Acts of mobility corresponding act of immobility. Migrant journeys are not only about movement. Indeed, in the present policy context, this is ever more true. Whether a migrant is contained within a hidden compartment, detained by migration authorities, waiting for remitances to continue, or marooned within a drifting boat at sea, these moments of immobility have become an inherent part of migrant journeys especially as states have increased controls at and beyond their borders. Migrants themselves view this fragmentation - the stopping, waiting and containment - as part of the journey to be endured. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Central America and southern Europe, this paper destabilises the boundary between transit and setlement, speaking to a larger policy discourse that justifies detentions and deportations from the United States and countries on the periphery of Europe. We argue that migrants nested experiences of these matryoska journeys reveal how increased migration controls encourage them not only to take greater risks during the journey, but also to forteir their agency at opportune monets. In turn, states exploit images of such im/mobility during the journey in order to emphasise the irrational risks migrants take in order to traverse seas and deserts and to cloack their own border policies in a humanitarian discourse of rescue

BIBLIOTECA NOVEDADES 2016/4