Description
Book SynopsisEvery year, thousands of young people on the run from war and persecution, or escaping poverty and chronic instability, make their way to Europe without their parents. Embarking on long and often dangerous journeys, they have either become separated from their families on the way or set out on their own. In recent years, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Europe has risen drastically. It has led to a major shift in perception in European countries, initiating a wealth of policies and infrastructures targeted specifically at unaccompanied child refugees.
This book investigates the emergence of the unaccompanied child refugee as a crisis figure'. It shows how the sense of exceptionality attached to this figure translates into ambiguous and at times extremely contradictory social practices that have far-reaching effects on the lives of refugee youth. By bringing together ethnographically driven research on unaccompanied minors in some of the core arrival and transit
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Family project or individual choice? Exploring agency in young Eritreans’ migration 3. The border event in the everyday: hope and constraints in the lives of young unaccompanied asylum seekers in Turkey 4. Children, adults or both? Negotiating adult minors and interests in a state care facility in Malta 5. Across the threshold: negotiations of deservingness among unaccompanied young refugees in Sweden 6. Being inside out: the slippery slope between inclusion and exclusion in a Swiss educational project for unaccompanied refugee youth 7. The limits of freedom: migration as a space of freedom and loneliness among Afghan unaccompanied migrant youth 8. Transitions, capabilities and wellbeing: how Afghan unaccompanied young people experience becoming ‘adult’ in the UK and beyond 9. Methodological innovations, reflections and dilemmas: the hidden sides of research with migrant young people classified as unaccompanied minors
