Europe has faced an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers– with over one and a half million sea arrivals reported since 2015 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).Footnote 1 As the “reception crisis” continues unabated, Greece remains one of the first ports of sanctuary. According to recent statistics provided for March 2018 by the UNHCR,Footnote 2 over 50,000 asylum seekers and refugees currently remain in Greece following this mass flow. The majority of the one million asylum seekers arriving in the country appear to have seen Greece as a transit country, yet neither of the refugees’ legal routes out of Greece are functioning as anticipated: the scheme to relocate people to other member states failed to meet one-tenth of its target and has been scaled back; reunification with family elsewhere in Europe proceeds slowly; returns to Turkey have no more than trickled after legal challenges; while voluntary returns to countries of origin remain modest so far (Howden, 2017).

Greece therefore represents a unique context in which to explore the aspirations of asylum seekers entering Europe: perceived both as a country of transit as well as a final destination. Currently, many asylum seekers find themselves “stuck” in limbo in this context, unable to proceed with their asylum claim or continue their journey to the destination countries of Western Europe to which they continue to aspire. Such a situation of “protracted displacement” or “protracted refugee situations” has been characterised by Brun (Brun, 2015; Brun & Fábos, 2015) as related to “the permanence of temporariness” (Brun, 2015)—an enduring liminal state wherein people may feel trapped in the present yet actively relate to alternative notions of the future. Within this space, aspirations of returning home contend with hopes to achieve a more stable exile through staying or moving elsewhere. Despite these hopes, aspirations may thwarted bureaucratically, thwarted physically, thwarted psychically. Should this be the case, energy may be focused on short-term survival, and there is often limited projection into the future (Métraux, 2017).

In the context of a growing interest in emotions and temporalities linked to migration aspirations (Carling & Collins, 2017), this chapter focusses on the Greek context to explore the “changing notions of hope…in order to understand the role that an uncertain future plays and the potential for agency that people develop during displacement” (Brun, 2015). To do so, I draw on the theoretical framework of sociocultural psychology (Bruner, 1990; Cole, 1998; Valsiner, 2007; Valsiner & Rosa, 2007; Vygotsky, 1987, 1980; Wagoner, Chaudhary, & Hviid, 2014; Wagoner et al., 2011; Zittoun, 2012a, 2012b; Zittoun & Gillespie, 2015). Such an approach examines how individuals develop within sociocultural context, specifically in situated interactions with others as well as with material and symbolic objects within their environments. From within this theoretical framework, aspirations are understood to be necessarily distributed among communities. In other words, they are culturally informed and shared. In order to hope, to dream, to imagine, to plan, individuals draw on communal cultural resources as part of a semiotic guidance system, including “cultural symbols, patterned practices such as storytelling, mental time travel, and other forms of mental projection” (Kirmayer & Ramstead, 2016). Within this framework, the individual constructs the social and at the same time is constructed by the social (Zepke & Leach, 2002). Three concepts based on this theoretical framework in relation to migration aspirations will be highlighted: (i) the role of imagination as a resource for aspiring, (ii) non-linear temporalities of aspirations and ever-changing subjective realities, and (iii) the collective nature of aspirations.

As explored in chap. 7, imagination is seen as a resource for aspiration, an important component of development and a way to expand one’s experience (Vygotsky, 1987, 1980). Imagination facilitates aspirations and the implementation of social and cultural affordances—including expectancies, prescriptions and possibilities for action (Kirmayer & Ramstead, 2016). It is a “freedom” which expands experience beyond the here-and-now, allowing humans to reimagine themselves and their future choices, coming to radically new perspectives, ideas and modes of acting (Zittoun & Cerchia, 2013; Zittoun & Gillespie, 2015; Zittoun & Sato, 2018). As such, migration itself is inherently imaginative (Salazar, 2010; Salazar & Smart, 2011), an act of agency which turning imagined possibility into actuality, and in turn triggering the imagination of new possibilities (Zittoun & Gillespie, 2015).

