The concept of home – unaccompanied youths voices and experiences

ABSTRACT

In Sweden, unaccompanied youths are placed within residential care units. However, to settle in a foreign country and feel emotional belonging is more complex than access to a physical building. The aim of this study is to critically discuss the concept of ‘home’ as experienced by the youths, narrated in nine focus group interviews. These interviews occurred in the aftermath of a turbulent migration time (2015), when over 35,000 unaccompanied youths arrived in Sweden. A transnational theoretical perspective stretches the meaning across national borders, when home links to people, processes and other geographical places. It is difficult to create an environment that mirrors the emotional attachment described in analysis. Earlier research has shown that residential care workers refer to the institutional setting as home, yet the results of this study show that the young people relate to the concept differently. Staff utilisation of the concept of home rather emphasises the lack of home-like aspects for the youths, creating a frustration in the current institutional conditions. Staff in residential care units must therefore be aware of the different interpretations and reactions that their actions and communications generate, in order to respond to various needs.

ABSTRAKT

Ett boende alternativ för ensamkommande unga i Sverige är hem för vård och boende (HVB). Att komma till ett nytt land och skapa förutsättning för känslomässig tillhörighet är mer komplext än att få tillgång till en fysisk byggnad. Syftet med den här studien är att kritiskt diskutera hembegreppet baserat på ungdomarnas egna upplevelser, delgett i nio olika fokus-grupps intervjuer. Intervjuerna utfördes i efterdyningarna av en turbulent tid då det 2015 anlände över 35,000 ensamkommande unga i Sverige. Ett transnationellt teoretiskt perspektiv breddar förståelsen och sträcker sig över nationella gränser där hem länkas samman till människor, processer och olika geografiska platser. Det är svårt att skapa en miljö som motsvarar den emotionella samhörighet som de unga beskriver i studien. Tidigare forskning har visat att personal på HVB relaterar till den institutionella miljön i termer av ett hem, resultatet av vår studie visar dock att de ungas förståelse av begreppet skiljer sig åt. Personalens sätt att relatera till HVB som hem understryker snarare avsaknaden av hemlika element från de ungas perspektiv och skapar således frustration. Personalen behöver vara medvetna om de olika tolkningarna och reaktionerna som deras kommunikation genererar, för att kunna bemöta olika behov.

KEYWORDS:

• migration/immigration
• practice/theory
• institutions
• critical perspectives

NYCKELORD:

• Ensamkommande unga
• socialt arbete
• institutionella ramar
• hem

Introduction

I came straight to (name of city) … I thought about living here a while and having a home, having someone take care of me. Yes, everything I wished for happened. A roof over my head and someone to take care of me. In the beginning it was really tough, I was homesick. The family, being lonely here and not knowing the language. A new country. It was very difficult, and you wanted to talk about your feelings, but you couldńt. But it has become better now. (Abdul, focus group 7)

This article will introduce and discuss the experiences of so-called unaccompanied youths, more specifically, their stories about what constitutes a home. Focus groups were held in the aftermath of the turbulent year 2015, when over 35,000 unaccompanied youth arrived in Sweden. With this text, we add to the need for more research focusing on the young migrants’ voices.

Sweden has a long history of receiving immigrants in general, but also unaccompanied youths. Some of the first unaccompanied youths came to Sweden before and during the Second World War, for example, from Finland (Lagnebro, 1994). During the last decade, the number of young people arriving without a legal guardian has grown from about 2000 a year to 7000 in 2014. After the great increase in number over those years, the amount has decreased dramatically due to a European agreement regarding more restrictive migration policies. Asylum laws have changed to decrease the number of legitimate reasons to stay in Sweden, and to shift to temporary residence permits as the norm vs. permanent residence permits, as well as stricter requirements for family reunification (Law 2016, 752). This law was issued in 2016 with the intention to end in 2019 but was extended for another two years.

Over the years, most unaccompanied youths have been boys, only a fourth are girls (Ayotte, 2000). Afghanistan and Syria have been overrepresented among countries of origin, but Somalia, Iraq and Eritrea are also among them. Most of the young people who come to Sweden are between 13 and 17 years old (Socialstyrelsen, 2016). Since 2006, the state, represented by the Migration board, and the municipalities share the responsibility for the reception. While the state makes the decisions regarding the young people’s right to stay in Sweden, the municipalities are responsible for the everyday care, which includes a decent living environment (Migrationsverket et al., 2017). The unaccompanied youths are assigned a legal guardian to care for them in their parents’ absence. Previous research has shown that the meaning of this task is interpreted in very different ways, which results in a variation of the support given (Stretmo & Melander, 2013). Mostly three alternatives are available regarding the care for the youths: foster homes, residential care units or supported living. The last alternative is mostly used for the oldest or as a last step before moving out of the care services system. Almost all placements for unaccompanied youths are voluntary. Compulsory treatment includes a small minority when the young person has committed criminal offenses, used drugs, or voluntary measures were not thought to provide necessary protection.

