Introduction

The introduction provides the key theoretical grounding for the temporal approach to the study of migrants’ collective action proposed in the book. The chapter opens with an analysis of the differences that characterize migration – both those rooted in migrants’ diverse backgrounds and those produced through border regimes and migration processes. On this basis, it formulates the core research question: how do diverse constituencies coalesce around collective formations that mobilize as migrants? Critical migration theory and social movement studies offer important insights into the political forms enacted in and through migration. These include both organized migrant movements and the more diffuse forms of resistance that emerge in everyday practices. The review of the existing literature shows how these phenomena have been examined almost exclusively through spatial approaches. While, in fact, these perspectives have highlighted urban and border spaces and emphasized the relational dimensions of migrant collective action, they have not sufficiently addressed the processual layer that underlies migrants’ mobilization. Much of this layer remains embedded in biographical narratives and memory practices – elements that are not immediately visible yet are essential for understanding how heterogeneous actors effectively mobilize as migrants. The temporal approach to migrants’ collective action introduced emphasizes human time: a temporality in which narratives of the self and of the collective – expressed through biographies, memories, identifications, and forms of belonging – play a crucial role in shaping how collective action emerges, evolves, and solidifies among diverse migrant groups.