Conveniências contingenciais: a antecipação como prática temporal dos inspetores do SEF na fronteira aeroportuária portuguesa

Abstract

This article follows from ethnographic work conducted at an airport in Portugal, where, from June 2021 to April 2022, I observed the daily routines of the inspectors of the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) across various groups, shifts and functions. The aim is to analyze, through the lens of temporality, how anticipation can be understood in two ways as a temporal practice in the management of passengers: on the one hand, it is shaped by contingent conveniences of logistical, organizational, and personal nature, and on the other hand, it generates different speeds of access to the national territory (NT). In the process of mobilizing these two temporal dimensions, the inspectors reorganize spatial and situational frameworks, complicating notions of action and inaction when encountering subjects in mobility.