Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for May 2023, Olivia Maury (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland). Her article for Current Sociology Punctuated temporalities: Temporal borders in student-migrants’ everyday lives was shortlisted for the first edition (2023) of the Annual SAGE Current Sociology Best Paper Prize, and is Open Access.

Olivia Maury

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

O. Maury: I am a sociologist of migration and labour. During my bachelor’s studies in sociology, I was inspired by theory and research concerning precarious post-Fordist work and processes of precarisation, especially postoperaist Marxist thinking. Living in Paris in 2011 during the time of the so-called Arab Spring spurred my interest in migration and activism against borders. This trajectory led me to start researching social dynamics and structures contributing to the production of precarious migrant subjectivities, first during my PhD and now as a postdoctoral researcher centring on the intertwinement of the temporal border regime and the platformisation of work.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Punctuated temporalities: Temporal borders in student-migrants’ everyday lives”?

O. Maury: My doctoral thesis focused on the issue of work, foremost in the low paid service sector, among non-EU students in Finland. A significant aspect that led them into taking on part-time and temporary work often in cleaning and in newspaper delivery, done during so-called atypical working hours in addition to their studies, was the temporary student permit, issued only for one year at the time. Taking the temporary permit as a staring point, I analysed the temporal and thus restricting consequences of the juridical student-migrant status. This endeavor would not have been possible without the cooperation of the research participants to whom I am most indebted, a cooperation that also resulted in a dissertation award for the best doctoral dissertation related to migration and ethnic relations, completed at Finnish universities, of which this article is part.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

O. Maury: I demonstrate that the one-year temporary student permit and the associated time limits concerning length of residence, work hours and administrative deadlines for permit extension – the temporal borders of the student permit – give rise to punctuated experiences of time among student-migrants. It also points to how the temporary permit functions as a technology for exerting migration control by temporal means. Secondly, I show that long waiting times for extending the permit causes experiences of entrapment and restricted access to mobility among the student-migrants, which inscribes their lives in the temporal regime of global labour and produces a flexible labour force ready to accept most types of insecure and low-paid jobs. Lastly, the slow and unpredictable permit renewal process has unequally distributed side effects, affecting more intimately non-EU migrants without access to the three-months’ free entry into the Schengen area. Thus, what I call the ‘differential activation of temporal borders’ intensifies the hierarchisation between migratory subjectivities.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate? How do you think things will change in the future?

O. Maury: The article speaks more widely of contemporary capitalism in which the fragmentation of lived time is prevalent. This is the case both regarding the increasing turn towards temporary migratory statuses and the wider gigified economy which generate insecurity over the future in terms of income and ability to reproduce one’s life. Moreover, such fragmentation often limits the capacities of resistance.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

- Maury, Olivia (2022). Ambivalent Strategies: Student-Migrant-Workers’ Efforts at Challenging Administrative Bordering. Sociology, 56(2), 369–385.
- Khan, Jawari; Maury, Olivia; Ndomo, Quivine (2021) Why does Finland seek talent from abroad, but neglect highly skilled foreigners in the country?. Raster. Anti-racist research network.

Please also tell us your public or institutional social networks (Twitter, Facebook & Instagram) that you would like to be tagged when promoting your article on our social networks.

Twitter: @Olivia Maury5
University of Helsinki research portal: https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/olivia-maury