Another key theoretical tenant of sociocultural psychology is that of the dynamic, temporal, and non-linear nature of experience. Past, present and future interweave to produce experiences that do not necessarily follow chronological time. This speaks to the “the potentially transient nature of aspirations” (Carling & Schewel, 2017), “the multiple temporalities of migrant lives and future potential; the assemblage of spatialities and relations articulated in migration; and the politics of migration that is generated through the enlisting of migrants by states and migrants’ own desire for becoming through migration.” (Collins, 2018). This “becoming” (Collins, 2018) refers to a continual process of resubjectification. Subjective configurations are flexible, changing forms that are shaped by the context of the situation, the state of mind of the individual during the lived experience, and their participation in various social networks where actions are expressed and undertaken. Such an approach contests the idea that migrant “decision-making” occurs at a singular moment in time (Carling & Collins, 2017). Instead, aspirations represent “dynamic and reciprocal systems influenced not only by the past subjective sense and the social context, but also the current subjective sense and environment” (Adams & Fleer, 2017, p. 4). As people develop, so do their aspirations.

Aspirations are therefore part of an ongoing process of transformation—related to individuals, as well as their sociocultural histories and resources (Goulart, 2017; Goulart & González Rey, 2016). To understand this process of dynamic, subjective transformations, I draw on González Rey’s (2008) definition of subjectivity as a “nonlinear, non- universal, non-deterministic and a context-sensitive process, whose main subjective configurations are part of an ongoing process… related, first and foremost, to the way in which the history and current contexts of individuals and social instances turn into symbolical emotional processes” (p. 5). His notion of a “future subjective sense” captures the interrelated and nonlinear movements of past, present, and the future imagined events and spaces. As the individual moves into new spaces, new realities are produced through a dynamic integration of these internal and external experiences (González Rey, 2008, 2016).

An aspiration to migrate reflects the transformative potential of ever-changing subjective realities, implying that this imagined transformation is not only viewed positively by the prospective migrant, but is also institutionally and culturally embedded. Indeed, entirely collective “communities of imagination can become galvanized by a vision of the future and seek to institute it, leading to sociogenesis, that is, the development of society itself” (Zittoun & Gillespie, 2015). Culture constitutes the basis for “collective aspirations” (Appadurai, 2004). As argued by Carling and Schewel (2017)

The context of migration aspirations includes social norms and expectations about

migrating or staying, opportunities for migration and the more general structural forces

facilitating or constraining particular migration trajectories. The environment not only

affects the level of migration aspirations, but also their inherent meaning.” (p. 8).

They define migration aspirations as “a comparison of culturally defined projects…a socially constructed entity that embodies particular expectations” (p. 9). Aspirations are therefore necessarily infused with “culturally rooted imagineries of mobility” (Salazar & Smart, 2011), including informed social norms and expectations as to what may or may not be possible. Thus, normative expectations of migration often originate from entities other than the subject himself or herself (Meyer, 2017). Furthermore, those who migrate may equally be the objects of desire or aspiration by a social collective. The sociocultural context in which migration occurs therefore cannot be ignored.

Highlighting the collective nature of aspirations contests notions which “reifies the individual migrant as a decision maker who chooses to migrate in a relatively autonomous or individualistic way” (Collins, 2018). To examine this individualistic-collective dichotomy of migration decision making, I turn to Carling’s (Carling & Collins, 2017; Carling & Schewel, 2017; Carling, 2002) aspiration/ability model. The model distinguishes involuntary non-migrants (those who aspire to migrate but lack the ability to do so) from voluntary non-migrants (those without migration aspirations who would prefer to stay). Those who migrate, the model suggests, are those with both the aspiration and the ability to do so—in other words voluntary migrants. What the model doesn’t seem to allow for, however, is the fourth quadrant of the aspiration/ability spectrum: involuntary migrants (those who do not aspire to migrate yet have the ability to do so, and do). In the context of the current influx of asylum seekers into Europe, what needs to be highlighted is the involuntary nature of much of this migration. Not only are many forced to leave due to circumstances beyond their control (for example, war, torture and other violent atrocities), we similarly need to bear in mind the collective nature of aspirations: often entire communities take the decision to pool resources in order for one individual to migrate in order to eventually be able to financially support those back home. The extent to which this would be a voluntary or involuntary decision to migrate on the part of the individual would appear to fall along a much more nuanced continuum than that for which dichotomous categories would allow.

