FREEDOM

      I, by no means attempt to even begin to analyze the concept of freedom. It is loaded and difficult, and many philosophers with brilliant minds have already engaged in such endeavor. In relation to migration this topic has been addressed in a simpler fashion, in terms of the actual possibilities for migrants. The freedom to migrate is determined by a lot of factors (economic, social, historical, etc.), some of them, presupposing a lack of certain freedoms in their home countries. For example, in the case of many queer migrants, they flee their home countries towards more liberal societies where they can express their sexual orientation openly (Fortier, 2003). Also, many migrants feel that they can "express" their identities more freely when the ties from their homeland are no longer present (Bradiotti, 1994). For example, if most of their family ties are left behind, they feel like they can re-build and create new identities. This is a very common understanding of freedom. I am now free from (x) in order to be free to (y). I'd like to say a couple things on the matter. The first is Heidegger's concept of anticipatory resoluteness, or what has been proposed as his understanding of freedom, which for me, poses a much more complex analysis on this topic in comparison to those mentioned above (from the social sciences literature). Secondly, just a personal reflection of what some aspects of my freedom have meant when I have migrated.

      Heidegger calls anticipatory resoluteness the way in which we relate to our future possibilities. Resoluteness [Entschlossenheit] involves a decisiveness, but it also means an opening up, or a remaining open in a disclosing fashion. Heidegger speaks of openly facing a particular and concrete situation that is already limited by certain possibilities. This situation reveals to us what is possible in the present moment. 'The resolution is precisely the disclosive projection and determination of what is tactically possible at the time' (Heidegger, Being and Time, 1962).  Resoluteness is a 'focused engagement' with the actual, with the world and with others.  The anticipating aspect of resoluteness [Vorlaufen] speaks for our temporal nature, thus, our capacity to project towards the future. Being anticipatory resolute is 'projecting wholeheartedly into the dying of possibilities that necessarily attend and define one's being or anyone at all' (Carman, 2003). It involves both engaging in actuality and projecting forward, but also realizing that any choice shuts other choices down. So, yes, my freedom is limited by aspects I have no control of (i.e. my nationality, my gender, etc), but I am also condemned to freedom in that any choice I possibly make, closes other opportunities down.
      In relation to freedom, resoluteness has been interpreted as Heidegger's conception of human freedom. It is understood as the revelation of our own finitude and then 'owning up' to it through resoluteness (Nichols, 2000). For Nichols, the resolute aspect of Dasein, of any and each of us, is our primordial freedom, our capacity to assume our "throwness" into this world as finite. We are thrown into a finite world and we necessarily possess a finite nature.  As the kind of being that I am,  comprehension of the finality of my life, and thus, the urgency/pointlessness/and possible assertiveness of any of my choices (especially the latter) is win intrinsic possibility. Nichols (2000)  disagrees with the account of negative freedom because it presupposes a simpler freedom: to do what one wants by being free of something, whatever, else. Not only do we have not open choices, but separating freedom into negative and positive accounts simplifies its meaning. The "x" and "y" in the equation of positive and negative freedom are empty spaces ready to be filled by numberless factors.  Such understanding can lead to delusions regarding the actualization of political and social ends. It strips the "agent" from its context and its ontological structure, giving such agent all the power (as social sciences like to do), presupposing possibilities that are not necessarily such.
      Heidegger's account of freedom considers not only the different social contexts we are possibly part of, but also the inherent inescapability of our freedom, and the imminent presence of our own death, which in all ways determines our choices. Evidently, most of the times, in our personal lives we have a very simple, if not idealized and misconstructed, understanding of our own freedom. When I first migrated, I felt free from so many things, and with time, and as I adapted to new societies, I felt free to do many others.  I understood my freedom very simply. Yet, as the years have gone by, I have realized that that freedom I've "gained" through migration has also meant questioning much of the decisions I have made in order to maintain it, or increase it. The following is a text I wrote some time ago. It attempts to  show the differences amongst a simple understanding of freedom or lack of, the freedom to tie oneself to places and people, and the freedom to untie oneself. By no means, however, I am stating here that the way I now experience and understand my own freedom has changed, or evolved. 

FREEDOM

I used to miss my single life  every time I found myself with someone.

I used to think i was giving up some kind of freedom,

Shutting possibilities down and

Exchanging them for comfort.

I always felt a bit asphixiated.

Until you.

Then, I did not feel the Winter,

I lacked money, but I did not notice,

The rain and the hale poured through March and April,

The wet and slippery streets reflected the grey of the Irish sky,

And it did not matter.

It was us, in a home housing mice, and spiders and bugs.

The kitchen wall, falling apart. The half working sink. The stains on the floors. All of it housing the way we smelled together. Loving dwellers.

Now I turn looking for your back, your hand, your voice,

I see my single life and it bores me,

It no longer excites me, this freedom.

It cuts deep through the ocean that separates us.

I miss you, I miss our life,

And everything else feels like bloody Winter.

REFERENCES

Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.

Carman, T. (2003) Heidegger´s Analytic. Interpretation, Discourse and Aunthenticity in Being and Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  

Fortier, A.  (2003) ‘Making Home: Queer migrations and motions of attachment’. In: Ahmed, S., Castañeda, C., Fortier, A. & Sheller, M. (2003). Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of home and migration. Oxford & NY: Berg, pp. 115 -35.

Heidegger, M.  (1962), Being and Time. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (transl). London: SCM Press.

Nichols, C. M. (2000) ‘Primordial freedom: The Authentic Truth of Dasein in Heidegger´s ‘Being and Time’’, In Thinking Fundamentals, IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences. Vol. 9: Vienna 2000.