Abstract
Building on an ethnographic approach, this article aims to explore how the social dimensions of hope shape and relate to the migration trajectories of people seeking asylum in Sweden. Departing from the concept of asylum hope, a fragile form of hope that persists under conditions of oppression and uncertainty, the study examines how everyday interactions shape and transform it. Using Randall Collins’ theory of interaction rituals, the analysis shows how emotional energy generated in encounters influences hope. Based on interviews and observations with 43 participants, the study further demonstrates that hope is not an individual psychological state of mind but a socially negotiated and embodied process formed in relation to migration authorities, bureaucratic routines, and informal networks. Asylum hope emerges as fluid and dynamic, influencing the trajectory of migration journeys while being continuously reshaped by administrative and emotional experiences. The article also highlights how administrative violence is enacted through mundane practices that intertwine bureaucratic power with everyday social life. These encounters reveal that migration governance is socially embedded, operating through rituals that can suppress or enable agency, recognition, and solidarity. By foregrounding the emotional and relational dimensions of bureaucratic processes, the study challenges the idea that state power functions solely through law and policy. Understanding asylum hope as socially and emotionally situated allows for a deeper grasp of how migrants navigate precarious futures within the entangled structures of governance, affect, and everyday life.
Introduction
Hope is often considered an emotional state tied to the anticipation that something desired may eventually come true, whether in the near or distant future (McGeer 2004). Yet, it encompasses elements that must be understood in relation to broader socio-political structures (Stockdale 2021, 2019; Svašek 2010). Hope can arise in uncertain or difficult situations, be supported through social relationships, and be limited by structural barriers. It can also function as a form of governance that influences how people make decisions and understand their own ability to act (Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022).
This article draws on a growing tradition of research on emotions and hope within the context of migration and asylum-seeking (see Khosravi 2017; Kleist and Thorsen 2017; Svašek 2010, among others). Specifically, we focus on how hope functions as a social navigational force or energy within migration processes (see also Vigh 2009), which involve profound geographic, political, and emotional transitions; contexts in which hope can act both as a resource and a response (Hillmann, van Naerssen and Spaan 2018; Kleist and Thorsen 2017).
The above-mentioned scholars offer diverse perspectives on the meaning and role of hope within and beyond the context of migration. One similar approach to ours, however, is provided by Vigh (2009), who links social imaginaries and social contexts to individual trajectories (which we will return to shortly). Vigh argues that imaginaries or imagined futures are related to an understanding of the world and what spaces and options are open and closed to different social categories of people. Hope, in Vigh's sense, migrates, as a plan or an idea, “ahead of the migrant that follows it” (105).
While this article draws on Vigh's conceptualization of hope as directional and contextually situated, our analysis seeks to further develop this perspective by emphasizing the social dimensions and governing mechanisms that shape how hope is mobilized, fragmented, and regulated within migration processes. That is, we are interested in how hope is shaped and conditioned by social interactions, relational networks, and the structural and political constraints encountered by people seeking asylum. More precisely, through ethnographic accounts, we will develop a nuanced description and analysis of what we refer to as asylum hope
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and its social dimensions and dynamics. By asylum hope, we refer to a fragile and situational form of hope that emerges within the constrained conditions of the asylum process, a hope sustained under structural oppression, where the desire for stability and belonging persists despite limited agency, prolonged uncertainty, and the painful awareness that one's future rests in the hands of others whose agency becomes the very condition of one's hope: It is a brittle, vulnerable type of hope that resides in the complex intersection between individuals’ emotional lives, their restrained agency, and the structural context and power relations to which people seeking asylum must submit. In the asylum context, the stakes are high, involving life and death matters and the risk of not securing safety for yourself or your family. Hope under such compelling conditions is fundamentally fragile and intertwined with emotions such as insecurity, despair, and loss of control. (Elsrud et al. 2025, 40)
Previous research on hope and migration has often focused on individual experiences or structural and political conditions. Less attention has been paid to how hope is shaped through and within social relationships and their entanglement in broader systemic frameworks. This study addresses this gap by examining how asylum hope is mobilized, fragmented, and regulated in diverse social and institutional contexts (see also Mattingly 2010). By doing so, it builds on and extends earlier work by highlighting not only the social dimensions of hope but also its dynamic and relational character. To better understand asylum hope as both socially situated and unfolding over time, we further use the concept of migration trajectories to examine diverse migratory experiences. Building on a substantial body of migration research (e.g., Mainwaring and Brigden 2016; Schapendonk et al. 2020), we understand trajectories not as linear paths but as dynamic processes shaped by personal agency and the specific political, legal, and social contexts in which they unfold. (Hammarén, Ivemark and Stretmo 2024; Reed-Danahay 2019; Vigh 2009). Such trajectories may change direction, slow down, or come to a halt. They often go beyond physical movement and involve long periods of waiting and uncertainty, especially during asylum processes and interactions with migration authorities (see Andersson 2014; Djampour 2018; Elsrud 2020; Elsrud and Lalander 2022).