Much previous research has been related to organisational issues and the structure of the reception rather than the minor’s own experiences. Some of the research has also taken the professionals’ points of view (Kauko & Forsberg, 2018; Söderqvist, Sjöblom, & Bülow, 2016). In a recent study by Jahanmahan and Bunar (2018), experiences by unaccompanied youths in interactions with two government agencies (social services and legal guardians) in Sweden are described and explored. The study illustrates how the asylum process is a psychological and social challenge for the youth, enhanced through asymmetric power relations with the agencies.

For the boys who are placed voluntarily into foster homes or residential care units, their experiences of being in a new place are important to understand. They are in a new setting, a new home of some sort, and yet it is not their home in many ways. As many countries, and Sweden in this case, work to integrate new residents into their societies, the sense of belonging that can come from having a sense of home and place may be critical to the long term success of asylum seekers and refugees across the globe. The aim of this study is to critically discuss the understanding of the concept of home, as experienced by unaccompanied minor boys.

Thus, this inquiry is guided by two main questions;

What meaning was made of the concept of home by the unaccompanied youths?

What role may the unaccompanied youths meaning making of home play during their initial time in Sweden?

Unaccompanied youths and home

This section elaborates our theoretical framework, mainly based on the concept of home and the perspective of transnationalism. Sirriyeh (2010, 2012, 2013) stresses the need for a broader understanding of what a home is, while also looking more closely at the possibility for how young people can establish stable relations. Despite the complex meaning of home, there are some common features that work as a point of departure. Previous research on the concept highlights three main components. First, a home should be a place where people feel they have control. Second, there should be an absence of surveillance, and lastly, home is a place where you have the feeling that you can be yourself (Saunders & Williams, 1988). Further elaborations of these elements suggest that home is linked to ontological security and provides a refuge from the world outside. Home is also the place where daily routines occur and includes some sense of reliability, supposedly a safe base for the formation of identities (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998).

Ahmed (1999) suggests a notion of the migrant as a member of a global community, implying that belonging is not connected to merely one specific place but in a wider global sense. A home is not a closed place but rather a space in constant movement involving those who arrive, stay and leave. Therefore, a home may not be understood as a safe place for strangers or a space for an undisturbed formation of identity. Such understanding similarly fits the picture of the nation as a home where the encounters between the native and the ‘stranger’ also occurs within the same borders (Ahmed, 1999). Ralph and Staeheli (2011) emphasise the need to understand home as both something fixed and local and, at the same time, as something flexible and mobile. Another study on refugee children shows that the physical building is not central in defining the feelings of home, but rather that social relations are core (Archambault, 2012). The importance of these relations is confirmed in another study by Sirriyeh (2012) that argues that the construction of home involves movement and communication. The home can be defined based on what is missing, such as family left behind in case of migration. Thus, it is not only those who migrate that are part of constructing home but also those left behind.

Furthermore, Ahmed (1999) asks us to question the often taken-for-granted division between being at home and being away, when they are not necessarily each other’s opposites. Being home does not automatically mean being away from threat or strangers. The experience of exclusion and the notion of a home seems to sometimes be linked together. Several studies stress unaccompanied youths experiences of exclusion and the struggle to create deeper relations, such as friendship, with what is often named as ‘swedes’ (e.g. Backlund, Eriksson, von Greiff, Nyberg, & Åkerlund, 2012; Lundberg & Dahlquist, 2012; Söderqvist, 2017; Stretmo & Melander, 2013). The struggle to build and uphold friendship and social relations is not always dependent on the time the young people stayed in Sweden, it can also be experienced after several years in the country (Gustafsson, Fioretos, & Norström, 2012). Friendships with people who share the same language and background is of importance (Wernesjö, 2015). The relations the young people develop at the residential care units can sometimes become strong and meaningful, both to other young people in the same situation, but also with the professionals (Åkerlund, 2016).