The theoretical background of sociocultural psychology allows for an exploration of these nuances—of the ever-changing and dynamic development of aspirations over time, and within sociocultural context. It evokes a methodology incorporating an exploration not only of the subjective perspective, but also the dynamics by which the social and cultural environment guide and enable the person’s development (Zittoun, 2017). Of particular interest in this study is the way in which aspirations are influenced by the encompassing fabric of the cultural collective, related both to the country of origin as well as the Greek context of protracted displacement and a liminal permanent temporariness.

Case Study: Collective Aspirations of Refugees in Europe

In order to explore the aspirations of refugee communities within the Greek context, a case study is presented which is taken from a larger yearlong research project I conducted among asylum seekers and refugees in a center for victims of torture in Athens. This research involved 3 months of participant observation in the centre (including attending daily team meetings and co-facilitating sessions with the beneficiaries). Furthermore, 125 in-depth, qualitative interviews with refugees, health professionals, interpreters, and refugee community leaders across Athens. In particular, multiple qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 individual refugee victims of torture, identified as suitable participants by the health professionals of the centre. These individuals were followed over the course of a year, with an average of five in-depth qualitative interviews being conducted with each participant, in order to explore their subjective experiences of integration and their aspirations for the future. All interviews were conducted in French or English without the assistance of a translator. 64 health professionals and community leaders were also interviewed, including religious leaders, leaders of refugee associations as well as doctors, psychologists, social workers and cultural mediators working with this population.

Analysis

To analyse the data, emphasis was placed on the importance of non-linear temporality in the context of individual’s changing subjective current realities—as they weave together images of the past, present and future. Thus, the focus was on the ever-changing subjective constellations surrounding aspirations—namely those of the refugee victims of torture who participated in the research. This includes tracking the processes of change in aspirations as individuals configured, reconfigured, and made meaning of their new realities encountered in Greece. Such an approach highlights the societal, institutional, and individual conditions that form and shape individual aspirations, which is understood as constantly changing as the individuals moves across countries, societies, and institutions (Adams & Fleer, 2017).

The analysis draws on a dialogical approach, based on Bhaktinian (Bakhtin, 1978, 1981, 1986) notions of polyphonization (opposition and subvoices within the dialogical self) to draw out the conflict and tensions of ever-changing aspirations which are socially and culturally contextualised. This is because a sociocultural perspective on migration sees it as not an individual’s isolated action but as happening in “discursive fields that push migrants to develop specific views of themselves” (Silvey, 2004), discursive fields which in turn act as resources to nourish aspirations. Within this dialogical matrix, symbolic elements in socio-cultural practices emerge as resources, providing a time orientation, and, consequently, a self-continuity between past and future (Kadianaki & Zittoun, 2014).

The proposition of a dialogical analysis within a socio-cultural framework is thus to use case studies to explore individual migration trajectories within specific situations, including analysing the relevant social and cultural elements, dialogical others, specific bodies of shared knowledge, social representations, cultural elements and tools, and so on: “in each situation, the relative strength of these elements, or the tension they generate, are negotiated by the person; the unique ways of dealing with that situation and inviting solutions can be seen as the emergent subjectivity” (Zittoun, 2012a). The vignette presented here as a case study therefore serves to illustrate the complex realities and interrelatedness of migration, the sociocultural environment and “potentially transient aspirations” (Carling & Schewel, 2017).

The Case of Mr B

Mr B is a 34 year old refugee, who had been imprisoned and tortured for one year and seven months in his native Sudan as a result of his political activism. He was referred to the centre for victims of torture for medical and psychological care upon his arrival in Athens in June 2016. His leg in particularly had been badly broken as a result of the torture, requiring multiple operations and ongoing physiotherapy. During our first meeting in August 2016, he describes the period wherein he managed to escape and make his way to Europe:

I decided for myself, or I say to myself what can I do for my future. A, I have no future. B, I have no freedom. C, I have no education. I have nothing. What can I do? I have many relations. I have many friends. I talk with them […] I just see some opportunities, I see some chances, I fill in...