We argue that this expansion of trajectories is closely linked to the social dimensions of asylum hope. Migrating or fleeing often involves navigating fragile and unpredictable conditions that produce uncertain futures (Brun 2015; De Genova 2002). In such contexts, hope becomes a way of enduring prolonged waiting, imagining alternatives, finding the energy to make a plan, and deciding how and whether to move on. At the same time, the absence or loss of hope may shape trajectories differently, by causing stagnation or reorientation. From this perspective, examining how asylum hope, particularly its social dimensions, both influences and is shaped by migration trajectories helps to capture the complexity of the lived experiences of those navigating uncertain and prolonged asylum processes.
Aim and Outline
This study aims to explore how the social dimensions of hope shape and relate to the migration trajectories of people seeking asylum in Sweden. Based on observations and interviews with individuals who have experienced forced migration, we examined the interplay between hope and different forms of interaction using Collins’s (2004) interactionist theory of interaction rituals. When approaching the topic of migration, asylum-seeking, and hope, we also understand that the capacity for hope is a delicate “matter” entangled with other emotions, even those often considered to be its opposite, such as hopelessness, fear, and despair. In diverse and usually abrupt ways, we argue that hope can be challenged, torn, supported, or reinforced, significantly impacting the lives of those seeking asylum.
Next, we provide an overview of the general background of the paper, followed by a section in which the analytical framework for the study is presented. Then follows a section on research design and methods. In the Findings section, we analyze the complexities of asylum hope at different episodes in the participants’ migration trajectories: when participants are leaving their country of origin, fleeing across seas, borders, and nations, seeking asylum, and settling down in Sweden, or re-escaping. The different sections in the findings thus constitute a narrative structure of our participants’ migration trajectories. What we set out to do, through this narrative, is to illustrate how the social dimensions and dynamics of asylum hope are understood and temporally oriented toward real or imagined futures. Finally, we bring together the findings to articulate the main analytical insights and conceptual contributions in the Conclusion section.
Hope and Asylum-Seeking
As mentioned, the significance of hope and emotions in the migration context is well-established in research (Djampour 2018; Elsrud 2020; Fontanari 2017; Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022; Khosravi 2017; Kleist and Thorsen 2017). Oftentimes, it has been addressed as twofold: as a vital resource that supports individuals through hardship (Freire 1994; Solnit 2016), and as a phenomenon entangled with power relations and emotional ambivalence, including experiences of hopelessness (Ahmed 2010; Eagleton 2017; Elsrud et al. 2025; Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022; Mattingly 2010). Perhaps unsurprisingly, hope has also been addressed as an affective resource through which migrants navigate uncertainty during their journeys and in host countries (Horst and Grabska 2015; Turner 2015).
For people living under oppression, hope is often considered precarious. Stockdale (2021, 26) suggests that such hope “is frequently an unpleasant attitude through which agents emotionally respond to the possibility of escaping dangerous conditions” (see also Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022). Others are even more pessimistic. Terry Eagleton (2017, 44) describes hope as a “fetishism of the future” in which the present is understood as an “empty expectance.” We argue that asylum hope can mean both these things. It is precarious and can ignite what is needed for (social) change, but with the risk of becoming a fetishism of the future, reducing the present and withholding the ability to act for that very change.
As noted, migration studies have long engaged with hope as a subject for analytical inquiry. One example is Francis Pine's (2014, 596) research on migration in the Polish highlands, which emphasizes how migration can be both an “enactment of hope” and a reaction to hopelessness. Pine's approach bears similarities to ours in terms of how conditions of precarity force people to navigate their daily lives, including migrating, and that hope is never absent within these navigations, although it can be disrupted. Unlike this article, however, Pine focuses more on the impact of the past in post-socialist states on creating imagined futures – i.e., the object of hope (cf. Hagan 2008). In contrast, we approach the idea/concept of imagined futures as socially produced (Vigh 2009), shaped through interactions with friends, advice from others, and shared expectations. This perspective highlights how hope is not only individually felt but also collectively/socially negotiated.
Hope is also closely tied to power. The extent to which future aspirations can be realized is unequally distributed, contingent upon access to resources, social networks, and structural positioning (cf. Koikkalainen, Kyle and Nykänen 2020; Stockdale 2019). In this sense, hope is to be understood as shaped by structural conditions that enable or limit future possibilities. Hope can be used to govern people into “stuckedness” (Hage 2009), or as Lucht (2024, 9) puts it, the “lines [are] being redrawn in their disfavor — the rescue boats literally grounded — while the desert expands and lays waste to hope and opportunity.” Based on Susan Sontag's critique of Baudrillard, Lucht argues that the concept of hyporeality (rather than hyperreality, as used by Baudrillard) captures how the real manifests itself as a border landscape that permeates migrant lives and constrains their hopes for asylum (see also Kiriscioglu and Van Heelsum 2024). This hyporeal border landscape is an intensely concrete reality of suffering, waiting, violence, and borders.
When we refer to a hyporeal logic, we mean that hope takes shape within the limits set by power and “realistic” expectations. People are encouraged to adjust their hopes to what seems possible within the existing system, rather than to imagine alternatives beyond it. In this sense, hope becomes depoliticized — it helps sustain the system instead of challenging it (Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022). Asylum hope can keep the social order intact, because hope is governed within said order. Hope, then, becomes governable: it is managed through bordering practices (see Djampour 2018), precarization (see Lucht 2024), and through its fragmentation into individualized and spatially dispersed forms. People receive glimmers of hope if they keep hoping for a (theoretical) chance of a desired future (Fontanari 2017; see also Hayenhjelm 2006).
