Waiting for the Visa: Temporality, Emotions, and Researcher Positionality beyond Schengen
Waiting for the Visa: Temporality, Emotions, and Researcher Positionality beyond Schengen

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses, through an autoethnographic approach, the mismatch between visa procedure timeframes and research rhythms. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and uses selected literature and fieldnotes to show how the uncertainties and delays inherent in visa procedures intersected with the emotional and embodied experience of conducting research beyond the Schengen area. The article foregrounds the visa system as a key mechanism through which global inequalities in mobility are produced. This argument is situated within the context of the Balkan route, where policy shifts illustrate how migrants’ mobility has been restricted and governed. By contrast, as a European researcher, my own mobility is seldom structurally impeded; yet, the bureaucratic timeline of the volunteer visa procedure shaped how I accessed and inhabited the field. The autoethnographic account of the visa process traces how bureaucratic itineraries – through clinics, administrative offices, and insurance agencies – generated frictions, vulnerabilities, and alliances with local “guides”. The conclusion discusses the analytical value of this process, arguing that the bureaucratic route of the visa became a constitutive element of the research, shaping my map of the city and granting access to places that would otherwise have remained inaccessible.

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