Paper short abstract:

Responding to a debate on migrant family’s fear that Norwegian childcare protection will “steal” their children and estrange senses of self and belonging, I argue that a non-essentialist view of alienation can be used to guide politics to support immigrant self-actualization and belonging.

Paper long abstract:

This paper responds to a heated political debate concerning Norwegian childcare protection services with a focus on migrant families reporting fear that the childcare protection will “steal” their children, ruin their family, thus violate senses of self and belonging. Based on in-depth interviews with parents and childcare protection workers, and inspired by critical phenomenology, the paper points towards reflexive and embodied experiences of structural injustice, estrangement and un-belonging. Here, the sense of self is based in the human disposition to act and to be aware of being acted upon (Merleau-Ponty). Self-actualization is not merely personal but is intersubjective, as well as economic and political since self-actualization takes place in active participation with others. The crossing into one another of self and other, as well as their holding apart, lends itself to both a commonality and a plurality of perspectives. Senses of belonging and alienation are not only products, but also ‘do’ things as they mobilize actions, decisions and interpretations, and are thus lively actants in the childcare protection process. Reflecting on the assessment management that guide childcare workers, the making and sustaining of self and belonging are here at stake, and I suggest, tend to create senses of alienation and un-belonging among migrant families as their views, narratives and truth are largely neglected. However, I argue alienation as non-essential and attempt to make the case that this non-essentialist view can be used to guide politics towards counteracting structural violation and injustice and rather support immigrant self-actualization and belonging.