To conclude this section, research has demonstrated that hope can function both as a resource and as a response to mechanisms of governance. Less attention has been given to how hope is socially mediated through interactions and relational networks. While hope (or its absence) is often addressed in migration studies, it can also be noted that it is rarely treated as a central analytical concept. Instead, it tends to appear as a background theme tied to moments of uncertainty or aspiration. There is a need for more theoretically informed studies that explore hope explicitly, particularly in relation to how it is shaped within social and structural contexts. The current study intends to contribute to a small but growing body of literature in which asylum hope is addressed as a social resource and as a means of navigating social struggles, while also providing insight into broader social processes and power dynamics (see, for example, Arar et al. 2025; Mattingly 2010).
Analytical Framework
To position our study within existing literature, we conceptualize asylum hope as a relational and socially mediated phenomenon. Hope, we argue, is something that develops between people rather than being rooted in individual psychology. Drawing on Collins’s (2004) theory of interaction rituals, we understand social encounters involving asylum seekers as sites where emotions, meanings, and power are negotiated. From this perspective, asylum hope is seen as a form of emotional energy produced in or through different interaction rituals — something that may increase or diminish depending on the quality of social interactions. Supportive and empathetic encounters, for example, can strengthen the capacity to hope; hierarchical or unresponsive encounters may deplete it and undermine the emotional foundation on which hope rests. As suggested by Collins (2004, 108), emotional energy is closely linked to group solidarity, as “low emotional energy is the lack of Durkheimian solidarity.” Individuals who are full of emotional energy usually “feel like good persons …” (109), a perspective that suggests that such energy not only fosters a sense of belonging but also reinforces moral self-worth. Crucially, emotional energy is not confined to the moment in which it is produced; rather it can be stored and carried into other social contexts, making it a durable resource that helps individuals manage everyday life and sustain hope even in uncertainty. Importantly, this view also emphasizes that hope is practised: it is enacted and reproduced through action and social relations, reflecting the agency of asylum seekers even within constrained circumstances.
Meetings with migration authorities, prolonged periods of uncertainty, and withheld information regarding one's asylum application reproduce what Collins terms power rituals, in which hierarchical imbalances are reaffirmed. These asymmetrical relations not only reaffirm institutional dominance but can also be emotionally draining, gradually eroding the emotional energy needed to sustain hope and resilience. As Collins puts it: There is a blockage in the smooth flow of their own thoughts, words, and actions; they are unable to project a micro-future in this situation, and this is what it means to lose emotional energy. (Collins 2004, 112)
Having established hope as socially produced and enacted in interaction rituals, we further emphasize the temporal and directional dimensions of asylum hope in the article (Stockdale 2021). Hope is inherently understood as future-oriented, always directed toward an imagined but uncertain future that serves to structure action and re-actions (see also Pine 2014; Vigh 2009). Using the concept of migration trajectories, we trace how asylum hope evolves across different phases of migration and asylum, shaped by shifting institutional encounters and social relations/encounters.
Research Design and Methods
This article draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study tracking individuals seeking asylum in Sweden, some of whom later continued their asylum journeys in other countries. Rooted in an ethnographic tradition that foregrounds sustained researcher engagement, collaborative knowledge production, and a critical stance toward power structures (cf. Fine 2017), the study involved an extended immersion in participants’ daily lives. Data were generated through repeated interviews and participant observations, conducted between 2019 and 2024, in settings such as asylum accommodations, leisure spaces, and interactions with state authorities.
Overall, the study comprised 43 individuals, representing diversity in terms of age, gender, and migration trajectories. More precisely, the sample comprised 26 men and 17 women, ranging in age from 16 to nearly 70 years. A significant number of the participants had backgrounds in Afghanistan, reflecting their high representation among asylum seekers in Sweden, while others originated from Syria, Somalia, Iraq, and, in a few cases, stateless Palestinian communities (see Elsrud et al. 2025 for further information). It can also be noted that several participants arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors, primarily boys who later became young adult men, mirroring national trends within the asylum population. Adding to the experience of seeking asylum in Sweden, participant recruitment was guided by inclusion criteria designed to ensure broad representation, incorporating unaccompanied minors, families, couples, and single adults, all actively engaged in the asylum process. Furthermore, an additional criterion stipulated that participants had to have stayed in Sweden for a relatively short duration (less than a year). However, this requirement was applied flexibly due to recruitment challenges in the study area. Significantly, extended time in Sweden did not diminish the relevance of participants’ experiences, as many who had been in the country longer were still awaiting residence permits and provided critical insights into the asylum process and its impact on their lives.
Regarding recruitment, possible participants were identified through a combination of strategic and snowball sampling strategies. Initial contact was established through collaborations with a range of organizations actively engaged with asylum seekers, including local branches of the Swedish Church, various asylum accommodation facilities, and civil society associations that provide support and advocacy. Through these initial points of contact, participants were invited to take part in the study, and subsequent recruitment proceeded via referrals from within the participant network. This snowball sampling approach proved particularly effective in reaching individuals who might otherwise be difficult to access, including those in precarious legal or social situations.