By firstly drawing on his own internal resources (a dialogue with “myself”), plans for his future are elaborated upon by talking with his “many friends”—the dialogues within this social interaction serving as a resource which allows him to imagine opportunities for the future. It was through these social connections that he was able to escape and make his way to Europe. This continues to be evident in his recounting of his escape from Sudan into Libya, where interactions with others allowed him to construct plans for the future:

The situation in Libya was really difficult for me. I didn’t know other people [yet I thought to myself that] I can do some things for myself. After all, what can I do? I just listened. Some people were saying that they’re going to other places. They’re going to Egypt, after Egypt they’re going to take the ship to come to Turkey, then to Greece, Greece to Italy, Italy to somewhere else. The people just talked about all of this information. I had no idea about these things. I just listened.

Throughout our interview, his narrative continues to highlight the importance of his ongoing internal dialogue as a resource for constructing plans for the future. A tension exists between the realisation of his own social disconnection (“I don’t know other people”) and his need for social connection in order to rely on others for information. The strategy he appears to develop around this tenson is to “just listen”—without a clear vision of what steps to take next, plans are developed along the way. He reports having no end destination in mind before leaving Sudan, “no idea about these things.” As the migration journey continued, he describes having very little choice but “to try,” his migration aspirations in a continual state of transformation:

I’m thinking that I just need to have a chance, I want to leave. I want to go to other places. What can I do really? I tried the first time, I succeeded. I went to Turkey, Istanbul. I stayed in Istanbul for three months. I went to Izmir… [There’s] no other way. Yes you have two choices. You go to prison or get deported. What can I do? I try […] I have no choice. I came back to Italy…What can I do? […] What can I do? I come here to Greece

The repetition of the words “what can I do?” highlights how little choice he felt he had in constructing plans for the future. His ever-changing aspirations adapt according to the conditions in which he finds himself. However, once settled in Greece and embarking on a process of physical and psychological rehabilitation, new aspirations begin to emerge. He forms new social connections with refugee communities of Athens, where seemingly overly romanticized discourses of “success” are linked to those who manage to make their way to Western Europe, the apparent metaphorical land of milk-and-honey:

There are people that go over to that place [Western Europe], get the resident permit, go to school, go to England, go to University to learn the English language, go to France, learn the French language. Go to Sweden, learn the Swedish language. These are people who succeed [our emphasis]. In England, all the people have jobs, they’re working.

Like many in his community, he feels increasing trapped in Greece. Aspirations for migration to Western Europe abound, nourished by stories of those who have already “succeeded” there:

I want to do something for my future. This is not something easy but I need, you know, more time…The Greek situation really, is not easy […] I think I want to go somewhere else, but where? I don’t know exactly …

Some people have a lot of things happening, they have many dreams, they want to study. Other people want to go to another place. For my future, I want to go somewhere. Really. Somewhere, I don’t know exactly where. There are two countries—maybe it’s Germany, maybe it’s France. I must choose between these two countries, which one is better? Can I easily get the paper [permit] to visit? Afterwards I’ll learn German or French… To the future’s future, I don’t know what is happening [laughs] I have many dreams

The frustration increases as his feeling of being trapped in Greece is strongly related to his poor medical condition limiting his mobility:

Every week I wait, you know. For example, on Monday I have an appointment, on Tuesday or Wednesday I have an appointment. Today I come, I also came on Friday, I come around two or three days a week. I talk more and more with other doctors, about surgery, about many things […] How many times, or how many days or how many months or how many hours I can wait? This is a question mark.

Thwarted both legally and medically from being able to migrate to Western Europe, he compares himself to others whom he imagines have succeeded in terms of migrating to Western Europe. There is a sense of him being stuck in Greece and loosing what Hviid (2008) has refered to as “social time”—lagging behind a culturally informed timeline dictating various milestones of social identity development such as getting married or having children:

I want to work, I can get work far away [in Western Europe], for my future. I have a lot of friends, the same generation as me. We grew up together, but those people now have families, have children, have many things. But until now I have nothing. I am thinking that I want to do something. I can get married [but here in Greece] I lose my time

During a second interview, a month later in July 2017, he describes an increasing determination to migrate to Western Europe. He doesn’t have a particular country in mind to which he aspires, but reports feeling optimistic for the future, wanting to “try” in one country and move on to “somewhere else” if it’s “not better”:

I decided for myself that I want to leave to Greece, I will go try somewhere better. It’s not something easy, for a human being, it’s not easy to decide to stay or to wait. I’ll go to that place and it's better, okay. If it's not better, I’ll go to another place [...] I’ll just go to try, I want to try. I want to fight for myself. I can do something better. Until now, the door is not closed. Until now, the time is early, not evening.