Belonging

Belonging has a spatial dimension in that the feelings of belonging can be both places dependent, but also distinct from a specific place (c.f. Lähdesmäki et al., 2016). One example of an independent spatial space is home (Ralph & Staeheli, 2011). Belonging, like home, is also structured by relationships (c.f. Moskal, 2014) and practices at both a local, national and on a cosmopolitan level. The analytical challenge is to understand how these levels are combined and how they interact to construct a concept of home (Lähdesmäki et al., 2016). However, as Yuval-Davis (2006) argues, belonging involves more than social locations and constructions of collective and individual identities. By using the term ‘politics of belonging’, it stresses the struggle regarding the decisions about what is involved in the concept of belonging, membership of communities and what roles social locations and narratives play.

Ahmed (1999) asserts that the issues of migration automatically relate to the concept of home, which in turn is linked to issues of belonging (e.g. Korjonen-Kuusipuro, Kuusisto, & Tuominen, 2018). A similar perspective is brought up by Wernesjö (2015), highlighting the necessity of understanding home and belonging as processes that may change over time. These became visible through the narratives of unaccompanied youths living in rural Sweden, in her study. The experiences of belonging were also affected by other people’s ways of denying young people’s wish to be included. Thus, the possibility to belong becomes conditional.

Blunt and Varley (2004) tie together the meaning of home, identity and belonging. The ideas of a home include a perception of a place linked to either a sense of belonging or alienation or both at the same time. This link is connected to the way we tend to conceive ourselves, sometimes articulated as ‘identity’. In a paper regarding migrant’s housebuilding in the country of origin, Erdal (2012) highlights dual obligations and loyalties. An ongoing negotiation takes place across transnational social spaces, and somewhere in between the present and the past, the self is (re-)created. The complexity, but also the necessity, to emphasise the multifaceted meaning of home is well expressed by Blunt and Varley (2004, p. 113–116), emphasising belonging and alienation, intimacy and violence, desire and fear and invested with meaning, emotions, experiences and relationships.

Transnationalism

Moreover, a theoretical transnational perspective of the concept of home stretches the meaning across national borders. From such a point of view, we are forced to see home as something linked to people, processes and geographical places globally, and in an on-going transformational process (Pries, 2001; Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). Djampour (2018) discusses the fluidity and the inherent changing meaning of home. The narratives in her study emphasise the link between home and the hope of returning. Furthermore, they outline the struggle with longing for what has been left behind, on one hand and, on the other hand, caring for new relationships, stressing the duality in the young people’s everyday life. Therefore, the notion of transnationalism is relevant to capture all the dimensions of home for migrants and refugees (Ralph & Staeheli, 2011). This theoretical perspective may also be described based on the activities taking place on different levels. Such activities could be on a structural level, e.g. economic and political character, but also on an individual level, such as phone calls, travelling and remittances (e.g. Pries, 2001; Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). Social space, or the spatial dimension, is understood as socially constructed and includes more than just a physical space, and is, therefore, both temporal and dependent on the specific context. Relations are changed in transnational processes (Anthias, 2012). Despite strict regulations regarding migration, the possibility to communicate and create relations across boarders seems to increase, not least because of developing technologies (Grillo, 2001; Vertovec, 2004). Thus, relations over national borders are created, sustained and shift continuously through the encounters and interactions in a spatial dimension.

The hope of returning or talking in terms of going back ‘home’ is however not neutral in its meaning. Eliassi (2012) argues that this discourse is used both by migrants talking about their own situation and longing for what is familiar but also in a racist discourse with a notion that an original place exists that migrants can return to. How those in positions of power construct this notion of home is of critical importance to understand how newly arrived immigrants can successfully integrate into a new society. Home, as narrated in our study, will thus be understood as a relational place located within the frames of a transnational social space (e.g. Erdal, 2012).

Materials, method and analysis

The empirical material in the study consists of transcriptions of 9 focus group interviews (e.g. Morgan, 1998) that were held in the winter/spring of 2016/2017. The focus groups consisted of 2–9 unaccompanied minor boys, all living in residential care units provided and managed by the municipality. The focus groups were held by the first author and another researcher, as a part of a research study that focused on the reception of unaccompanied youth. The participants were invited through the residential care unit where they lived. Their ages ranged from 14–18 and they came to Sweden in 2015 from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. A translator aided with communication in the interviews. In this text, all names of the participating boys have been changed.