The study employed two principal interview approaches over time. The first can be characterized as biographical or life history-oriented, focusing on participants’ narratives about their past experiences, the trajectory of their asylum process, their experiences with Swedish authorities, contacts with civil society, concerns for the future, and more. The second approach aligns more closely with ethnographic fieldwork, in which interviews are integrated into ongoing participant observation. In these cases, conversations are typically grounded in the participants’ immediate circumstances and reflections on everyday life as it unfolds. Sometimes interviews awoke painful memories, and on such occasions, discussions focused instead on current events or less challenging predicaments. To this end, a flexible and adaptable methodology was utilized, and ethical concerns/care toward participants were paramount. The interviews were conducted in Swedish or English, and in some cases, in the participants’ first language, with the assistance of an interpreter. They lasted between 45 min and 3 h in length and were recorded and transcribed verbatim.
The observations covered a range of activities, including participants’ interactions with officials, informal meetings with friends, and attending events organized by civil society groups. This approach, using participating observations, had several methodological benefits. Firstly, it was seen as a means to establish relationships of trust (Fangen 2005). Secondly, through our observations, we were able to distinguish various aspects of everyday life that participants seldom expressed in words (cf. Giddens 1986 on practical knowledge). Consequently, during the observations, we could resume discussions initiated in the interviews and ask the participants to develop their reasoning (Banik 1993). The participants themselves always decided the time and place for the observations. As the article focuses on how participants describe their experiences and how hope evolves during different stages of their migration trajectory, observations were used mainly as supporting data to complement verbal accounts.
Ethnographic data collection does not occur in isolation from data analysis (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995, 205). When analyzing the complete data material generated, our primary focus was how participants articulated and negotiated hope throughout their asylum-seeking experiences. The quotes presented in the findings were selected for their ability to illuminate both personal experiences and the structural conditions that shape these experiences. In parallel, theoretically informed fieldnotes were produced to support the analytical process. This allowed us to identify both commonalities and divergences in participants’ perspectives and explore how these could inform an understanding of individual experiences in relation to systemic constraints and opportunities. Furthermore, it enabled a movement from concrete, lived narratives to more abstracted, theoretically situated analyses. 2 Overall, the analysis employed an inductive and narrative approach, focusing on how individual accounts are shaped by broader social and structural forces. In line with Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), however, we understand personal narratives not as isolated testimonies but as embedded within historically and culturally specific contexts, which must be considered to grasp their full significance.
While we use the English term hope in the study, our analysis attends to how participants express aspirations, future orientations, and trust in social relations and institutions within their own frameworks. We are, of course, aware that hope, like other emotions and affective experiences, does not necessarily translate seamlessly across linguistic and cultural contexts, and that some dimensions of lived experience may even extend beyond language altogether (cf. Ahmed 2014; Merleau-Ponty 2013). While these complexities are not the primary focus of our analysis, we acknowledge them as important background considerations informing our interpretive approach. In reflecting on these issues, we have also paid attention to variations in how participants in different linguistic or cultural contexts articulate future orientations and aspirations, and we have considered these differences in our interpretation of hope.
Our positionalities — as white, Swedish citizens with stable socioeconomic status and academic privilege — have inevitably shaped both access to the field and our relations with participants. While we strived for ethically grounded, trust-based relationships and allowed participants to determine interview settings and language, we acknowledge the structural asymmetries inherent in our roles. Our longstanding engagement in migration and social work and our critical stance toward the Swedish asylum system were central to both gaining participants’ trust and shaping our interpretive lens. Furthermore, in the data collection and analysis process, we reflected on and discussed how our positionalities may have affected participants’ openness. Some participants seemed more open when they shared language or cultural references with the researchers, while others may have limited what they shared due to perceived differences in status or background. Our research aligns with a critical tradition that examines how asylum regimes structure and constrain hope (Khosravi 2014). Our funding from an independent research body further supports this perspective. Throughout the study, we have remained reflexive about how our positions inform the knowledge we co-produce. To deal with potential biases, we have also employed what can be described as a collaborative analysis throughout. Within the research team, interpretations were regularly cross-checked. This was done to include multiple perspectives and ensure that the diversity of participants’ experiences was represented as faithfully as possible. 3
Findings: Migration Trajectories and Hope
As presented below, the findings are structured narratively along key phases of the participants’ migration trajectories. This approach allows us to explore how the social dimensions and dynamics of asylum hope emerge and evolve across different stages of displacement and settlement. In the concluding section we return to the study's overarching aim, to principally bring together the discussion on the social dimensions of asylum hope, and to address the broader conceptual and analytical implications of the study.
Forced from Home
All participants left their countries of origin primarily because of violence and war, personal threats, and other significant hardships. Participants describe how hoping for a solution to their situation at home has eroded or shifted over time. Gradually, a glimmer of hope or a vision of a “good life elsewhere” was established among the participants (Kleist and Thorsen 2017, 1). Although the motives and tipping points for fleeing have varied, the rationale is often related to hope.