This optimism for a “better” future is placed in sharp contrast to the deception he felt upon arriving in Athens and discovering that his expectations of life in Greece did not meet the reality which met him upon arrival:

I couldn’t wait to get to Athens. Then I couldn’t believe it when I arrived. I thought to myself “this is not Athens.” I thought Athens was a shiny country [my emphasis]. The road doesn’t look like this. Before coming, we had many dreams, you know. We were saying “This is Turkey, okay, how about Athens? Berlin? Sweden? UK? Germany?” We’re thinking [it’ll be] something like Las Vegas [laughs] Really, now our dreams are destroyed.

What he refers to is not only his individual aspirations, but the collective aspirations of entire migrant communities. It is not only “I” but “we” refugees who had many dreams that are now “destroyed.” He wasn’t the only participant of the research who referred to Europe as “Las Vegas”—three other participants did so as well. Many indicated having images of Europe in their mind based on what they had seen on television and in films—evoking a notion of success based on wealthy, excessive and luxurious lifestyles.

As was the case for the majority of refugees encountered in the course of the research, his deception surrounding the reality of life in Athens is offset by continuing aspirations for still being able to find “Las Vegas” in Western Europe. The goalposts of reaching the “shiny country,” a metaphorical Eldorado, have been moved. Instead of aspiring to a better life in Europe, it is now a question of aspiring to a better life in Western Europe. Aspirations are geographically determined. For Mr B, these aspirations are both a source of hope and optimism, as well as of deep frustration. Rather than focusing his efforts on creating a more or less satisfactory life for himself in Greece, he feels trapped in a state of permanent temporariness, constantly trying to reach Western Europe but not succeeding:

I go to battle. I try, I want to go somewhere—but I've not succeeded. I have no chance. I try to go to somewhere else. I try. Really, now I'm tired. Not tired in my body, tired in my mind.

In response to this state of mental exhaustion, his psychologist attempts to dissuade him from leaving Greece. Again and again, she states the legal reality of his situation: he has been recognised as a refugee in Greece, and therefore cannot apply for asylum elsewhere in Europe. In an interview with this psychologist in January 2017, she reports:

He doesn’t realize that he cannot very easily live in another European country since he’s denying this reality. [I’m worried] that he will be very disillusioned. He’s very smart but he seems to disregard this part of reality because it’s unthinkable to him

In response to her attempts at dissuading his aspirations for migration to Western Europe, Mr B remains undeterred:

You know, the human being dreams […] I want to go somewhere, you know that in Greece here, there's no future here, really … I want to open a new chapter. I want to do something …after I get better I want to move, I want to change this weather, I want to see something new.

Aspirations for migration appear to be deeply connected to a sense of who he is as an individual human being. As observed by his psychologist:

When he believes that the dream is still on then he can go, he's okay. Whenever something goes wrong, he feels that this pain goes on and on. And he cannot go on to realize his plans

Her words attest to the psychological and physical pain from which he suffers in Greece, a pain seemingly amplified by his ambitions being legally and medically thwarted. As Mr B himself reports:

You know, my future has contact with my leg

In other words, plans for the future are inevitably intertwined with his medical rehabilitation. Interestingly, his physiotherapist takes a difference stance to that of his psychologist. Rather than dissuading his migration aspirations, he reports in an interview in July 2017:

There are two possibilities for him: one, it is to go to England. One, it is to stay in Greece. He would think deeply. He has many very good advantages in going to England. He has a big Sudanese community there. He has people that he knows who speak the language.

