For millions of people, migration begins long before a border crossing, and sometimes it never ends up in an actual migration. Imagining a future elsewhere, people shape their education and careers, decide whether to have children, and assess how to engage with the politics of their home countries on that premise. The tension between these aspirations and migration restrictions creates a population that Omid Asayesh and Abdolmohammad Kazemipur term Homo Emigraturus, “those about to leave.”

Shifting the study of migration from immigration pathways to the processes of emigration, Homo Emigraturus examines this condition of anticipation, showing how this can reshape individual lives and societies when migration never occurs. The authors focus their study on contemporary Iran, where the aspiration to migrate has become deeply ingrained. Based on almost a decade’s research, the book shows how people organize their lives personally, professionally, and politically around the expectation of imminent departure. Yet, when migration remains out of reach, what was imagined to be temporary may endure for decades, forcing people to live in the present while continually preparing for a future life elsewhere.

Poignant and powerful, this timely book introduces a new way to look at global migration beyond the Iranian case.