One example is found in Yusuf's story. He is an 18-year-old Syrian seeking asylum in Sweden. He recalls the period in his life when he and his family gradually realized that he had to flee. I remember my father always watched the news. As soon as he got home from work, he turned on the news, sat down, and ate while watching it. Always. Every day, it was his habit. I was young and didn't understand what was happening. I asked my father, ‘cause I was curious, of course, “What's happening?”. “Well, this will not happen here,” he said, talking about the war. /…/At the beginning of the revolution, there were these men of honour. People took to the streets because they truly wanted freedom. They wanted a better country. They wanted justice and a fair society. These were the things they hoped for, but then people were divided. Everyone thought about something special. They thought about themselves, not about each other. You didn't know what was going to happen. And I had this older brother who fled to Sweden a year before me. And my father had stopped working. We got increasingly worried about the situation; how would it be? Will it be like this, or will it become better or worse? You didn't know what was happening. Dark future. (Yusuf)
Yusuf's family focused their efforts on a future elsewhere for him. This can be interpreted as hope being redirected to other spaces, focusing on safety in Sweden (cf. Elsrud 2020; Kleist and Thorsen 2017). The object or focus of their hope shifted from Syria to Sweden, a destination they had prior knowledge of through Yusuf's brother (see also Hillman, van Naerssen and Spaan 2018). As such, Yusuf's story exemplifies how hope and hopelessness are materialized and emotionally entangled, with an external, social dimension evident in the brother's experiences in Sweden. These experiences not only influenced the decision to flee and where to escape, but also contributed to the emergence of an imagined future shaped through relational exchange and shared narratives within the family (cf. Vigh 2009).
Another participant, Jabira, shares a similar experience of leaving her home due to an unsafe presence. Her process of fleeing from Lebanon to Sweden was a lengthy one. She lived in an abusive relationship for many years, and during this time, she mostly felt fear for herself, her daughter, and the future. She could not bear the thought of losing custody of her daughter, which forced her to stay in the relationship in her country of origin. It seems as if Jabira, through the abuse, was directed away from any hope of a safe future; she felt stuck (c.f. Hage 2009).
Nevertheless, with help from friends and a psychologist, she gradually developed a plan. She began to imagine a future for herself and her daughter, free from violence and oppression. Jabira talks about her situation: Sometimes, he [the husband] brought the gun, had it in his hand, and stared at me. He said he would kill me and then put it to his head and kill himself. It was just a disaster. I couldn't take it. My daughter was six at the time, and I wanted to run away. I talked to a psychologist, and she told me that I could not do it easily because I could not take her with me without her father's permission, I could not renew our passports, and so on. But after the age of 12, the child may decide. Every year, I was suffering more and more. But I had to be patient. Last years were a disaster. He was torturing us for many years, psychologically, bodily, and in every way. /…/ I paid too much. It was too much. I just wanted peace and to run away from that beast. You see, I'm crying now, but I managed to get out. (Jabira)
Gradually, however, through conversations with her psychologist and friends, Jabira began to reimagine her life possibilities. These interactions are part of a series of socially embedded encounters that generated emotional energy helping Jabira to form a plan and act in the direction of a new imagined future. Put differently, and drawing on Collins’s (2004) words, through “an awareness that the other's focus is the same as his/her focus” (79), she experienced a sense of connectedness and a renewed capacity to hope. She was closing in on the perspective that she could anticipate something better for her and her daughter. As the daughter approached her 12th birthday, things started to “get in place.” She saved up money, which she hid from her husband. Late one night, after her husband had severely beaten her, a neighbor helped Jabira and her daughter to leave the country. Jabira's experience can be argued to have shifted from despair, “stuckedness” (Kleist and Thorsen 2017), and being unprivileged in terms of possibilities to experiencing hope, into one of mobility and renewed hope. Indeed, the gender regimen in her home country, which made divorce somewhat unthinkable and prohibited her from leaving without her husband's consent, also served to govern or form her hopes.
Migration trajectories are not simply the result of individual choice. They are deeply embedded in socio-emotional contexts. In both Yusuf's and Jabira's narratives we see how hope is shaped not only by immediate threats and a longing for safety, but also by access to social support. Drawing on Vigh (2009), we can understand hope as navigational, yet also governed by law, gendered power relations, and material constraints (see also Turner 2015). For Jabira in particular, hope was structurally delayed and constrained by national and local laws, as well as her husband. It only became “in action” when conditions shifted — both legally (as her daughter approached the age of 12) and socially. Supported by a new emotional energy, shared focus from her psychologist and friends, and grounded in social solidarity, she formulated a future plan that reinforced her sense of hope. These interactions illustrate how solidarity and relational exchange shape both the perceived possibilities and the belief in a viable future. Hope, in this sense, emerges as a socially contingent and governed force within migration processes. Thus, in tracing the emotional and social shifts that precede physical displacement, this section shows how hope can act as a relational and temporal bridge between perceived danger and imagined futures — while also being conditioned by structural limitations and unequal access to the possibility of hope itself (an argument that we develop throughout this article) (cf. Hage 2009; Lucht 2024).