Rather than focusing on legal restraints, the physiotherapist highlights the many cultural resources upon which Mr B could draw in England. However, he notes a change in Mr B’s aspirations, which he links to the recent news of Britain voting to leave the E.U.:

But I notice that between the first and last operation … he's increasing very, very much his efforts to learn Greek… Before, every two three times that we will meet, he will mention something about England and Britain. Now, I haven’t heard him say something about Britain for months…

Indeed, following the news of the Brexit referendum, Mr B begins to set his sights on France, rather then England:

France is better. After you take residence there, you’re free. You take your refugee card, it's easy […] You go to learn French, after you learn French it's easy to get a job.

In August 2017, he reports experiencing increasing instances of racism and hostility towards refugees in Greece. He no longer feels comfortable walking on the streets of Athens as an African man, encountering instances of hostility by the Greek community in general, and arrests by the police in particular. Aspirations are therefore similarly determined by a need to remove himself from this social context:

How can a migrant stay in this country when nobody respects me?

A year on from the first interview conducted, Mr B continues to aspire to a life in Western Europe, remaining steadfast in his hopes for a “shiny” future there:

I have a lot of things I want to do. My dreams—I don't know for sure if it’ll come true or not. But as I finish here, I want to go somewhere [where there are] possibilities, possibilities. After I leave to Greece, I want to go to France and Italy and Germany where everybody respects you. People there respect your skin colour, they respect your mind […] I can move all the countries [of Western Europe], no one will say “stop and do not go there.” I can easily get a job, and I can marry

Despite being dissuaded to migrate by his psychologist, despite the knowledge of the legal impossibility of being received as a refugee outside of Greece, despite being in contact with friends in the Sudanese community who attest to the hardships encountered in other European countries, he aspires to migrate. As he himself concludes in our final interview:

My dream still exists

Discussion

Mr B’s story is representative of so many of the refugees who participated in the study. What is revealed through a dialogical analysis of his trajectory is the importance of socio-cultural resources, which he draws upon to shape and define his aspirations—aspirations which may never wholly be considered “his” alone, in their entirety, but which are collectively shared and distributed. He is not alone in having arrived in Europe after an arduous migration journey fueled by “geographical imaginaries” (Salazar, 2010; Salazar & Smart, 2011) of a better life in Europe. As stated by other participants:

It’s Europe, Europe is miracles

[Europe] is the dream of any African

In any case, all the Congolese know that in France, Belgium, Germany or Austria—that if you ask for asylum they will give you money… someone could sacrifice themselves or a family could sell one person of the family to come to Europe. Europe is the dream of Africans

What is similarly highlighted of the collective nature of these aspirations is the fact that many were sent to Europe by the family or even in certain cases by the extended community, with the responsibility of being able to offer financial support to those left in their countries of origin. Mr B made the decision to migrate to Europe himself. Often, however, the choice is not an individual one yet the result of the collective decision-making of entire communities. It is also worth noting that aspirations appeared to be largely based on taking advantage of the material circumstances—moment-by-moment decisions made on the spot, and changing on the spot. Like many others, Mr B had no clear pathway or destination in mind before setting out on his migration journey. Rather, he “just listened.” Aspirations were transient and context-dependant, largely influenced by the ever-changing sociocultural and political context. This contests the notion that the decision to migrate is a once-off decision taken at a single moment in time by a single individual.

In sharp contrast to the “dream” of a “miracle” life in Europe, Mr B felt disillusioned by the every-day reality of Athens, a disillusion seemingly shared by the vast majority of refugees encountered over the course of the research:

We had another vision of Europe… Europe is different from Africa. For me, at least, Europe is even more complicated than Africa…

We came because we had different dreams, we came to see the reality

When we dreamed, we then later understood that life is something else

For one of the other participants in the research in particular, the disillusion was amplified by the stark contrast of the poor economic reality of his life as a refugee in Greece, and collective expectations on the part of the family:

Because in Africa, they think that when you’re in Europe, you’ll have enough money to send back home to Africa at any moment

He reported eventually losing contact with his family, seemingly overwhelmed by the shame of not having “succeeded” economically, the expectation all the greater given the substantial economic investment made in him by the extended family. He described his disillusion thus:

Often we had Europe in our minds like the films that we saw. When you watch a film, it’s just a scene that they created. You forget that there’s a reality behind it. There’s an actor, a director, interpretors to make it all look real. Now it’s only when you come to Europe that you see that reality

He starts describing the Europe that “we” (collectively) imagined in “our” minds, yet switches to the single “you” who alone and individually “sees that reality.” As was the case for Mr B, many felt trapped in this reality, with aspirations thwarted by the politico-legal reality of not being able to leave Greece:

I know only one thing, that my world is just only this room… I'm just killing my time here until I'm getting my papers

I can't think properly what to do in my future. I'm not able to think about my future, what is going to happen next in my future. I don't know what is going to happen.

