Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the shifting understandings of the category “refugee” among young Muslim refugees, ‘old’ and ‘new’ arriving to Denmark before and during the “refugee crisis”.

Paper long abstract:

The number of young refugees arriving in Europe has risen sharply over the past year (UNCHR 2015), even as the asylum policy landscape has shifted dramatically across the continent. Scandinavia is no exception, here asylum policies have become increasingly restrictive in the past year, marked by the border controls between Sweden and Denmark and the Danish government's 'jewelry law', which recently made international headlines. This has affected the lives of the young refugees who arrived before and during the "refugee crisis". Drawing from 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork with young refugees in Denmark, who arrived as 'unaccompanied minors', I explore how public discourses have infiltrated the narratives of Muslim refugees. In the first part I will delve into the narratives of those who have been in Denmark for a few years, the more 'established' refugees, and how they perceive the arrival of the newcomers from other parts of the Muslim world. How do public discourses affect perceptions of categories? "It is OK they [Syrians] are coming, cause I am also refugee. If they come I don't want them to destroy the culture of Denmark; I am afraid if one Syrian girl do this, it will affect my situation, this is the reason why I am afraid." How do more established refugees take ownership over labeling and categories? In the second part I will shift the lens to the 'newcomers', those who have been arriving over the past year, to provide an understanding of how restrictive policies of the Danish welfare state affect their everyday lives in Denmark.