Movement Across Borders
How our participants engaged in the process of physically leaving their country of origin varies. When Jabira decided to flee, she took the plane and landed in Stockholm with a short stopover in Germany. She had the resources and could, shortly after leaving, search for asylum in Sweden. For most participants, though, leaving a country to flee across borders was anything but a short trip. Hamid, who fled abuse in Eritrea, explains: Hamid: When I escaped, the only thing I thought was either I'd get there or die. If I die, I'm dead. If I live, I'll get there. The boats from Libya to Italy were really bad. Actually, a really bad boat. There were maybe 500 people on one boat. People sit on one another. The boat was too small. But still, we made it over. Interviewer: What did you think when you got on the boat? Hamid: Yeah, well, it stopped. The engine broke. We didn't get anywhere. They shouted, “Nobody moves.” “Everybody, stand still,” they said. “The balance cannot be changed. If only two people go to the other side, the boat also falls over.” It was heavy and had no balance. (Hamid) Elias: I fled with my friends, not with my family. But they became like a family. Yeah, I had known them before. I knew who they were. First to Damascus, Lebanon, plane to Turkey, then to Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia. By train, by boat and with my legs. Interviewer: You had each other? Elias: Yeah, and we were going to another city. We didn't know if it was right or wrong. Which place are we going toward? What future awaits us? It was hard. But it was fun, too. Many things happened that were fun, but at the same time, it wasn't easy. It was like this, never more than three days in the same place. We lived outside, for example, like a roof, but not walls. It was minus 22 degrees. Those were difficult days. The hardest ones we had. Many came from Germany and helped immigrants there. Then, when we moved to Turkey, we lived there for four days. Then we went to Greece by boat — twelve hours at sea. Then we walked for between 6 and 7 h in the forest. We didn't know where we were, and then we called the police, and he came to take us to a camp. We were there, and then we continued. (Elias)
Indeed, migration trajectories can be affected by friends, people helping, or the (idea of) police and border controls (see Andersson 2014; Djampour 2018; Khosravi 2010). Moving across countries and through places, the ability to feel hope or hopelessness is affected simultaneously, as hope (or hopelessness) impacts the upcoming journey. However, the main point in this section is that the image of a hoped-for future often seems to be reduced to a short-term perspective, such as when searching for a safe place to land or finding the next spot to rest. Within this short-term perspective, emotional energy is still created through social interactions with people who share the same knowledge and understanding of the precarious situation. As such, the trajectory and where hope is being directed are highly affected by the social conditions of people's lives and what, within said context, was seen as doable at the time and place. Rather than a stable orientation toward an imagined future, hope thus becomes fragmented and recalibrated in response to social encounters, environmental constraints, and institutional borders. In this way, hope erodes and is reshaped in real time — governed as much by immediate relational and material conditions as by distant aspirations (cf. Ahmed 2007; Andersson 2014; Hage 2009).
Getting Stuck or Delayed
After arriving in Sweden, the participants were subjected to a prolonged, formalized asylum process to obtain residency. This process was generally understood as being permeated by a rigorous, sometimes inhuman, bureaucratic machinery, where the participants’ reasons for seeking asylum were critically investigated and often mistrusted (Barker 2018; Djampour 2018; Elsrud 2023; Elsrud and Lalander 2022). In contrast to previous sections, where hope is experienced mainly before or during flight and in a state of motion, the participants are now primarily immobilized. Their lives are put on hold for part of the migration trajectory in a time-space of stuckness (Herz, Lalander and Elsrud 2022; Kleist and Thorsen 2017). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the arrival process can also be seen as another point at which the character of hope can change. Indeed, many turning or tipping points are associated with hope among our participants. One day, there might be hopeful waiting, for instance, when reaching a shore or receiving a favorable decision from the authorities, and the next, things might seem hopeless after receiving a rejection or being forced to take another way. One of the participants, Fawad, describes his situation when seeking asylum in Sweden after leaving Afghanistan: I checked if my case had a decision almost every day. Every day. Some days, I checked more than once. When will I get my decision? When will there be a decision? Then, after 11 months, I received a negative result. I did not know what to do. It was really hard on me. Should I go to another country? Where should I flee? But then my lawyer told me I could stay if I appealed their decision, and perhaps things would work out. “You might get a positive.” And also, there was this family that helped me, and I lived with them for more than a year after I turned 18. They also told me to appeal and that things may work out. So I had to wait. (Fawad)
Fawad's account also exemplifies a form of care work, a relational and affective practice performed by both his lawyer and the family who supported him, providing emotional energy that can also be stored and function as support while waiting. This care is not only practical but deeply social and political. Following Milan and Martini (2024) the care provided can be understood as a way of expressing solidarity, of believing in someone's future even when structural odds are stacked against them. When people encourage Fawad to appeal, even though his chances of success are slim, they participate in a shared focus of attention that keeps his emotional energy and hope alive. The social support offered is thus not only about providing legal or practical advice, but about being present with someone during their uncertainty and sharing their burden of waiting. In this way, hope becomes a socially distributed resource, shaped through relationships and acts of solidarity (expressed in the face of repeated systemic rejection). For some participants, however, the sense of being treated merely as a “case,” rather than being recognized as individuals or approached as socially equal, undermines their capacity to sustain hope.
