Flucht nach vorne (seeking refuge in the future): Trauma, agency, and the fantasy of onward flight among refugees in Berlin

Abstract

This article is based on fieldwork we each conducted with refugees in Berlin between 2016 and 2021. We were both puzzled by our interlocutors’ repeated professed desires to leave Germany, often when their lives here were improving. We wondered how they could possibly fantasize about repeating the experiences of their initial flight, which were deeply wounding and traumatic. We argue against a reading of trauma and agency as existing in opposition to or in spite of each other. We revisit the moment of trauma to uncover the transformative potential built into it—a crucial step in explaining the puzzling desires of our interlocutors for onward flight. We contrast popular notions of agentive mobility with the German term Flucht nach vorne (literally, “onward flight”) to indicate the complex contradictions, and even “unreason,” built into these fantasies.