrong expectations have arisen and that erroneous knowledge or crude interpretations are still circulating.
Coming back to the situation of residents in the AEO, their separation from the surrounding environment, the lack of any kind of social embeddedness and restricted access to the labour market are manifest problems. Conscious of the limitations to their stay, migrants seek to aggregate resources and capital for the period after their expected deportation, but have only very few opportunities to do so. When transferred to Bamberg, some migrants were deprived of the networks needed for such (possibly informal) employment. This, in turn, limits the scope for action in the case of return, due to a lack of social and financial resources. A few admit that they earned some money from illegal employment which is reported to be worth 50 EUR a day (I1). In addition, at best, it is possible to earn something through (approved) ancillary activities in the camp. Due to changes in social assistance provision – from direct allowances to benefits in kind – generating savings in that way is very difficult. Only I18, who lived outside his home country for the first time 20 years ago and looked back on a remarkable migration biography, stated that he had saved enough from emigration to live in Kosovo in the future, if necessary.
A study on ensuring children’s rights in reception and accommodation centres (Alexandropoulou et al. 2016) assesses the situation of the residents and in particular the Roma population as critical. First, the authors refer to deficits in schooling (ibd.: 19ff.)Footnote 8. A place in the regular schools in Bamberg is indeed not provided, but rather a substitute in the form of a special educational institution is offered on site. School attendance is barely controlled and absence is not sanctioned. Second, with regard to fears of already traumatized children, having non-lockable doors in apartments is considered highly problematic. Third, discrimination and antiziganism, which is common all over the Balkans, is prevalent in the AEO as well. All in all, respondents to the study’s survey consider the living conditions of families there to be “consistently negative” (ibd.: 27).
Conversely, in our survey on accommodation in the centre, beside a couple of unsurprising negative facts, some positive ones were mentioned as well. These include the good healthcare system in Germany in general, notably the medical care offered on site, and the respectful handling by the authorities. Residents seem not to be used to this when it comes to authorities in their country of origin: “I have more rights here than in Kosovo, even though I am an asylum seeker” (I1). Nevertheless, the situation of Roma, an ethnic group that is undoubtedly threatened all over Southeastern Europe and whose situation is precarious in the AEO, too, seems dramatic. On the one hand, deportation is not an option due to a bundle of uncertainties “at home”. As a consequence, Roma families try to resist their return by all means. However, as they are obliged to leave, they have no access to bare subsistence. Beyond mere accommodation, they have no means of livelihood even in the reception centre. For this reason, I2 openly states that he is more or less forced to steal goods for his family’s survival.
Beyond all assessments of the situation in the centre – which, as shown, strongly depends on the perspective – living there is a life in permanent limbo with manifold uncertainties, no matter if somebody has a high or low probability of staying. Regardless of the length of the asylum procedure and the related stay in the centre, or even the perspective of staying or leaving the country, the AEO is – in the words of Augé (1992) – a footloose, anonymous (non-)place of transit. In this respect, the following sequence analyzes to what extent daily life in such a parallel world – a heterotopia – is reflected in the perception and use of space by the residents.