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- Convenors:
-
Nataliya Tchermalykh
(University of Geneva)
Elisa Floristán (Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM))
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- Chair:
-
Nataliya Tchermalykh
(University of Geneva)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/006B
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together new anthropological perspectives on migrant youth. How does the figure of the non-citizen child challenge and redefine the anthropological conceptions of childhood - and more broadly, the notions of transnationalism, state power, human rights and humanitarianism(s)?
Long Abstract:
This panel brings together new anthropological perspectives on migrant youth, and is conceived as a forum for new theoretical contributions from anthropologists working on and with unaccompanied children in Europe and beyond. How does the figure of the non-citizen child, crossing borders autonomously, challenge and redefine the anthropological conceptions of childhood - and more broadly, the notions of transnationalism, state power, human rights and humanitarianism(s)?
In this panel the migrant child is addressed as a critical figure that impersonates the paradox of humanitarian reasoning (Fassin), which is also a legal and political paradox (Arendt; Bhabha), encapsulating the tension between structural oppression and agentive capacity of a human subject. Migrant children's life trajectories are critically defined by the tension between legality and illegality, mobility and immobility - an ontological condition that is co-produced by the system of nation-states, laws and governmental bodies, but cannot be reduced to their effects, living significant space for creativity and inventive strategies of resistance.
By laying the focus on the theoretically productive role of autonomous children as subjects of ethnographic scrutiny, the aim of this panel is to come to a deeper understanding of the ways current anthropological knowledge makes sense of shifting terrains around the conceptions of childhood, adulthood, and migration.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses “temporal architectures” of migrant childhoods - that are complex compositions of laws, institutions and technologies. It extends existing literature on childhood by confronting the ways in which time is enacted through legal assemblages, surrounding young migrants’ lives.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores “temporal architectures” of migrant childhoods - that are complex compositions of laws, institutions and technologies. It extends existing literature on childhood by confronting the ways in which time is enacted through legal assemblages, surrounding young migrants’ lives. It brings particular attention to the temporal boundary of the 18th birthday, that is also a legal paradox, separating the relatively protected childhood from right-less and deportable adulthood. In practice, it is configured as a space of endless anxieties, controversies and legal battles. Here, law is not passive with respect to time but actually creates and orders it through a set of techniques including time limits, commencement dates, and eligibility periods.
In this polemical context, judges of juvenile courts often serve as agents of the State discretion - its “eyes” - capable of distinguishing between a “real” minor, deserving state protection from a “fraudulent” one. The “juridical time” that emerges as a result of such an ordering practice is inextricably bound to the exercise of state power, that control, commands, and shapes time of their subjects through the workings of law. In this vein, Cohen pointed to the need for much clearer awareness of both ‘temporal justice’ and ‘temporal injustice’, that has not yet received the deserved attention within legal anthropology. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork with unaccompanied minors and their attorneys in Geneva, France and Greece, and brings forward a particular case, when an unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan committed suicide on his 18th birthday.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the consequences of losing home and family for unaccompanied youth Syrian migrants arriving in Germany. It explores the influences of the sudden changes in the surrounding atmosphere and the reaction to the new culture as well as the challenges of integration and acceptance.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, unaccompanied migrant children are closely explored by telling their stories as they arrived in Germany. Those children have arrived at a new country, unprepared to face the burden to come. They were sent to seek asylum in order to obtain the right to family reunification and to bring their parents to Germany. The period of arriving in Europe, staying in a youth camp, adapting to the new culture, not being able to speak the language, and facing the unexpected changes without having the emotional support they used to get at home, or any family member to lean on during such difficult times, has caused a deep impact on different sides of those children’s lives.
They were expected to fulfill all the expectations of their family who were left on the other side waiting to be rescued from the crucial war conditions. Since those young teenagers have arrived ahead of the family, learned the language, had a relatively better idea about the system and the laws of the new country. The family has treated them as the caretaker and at the same time he was expected to stay the same obedient child they used to know before sending them to face the world alone. These contradictions between being the leader and the child in the family at the same time have caused a profound impact in the life of those teenagers and have reshaped their attitude toward the concept of family, home, and their own future as well.
Paper short abstract:
Social relations play an important role during the transition to adulthood. This systematic review maps the social network of unaccompanied refugee adolescents in both their host country and country of origin, and describes their influence on the various transition challenges that these minors face.
Paper long abstract:
Unaccompanied refugee adolescents often have few years to get settled in their host country before they transition to (a nominal) adulthood. Between arriving and ageing out of youth care, adolescents face certain challenges while preparing for an adult life. Based on existing studies, we define these as: ‘Education and employment’, ‘Independent living skills’, ‘Social network’, and ‘Sense of identity and belonging’. These are often started in the country of origin’s contexts, yet have to be finished in the specific circumstances of the host country.
This paper emphasises the importance of a holistic view on adolescents’ social network in studying transition challenges. The arrival in a new country can lead to new social relations and the renegotiation of pre-existing ones. Besides the professional assistance that adolescents are assigned in care, they can also form new friendships or ‘familial’ relations with peers, foster carers or other informal networks. Furthermore, transnational relations with family or friends can also be maintained. Each of these actors has their own views on a ‘successful’ transition or ‘childhood’ and can have a (non-)supporting influence on adolescent’s transition challenges.
This paper argues that transnational family is an important yet little studied actor in the transition of unaccompanied adolescents. In discussing this, we would like to share deliberations from an ongoing project on transnational family and the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied adolescents.