Staying because of all odds : Lived experiences of African student migrants in Finland

Abstract

Situated in the context of transforming twenty-first century mobilities and spaces, this chapter throws light on the role of contemporary immigration regulation patterns in constructing types of migrants and migration trajectories. Using the term pervasive internal bordering to capture the extent of interference with migrants’ daily lives, the chapter presents a narrative of “chronic” exclusion as enforcing temporality and pitting migrants’ agency against ubiquitous structure in a protracted struggle that models migration trajectories for settlement. Using empirical evidence, the chapter demonstrates that such regulation misses the point of contemporary migration, resulting in socio-economic loss for migrants and host countries.