13th ESA Conference (2017), Athens. Title: Contested Childhoods: Independent Juvenile Migrants’ Social Navigation Strategies through Worlds in Crisis. (original) (raw)
Related papers
‘Future citizens of the world’? The contested futures of independent young migrants in Europe
Irrespective of their points of entry, for most young people subject to immigration control in Europe, turning 18 marks a significant repositioning of their relationship with the state and a diminution of rights and entitlements; they change from rights holders as ‘children’, for whom states must consider the ‘best interests’, to young people subjected to a varied array of classifications who are hard to position in the ‘national order of things’ (Malkki 1995). Young people frequently end up in limbo, uncertain of whether or not they will be able to remain in the country of immigration/asylum and for how long. This paper at once outlines and critically analyses the dissonance between how European policies formulate and impose a set of future options for independent migrant young people who are subject to immigration control as they transition to ‘adulthood’, and what is known about young people’s own conceptualisations of their futures and how they intend to realise them.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), 2017
This paper sheds light on the ambiguous position of children who migrate without a parent or guardian as they become adults in the European Union (EU). Through a critical analysis of three prevailing frames (‘best interests’, ‘durable solutions’ and ‘belonging’), which largely inform policy and practice related to this group, it explores the tension between policy assumptions and what we know of the lived experiences and aspirations of these young people. It ultimately reveals a policy framework shaped by a state-centric view of migration, a static conception of belonging and a bias towards a political preference for return. Such a stance underestimates young people’s agency and willingness to embrace risk in their efforts to secure a viable future. The net result is policy which fails to offer a ‘durable solution’ or act in the ‘best interests’ of individual migrant young people or of society as a whole.
Sociology, 2019
This article explores how symbolic boundaries between youth and adulthood shape experiences of upward and downward social mobility among EU migrants. Drawing on 56 biographical interviews with Italians who moved to England after the 2008 economic crisis, and focusing on three individual case studies, the article reveals that normative understandings of adulthood emerge as a central concern from participants' biographical accounts, and that they mobilise unequal forms of cultural, economic and social capital to maintain a feeling of synchrony between social ageing and social mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu and the sociology of adulthood, the article proposes the concept of 'synch' to explore how tensions in the relationship between social ageing and social mobility shape experiences of migration. This allows for an innovative theoretical bridge between cultural class analysis, adulthood studies and migration studies, and for a better understanding of how intersections of class and age shape intra-European migrations.
Routledge , 2019
Youth and the Politics of the Present presents a range of topical sociological investigations into various aspects of the everyday practices of young adults in different European contexts. Indeed, this volume provides an original and provocative investigation of various current central issues surrounding the effects of globalization and the directions in which Western societies are steering their future. Containing a wide range of empirical and comparative examples from across Europe, this title highlights how young adults are trying to implement new forms of understanding, interpretation and action to cope with unprecedented situations; developing new forms of relationships, identifications and belonging while they experience new and unprecedented forms of inclusion and exclusion. Grounding this exploration is the suggestion that careful observations of the everyday practices of young adults can be an excellent vantage point to grasp how and in what direction the future of contemporary Western societies is heading. Offering an original and provocative investigation, Youth and the Politics of the Present will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Youth Studies, Globalization Studies, Migration Studies, Gender Studies and Social Policy. Enzo Colombo is a Professor of Sociology and Culture at the
In this paper I will be focusing on young people who have been forced to flee their homes, specifically those fleeing sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, who have made their way to the European Union. The paper is divided into two sections. In the first section I provide an overview of the forced migration trends crossing the Mediterranean. My analysis will contest the neo-liberal liberal agenda and the immigration policies of “Fortress Europe” that extend well beyond the blue (sea) border: political processes and practices that structure realities at a global, regional and local level. I then look at the case of young asylum-seekers who have arrived in Malta, and secondary containment within the EU. I describe human rights violations, poverty and social marginalisation, and I expose processes of democratic exclusion: the day-to-day realities experienced by illegalised young bodies positioned discursively and de facto outside the law. In the second section I illustrate how a “statist” hegemony is ubiquitous within youth research. I illustrate how the “citizenship assumption” within youth studies has failed to interrogate the “nation state” as a unit of anlaysis. I conclude by arguing that the prevalent, uncritical stance towards notions of the nation state and democracy is fundamentally problematic, inherently exclusionary, and out of touch with a global reality lived out by millions of young people: young bodies positioned as “illegal” wherein the “right to rights” cannot be assumed (Arendt 1968).
This paper explores overlooked dynamics relevant to the criminalisation and securitisation of migration, with Greece serving as a case-study. Reminiscent of an heroic episode in ancient Greek history, where Leonidas and the Spartans willingly stood to their inevitable death against the mass Persian army, about 300 irregular migrants engaged in a 44-day hunger strike in January 2011, achieving some concessions from the state. The paper draws on a set of face-to-face interviews with these migrant protesters, complemented by discourse analysis. Its aims are twofold: firstly, to analyse the impact of securitisation and of the economic downturn on the migrant experience; and secondly, to explore the migrants' attempt to resist and react to their criminalisation through organised protest action. The first section sets the stage for the analysis by looking at the national context and migration patterns. The second section discusses the migrants' own evaluations of their lived experiences and mobilisation. The third section then reflects on the discursive strategies that migrant protesters themselves employed to influence migration discourse and policy. The analysis demonstrates that the prevalence of restrictive frames and policies on migration, predictably, increase migrant insecurity, abuse and deprivation. Nevertheless, irregular migrants are able and willing to escape their invisibility, even temporarily, by challenging established frames, making strategic alliances and engaging in highly political, rational and ideologically defined protest action.