Yar, for example, reflects on his asylum process. At the time of the interview, he had received a 13-month permit to study. He compares Sweden's approach to people seeking asylum with the situation in the country he fled. He says, “In Afghanistan, you get blown up or decapitated. In Sweden, you are killed here [holding his hand at the place of the heart], bit by bit.” Being granted a 13-month permit after 4 years of waiting, including several relocations and rejects on his asylum claims, Yar feels that his hope (and heart) has been worn thin. The Migration Agency also re-aged him and classified him as an adult, like many other young people who arrived in Sweden in 2015 and the following years (Elsrud 2020). He felt this was a personal attack on who he is. At the beginning of his migration trajectory, he felt hope for the future, even during the uncertain circumstances that led him to Sweden, a process in which he was separated from his mother and siblings, with whom he still hasn't regained contact. Still, after the short respite he has been given, uncertainty has become infested by fear and doubts rather than hope and anticipation.
In Yar's case, it is not only the prolonged waiting or the repeated rejections that erode his hope, but also the absence of being met as a person in his encounters with the Swedish migration authorities. What stands out in his narrative is not so much the presence of degrading treatment but rather the absence of recognition, and meaningful human contact. The lack of social acknowledgment, of being seen and addressed as a relational and social being, renders hope porous and fragile. This absence is not always explicitly articulated, but it seeps through the narrative in what is left unsaid: the missing references to positive encounters, dialogue, being seen. Following Collins’ (2004), Yar's experiences can be interpreted as instances of power rituals, where the asymmetrical nature of bureaucratic interactions not only reinforces institutional authority but also drains the individual of emotional energy and social validation. Rather than fostering solidarity, these rituals become arenas of symbolic exclusion and domination. In this way, the bureaucratic process does not merely regulate life chances; it shapes the very conditions under which hope can be imagined or sustained. Yar's narrative thus illustrates how administrative violence operates not only through decisions and outcomes, but also through the patterned absence of recognition in everyday institutional encounters (see also Elsrud and Lalander 2022; Man and Chou 2020; Spade 2015; Vitus 2010).
Another participant, Sadat, talks about a step-by-step hope reduction process: You can only have hope when you believe there is a slight chance it will eventually be okay. There is no such chance anymore. Sweden does not want us to be here. They will always find new things that will ultimately force us to leave. (Sadat) While I awaited the decision, I felt insecure. I felt unsafe because I thought about what might happen if I got kicked out of this country. If I learn to speak Swedish this first year and then get a negative, what use do I have of this language then? But when I got a chance now, recently, to stay through a temporary residence permit, it felt much better. I think now is the time to start working, for real. Now I think I'm part of society. If the whole society doesn't work together, it won't work. (Fatima)
When seeking asylum, participants often describe being placed in a mental (and at times physical) waiting room, where life is put on hold. This state of suspension can be seen not only as a pause in the migration trajectory but as an integral part of it, shaped by political decisions and migration policies. Although participants may feel stuck, their cases and the surrounding legal frameworks remain in flux, often prolonging the uncertainty. As shown in this section, being stuck is not merely temporal or spatial, but a socially structured condition. Participants’ experiences of bureaucratic scrutiny, and conditional inclusion illustrates how hope is governed, and frequently eroded, through institutional interactions or the lack of them. Indeed, in conversations with participants and their descriptions of encounters with migration authorities, we see how the absence of microsocial interaction intersects with their visions of the future, shaping both their sense of belonging and their capacity to imagine a future free of worries. The ability to sustain hope is thus tied to access to social networks, legal resources, and trust in the broader political system (cf. Fontanari 2017; Hage 2009; Spade 2015). Without these resources, hope becomes precarious, vulnerable to erosion through everyday encounters with uncertainty, exclusion, and administrative opacity.
The Trajectories of Everyday (Migration) Life
As mentioned above, the news Fatima received and its positive impact on her personally is not always the case for the people we have met throughout our research. This section explores two tendencies in how our participants navigate life when they are no longer stuck in waiting. These are not fixed paths but rather patterns that illustrate different ways in which hope and future orientations are managed under conditions of uncertainty. Firstly, we address responses to an unfavorable decision when hope for a future in Sweden is lost altogether. Secondly, we discuss what can happen when a future in Sweden seems promised but remain conditional and insecure.
Sadat, who explained in the previous section that he felt that there “is no such chance anymore,” left Sweden for France soon after making his statement (in 2018). In France, he felt better treated by migration authorities and ordinary people, but he was initially sent back to Sweden following Dublin regulations. Awaiting a new decision regarding his asylum application in Sweden, he longed for France, where he felt he was treated as a person, thus socially recognized, rather than yet another (“faceless”) refugee (see also Fontanari 2017). Although back in Sweden, he kept his hope directed toward France, and when he got rejected in Sweden yet again, he returned to France and tried for asylum once more. This time, he succeeded in receiving refugee status and was granted 10 years of residency. 4 What Sadat's experiences illustrates is thus not only how hope and future orientations can be redirected elsewhere, but also how such orientations intersect with or are shaped through the quality of everyday social encounters, which highlight the centrality of the microsocial in experiences of recognition and belonging.
