Schrödinger’s Cats: On the Origins of Uncertainty and its Impact on Belarusian Immigrant Families in Lithuania

Abstract

This article examines how uncertainty shapes the lives of migrant families and the strategies they employ to navigate it, focusing on Belarusian families in Lithuania. In Lithuania, rapidly shifting legal frameworks and politicised migration debates have produced heightened instability. Particular attention is paid to the legal dimension of uncertainty, which constrains planning horizons and reverberates across households through the principle of linked lives. The study draws mainly on the qualitative data collected in 2025 through semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions with Belarusian families. Research participants often described living in a ‘suspended state’, reminiscent of Schrödinger’s cat, where shifting rules curtailed long-term planning and outcomes remained unknown until the last moment. Families relied on multiple information channels to compensate for fragmented official signals, yet informational complexity itself often deepened uncertainty, producing ‘swings’ in decision making and prompting suboptimal choices such as repeated relocation. The article contributes to migration sociology by conceptualising uncertainty not only as an external condition but also as a cognitive state generated within volatile information environments. Introducing the notion of cognitive uncertainty, borrowed from behavioural economics, we show how subjective doubt about the optimal decision helps explain migrants’ strategies under unstable institutional and discursive contexts. Policy implications include the need for clearer procedures and stronger integration measures. Balanced media coverage is essential to avoid amplifying distrust. Although limited by its qualitative scope and national focus, the study opens avenues for comparative and quantitative research on the long-term consequences of uncertainty for migrant adaptation and wellbeing.