From non-documented to temporarily documented, back again and ahead to raspberry passports: how Nepalese in Portugal navigate status positioning

In this study, we depart from a critical perspective regarding the concept of “integration”, the controversy surrounding its colonial implications and what refers to a certain homogenization of society that is supposedly taken for granted or underlying whenever the term is used in research (cf. Anderson, 2013; Mezzadra/Nielson, 2013; Korteweg, 2017; Schinkel, 2018; Morris, 2020; Meissner and Heil, 2020), while other authors’ defend its use, differentiating it further (cf. Penninx, 2019; Abdou, 2019; Klarenbeek, 2019; Gisselquist, 2020). We will also depart from Scholten’s (2020) description of complexity governance through “alienation” to analyze how Nepalese migrants in Portugal navigate their status positioning, mainly as “non-documented migrants” (or - a pandemic after-effect - “temporarily documented while the pandemic lasts, for sanitary purposes only”). This is a qualitative and interpretative research, combining data from semi-structured interviews to 6 Nepalese migrant key-informants (living in different parts of Portugal) with participant observation, the field diary and ethnographic method. We will describe in detail the impacts of migration policies and their local implementation on the everyday lives of Nepalese in Portugal, as well as the effects of “alienation” or a “bouncing back/back and forth” legal status on their identities and practices. Concluding, we will be able to embbed migrants’ strategies within a specific politically and economically structured environment, as well as learn from migrants’ practices and describe the role played by categories such as class and gender for them.