By Piero Gorza,OnBorders piero.gorza1@gmail.com, Nicola Montagna, School of Law – Middlesex University London n.montagna@mdx.ac.uk, Rita Moschella,OnBordersrita.moschella@gmail.com, Maria Perino, Università del Piemonte Orientale,OnBorders maria.perino@uniupo.it

In this working paper, which is the result of a collaboration between associations and researchers and is the outcome of a presence that has seen some of us over the past three years daily engaged in field observation and shadowing of people in transit at the Northwest Alpine border, we examine how various social configurations are produced and transformed during the journey and by bordering practices, with a focus on the intergenerational and gender relations and from a longitudinal perspective. We argue that borders and bordering practices have an anthropopoietic impact on migrant people and the temporalities of their journeys, which can vary, on average, from two to six years, and during this period of forced mobility and protracted displacement, made up of sudden accelerations and long pauses, migrant people walk, have children, grow, and transform. In this working paper, we want to highlight how in these transformative processes that accompany the journey, the configurations of parental and friendship networks also undergo profound changes and original domesticities are de-constructed and re-constructed, both as strategies to escape border controls and thus continue the journey, and as mutual support.