Affect, uncertainty and exhaustion: Methodological reflections on migration struggles and governance

This chapter addresses the affective dimensions of being subject to and struggling against the governance of migration through ambiguity and violent inaction, and we reflect on the methodological implications of studying the affective politics of uncertainty and exhaustion. We do so by drawing on our respective empirical research spanning Europe, the ‘Middle East’and Southeast Asia, and by exploring the intersections of two sets of literature in the field of critical migration and border studies: scholarship that examines the governance of movement through uncertainty, exhaustion, inaction and ignorance and, scholarship on affective relationalities shaping displacement and mobility. We are interested in the methodological implications of studying how affects are mobilised in governance through uncertainty. How can we understand both migration governance and emerging struggles against its violent manifestations affectively and politically? What kind of epistemological questions do we need to ask? How do we position ourselves as researchers?.