Dynamics of immobility: Capability conversion among aspiring migrants in Pakistan
Publication: International Migration
Author: Daniel Karell
Project: REALM
Abstract:
What are the costs of attempting to migrate internationally for work but being deterred by unexpected changes in states’ policies? Building on recent insights into involuntary immobility, I examine immobility's financial consequences, including how these consequences vary across levels of household wealth. Drawing on an original panel survey of 70 aspiring Pakistani labour migrants and their heads of household, I find that poorer households more often expected to pay to migrate. They also lost the most in financing overseas employment attempts gone awry. I additionally use the findings to specify a dynamic of immobility: “capability conversion”, or the process by which migrants’ capability to migrate at one point in time crashes up against unexpected constraints, thereby affecting their future capability to migrate. Capability conversion helps explain how migratory attempts can lead individuals to becoming more “stuck” over time, and, more generally, helps develop the aspiration‐mobility framework for analysing (im)mobility.