Waiting as a Condition: Human Security from Below among Azerbaijani and Turkish Youth in Lithuania

Öz

Abstract This article examines how young Azerbaijani and Turkish student-migrants in Lithuania experience security in everyday life. It begins from a paradox. These are chosen migrants who arrived legally, hold residence permits, and study inside a European Union member state, and yet their passage into adulthood does not move forward. It stalls. Drawing on qualitative interviews first gathered for a study of belonging and re-read here with a new analytic question, the article argues that their situation is best understood not as a delay but as a condition of waiting that is produced and governed through bureaucratic time. Residence permits tied to student status, restricted access to the labour market, unstable housing, and an uncertain future combine to hold these young people in prolonged dependency. Read through a human security lens brought down to the scale of daily life, the insecurity at issue is chronic and low in intensity. It works through duration rather than crisis, and it does not announce itself as a security problem because the people who live it are neither poor nor undocumented. The article makes two contributions. It shows that waithood, a concept developed for un(der)employed and largely immobile youth, also describes the lives of mobile and relatively privileged student-migrants. And it brings the sociology of youth transitions into conversation with human security, arguing that the case is one in which each field clarifies the other.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• waiting
• waithood
• precarity
• human security
• student migration
• youth transitions
• Lithuania
• temporality

Bir Koşul Olarak Bekleyiş: Litvanya'daki Azerbaycanlı ve Türk Gençler Arasında Aşağıdan Yükselen İnsan Güvenliği

Öz

Bu makale, Litvanya'daki genç Azerbaycanlı ve Türk öğrenci-göçmenlerin gündelik hayatta güvenliği nasıl deneyimlediğini incelemektedir. Bir paradokstan yola çıkar. Bunlar yasal yollarla gelmiş, oturma iznine sahip ve bir Avrupa Birliği üye devletinin içinde öğrenim gören, kendi seçimiyle göç etmiş kişilerdir; buna rağmen yetişkinliğe geçişleri ileriye doğru ilerlememektedir. Askıda kalmaktadır. Aidiyet üzerine yürütülen bir çalışma için ilk kez toplanan ve burada yeni bir analitik soruyla yeniden okunan nitel görüşmelere dayanarak makale, bu kişilerin durumunun bir gecikme olarak değil, bürokratik zaman aracılığıyla üretilen ve yönetilen bir bekleyiş koşulu olarak anlaşılmasının daha doğru olduğunu savunur. Öğrenci statüsüne bağlı oturma izinleri, iş gücü piyasasına kısıtlı erişim, istikrarsız barınma ve belirsiz bir gelecek bir araya gelerek bu genç insanları uzun süreli bir bağımlılık içinde tutar. Gündelik hayatın ölçeğine indirgenmiş bir insan güvenliği merceğinden okunduğunda, söz konusu güvensizlik kronik ve düşük yoğunluktadır. Kriz yoluyla değil süreklilik yoluyla işler ve kendisini bir güvenlik sorunu olarak ilan etmez, çünkü onu yaşayanlar ne yoksul ne de belgesizdir. Makale iki katkı sunar. Az(gelişmiş) istihdam edilen ve büyük ölçüde hareketsiz gençler için geliştirilmiş bir kavram olan waithood'un (bekleyiş hâli), hareketli ve görece ayrıcalıklı öğrenci-göçmenlerin hayatlarını da tarif ettiğini gösterir. Ve gençlik geçişleri sosyolojisini insan güvenliğiyle diyaloğa sokarak, bu vakanın her iki alanın da diğerini aydınlattığı bir durum olduğunu ileri sürer.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• bekleyiş
• waithood
• prekarite
• insan güvenliği
• öğrenci göçü
• gençlik geçişleri
• Litvanya
• zamansallık

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