The long wait and unfavorable decisions in Sweden also forced other participants to keep fleeing. Another example is Amir, originally from Afghanistan, who left Sweden after 3 years and multiple rejections within the Swedish asylum procedure, and eventually settled in Italy. Comparing conditions in Sweden and Italy, he relates to Sweden as a country destroying hope and playing with lives: So, Sweden, or Norway, or Finland, or like now also Germany, they all make it very hard to live. (…) They destroy lives and play with them [the refugees], and in the end, they say, “We don't give you documents” or “We don't give you positive.” So, I can say they're playing with our lives. So, if they don't give us the documents needed, they should say [that] to us before one year, three years, or five years. They just, like, say, “Stay, it takes time” (…). Like in Italy, there are more refugees than in other countries. More people are coming from Africa or Afghanistan, or other countries. They know that, at least, no more than six months, [until] they say that you could stay or not. They're not playing with us. I think Sweden, Norway and Finland and Germany they're playing. They destroy everything. Our hope. Our life. (Amir)
Sadat and Amir's migration experiences are examples of trajectories taking a new turn, leading to a continuous flight. 5 They are forced to keep moving because they have lost their hope for a safe future in Sweden, due to negative decisions and a lack of recognition as worthy human beings.
The uncertainty and the short-term decisions seem to affect everyone we have interviewed, creating a situation where they never seem able to “get there.” Seemingly, the desired objects, the future hoped for, cannot be reached, and the participants’ migrant trajectories are, to some extent, potentially endless, depending on individual circumstances and social resources. Regardless of whether our participants feel no hope of being allowed to stay and are forced to keep moving, or if they feel some hope that they might be able to stay permanently in the future, they are kept within the borders of the risk of deportation. What these experiences (and those presented in previous sections) then exemplify is how migration trajectories can evolve into extended, circular, or even suspended movements, shaped by structural uncertainty and conditional social inclusion, in the sense of being granted residency under specific terms, subject to change, and easily withdrawn. Thus, it depends on legal status, policy shifts, and continued compliance, offering a sense of belonging that is never entirely secure (cf. Brun 2015; Fontanari 2017). As such, asylum hope does not simply fade; it is administratively managed and socially distributed, sustaining a state of liminal legality (Menjívar 2006).
Conclusions
In this article, we have examined how asylum hope, a form of hope that is inherently fragile, porous, socially embedded, and decisively controlled by others, is mobilized and regulated across diverse stages of migration. We have foregrounded asylum hope's inherent social dimensions and, crucially, its social dynamics. Indeed, we argue that the quality and intensity of social encounters — conceptualized through interaction rituals and power rituals (Collins 2004) — play a central role in shaping migration trajectories and asylum hope in the context of forced migration. Social encounters and social life not only structure emotional and geographical orientations but are also a core ingredient in our participants’ production of imagined futures.
Addressing migration trajectories as socially embedded processes makes it possible to illustrate the fluctuating and temporally layered experiences of asylum hope. Indeed, asylum hope emerges and evolves through social interactions and negotiations in which present predicaments and are pitted against imagined futures. Social rituals of solidarity, recognition, and care can generate emotional energy and provide directionality, allowing individuals to envision alternative life paths and to experience hope. But hope can also be torn by fear and uncertainty. Upon arrival in Sweden, for example, bureaucratic procedures introduce forms of power rituals (Collins 2004) that can serve to destabilize hope, as when participants experience that there is no solidarity or social recognition for their precarious situation, but rather that their lives are “played” with (e.g., Elsrud et al. 2025). As shown, administrative violence is not merely structural but rather enacted through everyday social practices and encounters. Waiting rooms, rejection decisions, being relocated or deported, and, in general, institutional interactions are part of the social fabric that the participants meet and must navigate throughout their migration trajectories. Sometimes, as when Jabira tries to get hold of a passport for her daughter to flee an abusive relationship, legal demands are socially embedded to such an extent that it becomes difficult to distinguish between policy and the personal interest of the abuser. To this end, the social fabric of migration processes is not a neutral process; it is a socially driven mechanism through which structures operate.
By foregrounding the social embeddedness of bureaucratic power in migration and asylum processes, this study challenges the notion that administrative violence is solely a matter of law, regulation, or policy. Instead, we show how bureaucratic authority is enacted in everyday encounters through interaction rituals that systematically distribute or withhold agency, recognition and solidarity. Structures do not operate in abstraction but through the emotional, relational, and temporal dynamics of social life, shaping the contours of asylum seekers’ experiences. Understanding asylum hope through this lens reveals how micro-level interactions both reflect and reproduce macro-level administrative power, highlighting the fragile and negotiated nature of migration trajectories.
As research on the social dimension and dynamics of asylum hope still is scarce, this study has broader implications for migration studies by highlighting the need to analytically center the role of hope in the everyday enactment of power rituals and social encounters. Furthermore, in policy development, it is vital to address migrants lived experiences and emotional orientations, and how these may be shaped through acts of solidarity, social support, or enactments of bureaucratic power. The dynamics we identify in the Swedish asylum context resonate with broader debates on humanitarian governance, where uncertain promises and bureaucratic power fragment social resources and temporal orientations among displaced populations (see, for example, Fee et al. 2025; Ozkul and Jarrous 2021). Our findings suggest that interaction rituals may provide a useful lens for understanding similar processes in resettlement and other humanitarian contexts, highlighting structural features of contemporary refugee governance beyond national systems. There is, however, a need for further research on these matters and on how social life may serve to mediate structural forces across different migration contexts.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, grant number 2017-01562).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.