401 Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 93, No. 3, p. 401–428, ISSN 0003-5491. © 2020 by the Institute for Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of The George Washington University. All rights reserved. ARTICLE Time with/out Telos: Eritrean Refugees’ Precarious Choice of Im/possible Futures in Ethiopia and Beyond Amanda Poole, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Jennifer Riggan, Arcadia University ABSTRACT Why do so many refugees engage in irregular onward movement despite grave risks and the presence of programs intended to stop them from mi- grating? We argue that refugees’ active engagement with projects of time- making frames their decision making. Refugees’ time-making projects involve ordering time in linear or non-linear sequences through orienting themselves towards the past, present, near future, or distant future and, in doing so, creating a relationship between distinct temporalities, refugee bodies, and the spaces they inhabit. Based on over two years of multi- sited, multi-leveled ethnographic research which analyzed the relationship between refugee discourse about onward movement and its relationship with educational programming intended to stop it, we identify the inter- play of three distinct forms of temporality among refugees: the empty or “animal” time endemic in the camp; teleological time such as is inher- ent to educational processes; and “prophetic time,” a concept we draw from Jane Guyer’s (2007) work on futurity to describe a form of time that organizes the present through attachment to distant futures and faraway