I'm trapped here.

I don't know when will my life going to take me. I don't know what is going to happen next with me now…I don't want to stay here because there is no life.

Despite these thwarted ambitions, romanticized notions of Western Europe abounded among participants. The majority of French-speaking African participants, for example, referred to migrants in Western Europe as those “dévant la-bas”: loosely translated into English, those “ahead over there.” This “aheadness” was not only conceptualised in terms of having continued along their aspired migration journey, but speaks more deeply to a felt sense of geography, “social time” (Hviid, 2008), and socioeconomic success being inextricably combined. Those who were ahead geographically were also considered ahead in life. Aspirations were not pinned on particular indices of socioeconomic success, but rather on geographic location. A common Utopic belief of life “ahead there” was expressed in the words of one participant:

In other European countries, they easily give you papers [refugee status]. Like in France, papers or not, I’d have work there. In France, anything is authorized

Paradoxically, it is perhaps these aspirations to a better life in Western Europe which allowed many, including Mr B, to hope and dream of the future, and therefore to survive. In Mr B’s own words, his “dream still exists.” These aspirations appeared to inject a sense of vitality and agency into a situation of permanent liminality. As one participant stated:

I have ideas, and because I have ideas, I have plans and projects. I know it will all be all right in the end […] I have a rhythm that I’ve adopted. I dont look left, I don’t like right. I look straight ahead of me, the place where I want to get to, right until I arrive. One single point, that’s all. That helps me not to feel the stress. I see a normal life ahead

Conclusion

A dialogical analysis of the case of Mr B, within the theoretical framework of sociocultural psychology, highlight aspirations as a powerful motivating force driving migration. These aspirations transform continually, part of a perpetually generative system wherein ever-changing subjective realities collide with the ever-changing sociocultural environmental. Not only are the aspirations of individuals constantly transforming as a result of sociopolitical developments; they are significantly shaped and contested by shared or collective aspirations of entire communities. This starts with collective aspirations of communities in the country of origin, and extends to the constantly developing shared aspirations of refugee communities in Europe.

In protracted refugee situations in particular, where individuals are called upon to reconstruct their lives in “limbo” (Brun, 2015; Brun & Fábos, 2015), aspirations may serve to facilitate processes of integration. They may be a motivating force driving the individual to engage as an active agent in their integration into the new sociocultural context. The motivation to learn the Greek language, for example, may be substantially driven by aspirations of integrating into Greek society—both socially and economically. Paradoxically, however, the reverse may also be true. Aspirations may serve to impede integration. Stuck in limbo, aspirations are inherently linked to processes of imagination (Zittoun & Cerchia, 2013; Zittoun & Gillespie, 2015), processes which remove the individual from their current “here-and-now” material reality in order that they may dream of a better life “ahead”—elsewhere. To continue with the same example, many feeling trapped in Greece aspire to a better life in Western Europe, and will not find the motivation to learn the Greek language.

Migration is an ongoing process within which past, present and future are folded together in the emergence of migrant lives and subjectivities. The actualisation of migration articulates this complex interplay between these expressions of desire, between strategic planning and opportunism that manifest in movements to achieve or avoid certain kinds of futures. In this respect, it is never singular in its temporality, but rather is an ongoing process where past, present and future are folded together in the emergence of migrant lives (McCormack & Schwanen, 2011). Analysing mobilities as sociocultural constructs therefore contributes to the understanding of forced migrants’ mobility choices as well as their individual integration trajectories—providing insight into how the emotionality of subjective experiences, as well as the sociocultural context, are fundamentally involved in people’s plans to migrate, the development of their ever-changing aspirations and the process of adapting (or not) to life in a new homeland.