The name is absent

48

individual further from a perceived “home”. Among the undocumented migrants I met,
reconciliation of this tension required a reconceptualization of place, the person∕place
dialectic, and time: a new view of motion.

Before continuing onto a closer examination of motion it is interesting to note that
a mechanism for exiting the collective is effectively built into its purpose providing a
linear trajectory for members wishing to pursue it, albeit with important transformative
effects. Central to this exit mechanism is the undocumented migrant, truly a bricoleur,
building capacity for self change. Over time the individual collects an assembly of
relationships, knowledge, and experience, which enables a self-transformation and exit
from the group. This is the primary reason why the collective does not constitute a
“culture”. Despite certain conditions and features of the collective reminiscent of a
culture like the unifying knowledge, rationality, common history, and experience shared
by most newcomer undocumented migrants, and the sense of meaning generated and
shared by members beyond their conscious control (Fischer 2003:7), the collective is
nonetheless an entity people pass through and do not have the capacity to change as
deviation from its fundamental principles means departure from the group. In effect, the
collective is defined more by the state and supra-state processes than it is by its members,
despite constituting a space where the latter can struggle against the former. It is a
product of migratory flow, a way to appropriate power and enable movement in a system
hostile to it. The collective is not a space where people can enact their vision of life and
relationships (Rosen 2002:x); instead, it is a space that empowers people to resist the
contrary vision of life and relationships enacted, sometimes brutally, by others.

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