Why we are all no migrants

Why we are all no migrants

Researching on migration became difficult, not only is regular fieldwork practically impossible but numbers of migration actually decreased to almost zero.

What happens if we are all stuck? We experience what it means to not move freely and not cross borders which were so comfortable to cross for european-passport holders. After 10th of April everyone who travels for touristic reasons has to go into quarantine for two weeks in Germany.
But most people do not question or critisize the german government for those regulations. If someone tells us that it is better for our own good not to move, we stay put.

The thing is, we are in the comfortable situation to accept those limitations, because most of us are able to satisfy their basic needs. Illegal refugees on the other hand have no access to health care in Germany. One needs to be registered, so that the foreigners office receives all the data. In case of emergency the responsible doctors will take care of passing on the data - of course many illegal immigrants avoid this scenario (Mediendienst Integration 2020). Not to mention the health-situation on the european borders, which is a human disaster.  This shows how unequal humans are treated because of their passports or missing governmental documents. Still, could this pandemie not be a chance to develop a little more empathy because we are actually all, more or less worldwide, sharing the experience of non-migration?

Usually research is the field to put on theoretical glasses and make assumptions about abstract relations. Could this abstract situation of forced non-migration not be a chance to put us all in the position of researchers and look at our environment from a different perspective? If the possibility of free movement is missing, the category of being a migrant disappears temporarily. What category is it then, that matters now?

What is home and foreign? Sometimes I wish now I would rather be somewhere else than at home to feel-at-home - to feel well. At the same time I think I should be exactly where I am, but it bothers me to have no other option. In a european society freedom is understood as a precondition for its existence, but this also indicates that there are spaces of abstract freedom which are assigned to members of this society. It is now, that we realize how easy it is to take those spaces away from us, which we took for granted.

References:

https://mediendienst-integration.de/migration/corona-pandemie.html