Before the interviews were initiated, an application was sent to and approved by the Regional ethics board of Linköping (3178-51). We also considered ethical issues regarding research with this specific group of youths as discussed by Hopkins (2008) such as the importance of avoiding unnecessary stress by approaching experiences of traumatic character without further reflection. The possibility to learn from the unique experiences guided the planning of the project, however, there were several ethical considerations related to the interviews with the youth. The main consideration concerned the youth’s uncertain situation in Sweden regarding the possibility to stay. Most of the boys were in the middle of complicated and drawn-out asylum processes, a situation that produced worry and anxiety. After careful reflection, invitations to participate were sent out and the focus groups initiated. Only two of the invited youths declined to participate in the study. As the interviews were held during this stressful time, the researchers did their best to be sensitive towards things that might come up during the interviews. They were initiated with looking at a picture of the city where the focus groups were held (and the new home city) as a starting point. The researchers would then ask the boys to reflect on how it has been to arrive in the city and how life is now. From there the interviews took various paths lead by the boys themselves, the researchers asked follow-up questions. As the interactions between the boys varied, the interviews also varied in content. After participating in the interviews, several of the boys expressed gratitude for someone taking the time to listen to their stories.

The analysis was initially empirically driven with concepts identified in the transcripts, one of them was home. Home was described and reflected upon by the boys, in contrast to their understanding of the staff’s description of the concept which was in very positive terms. After the initial analysis, Randall Collins’ theory (2005, 2008) on interaction ritual chains was applied as way to understand the emphasise put on the concepts by the boys. Interaction ritual chains are defined as ‘a mechanism of mutually focused emotion and attention producing a momentarily shared reality, which thereby generates solidarity and symbols of group membership’ (Collins, 2005, p. 7). Narratives of the understanding of home were analysed through the perspective of Collins interaction ritual chains, where the concept (meaning) of home could be understood as a symbol that unites the groups of boys. Interaction ritual chains (Collins, 2005, 2008) emphasises interactions and groups dynamics, making it a suitable tool for analysis of focus groups. Groups of people with various connections can be understood by analysing solidarity and unity. The core of the theory is focused on emotions, and how interactions with others create joint symbols, infused with emotional energy, as a way of understanding and interpreting the world. The shared symbols create connections between people in a specific group, as well as a boundary around people outside of the group. The shared symbols moreover create solidarity within the group, infused with a shared emotional energy. Thus, sharing symbols can create a feeling of belonging, as well as a feeling of ‘us and them’. Collins builds on and uses theories by Goffman and Durkheim and aims at taking a broad scope on micro-sociology or social psychology (Fine, 2005). Interaction rituals produce emotional energy, which is a motivating force for individuals in a certain setting. The theory has, for instance, been used to analyse and describe how pro-anorexic websites use interaction ritual chains to (re)form identity (Maloney, 2013) and sport spectatorship (Cottingham, 2012).

Empirical findings

The situation the youth find themselves in requires them to find an approach to the new situation in a new country, with on-going relations with significant people in countries left behind. Our findings will be presented in two themes from the focus group interviews, related to the concept of home. The themes are space and relationships, separate in some senses; however, they are mostly intertwined together.

Space

Zabihullah left his home and family to seek for a place to stay and live for an undefined period, without a clear idea of where this place would be and what it would imply.

When I first left Afghanistan I did not know where in Europe I would end up. We just came and ended up in Germany first. We came with friends, did not stay there, it was not okay to stay there so we moved on to Finland. That did not work either, so we came to Sweden. The first 15–17 days I was in Malmö at the reception and they said that you are going to [name of municipality]. I came to [name of municipality] and immediately I had contact with my family because I told them I will get an education now; I will go to school now. The most important thing for me was to go to school and get an education. Now I am here and hope that everything goes well. (Zabihullah, focus group 5)

The quote illustrates how many of the boys are not interested in having a new home, as they have family elsewhere in the world. To stay in a residential care unit is always time-limited, with a beginning and an end. This is contradictory to a common reference to a home, where a home is a place to return to, stable and consistent. Settling down in a foreign country and feel emotional belonging is more complex than having access to a physical building. Belongingness, initially, may be focused on their family of origin, rather than their new home, while the new focus is more practical – getting an education to get a job. The transnational understanding of connectedness highlights the social construction, temporality and the contextual meaning of what belonging means to different people (Anthias, 2012).

A home in the quote above not only depends on physical conditions but rather external circumstances. The initial reception of Zabihullah seemed to be of great importance believing that Sweden could be a place to settle down. Based on Collins’ theory (2005, 2008) emphasises Zabihullah’s sense of home as created in interaction with his family. Together they created joint symbols of what a home is like and how the world outside could be interpreted. When Zabihullah shares his experiences of coming to Sweden with his family left behind, it may be an example of sharing symbols which stresses belongingness within the family.

[Name of residential care unit] is good but they [staff] promised us we would move to another residential care unit, but it got postponed all the time … Things they promise takes a long time. For example, in the beginning we were five in one room. There were many of us and we complained a lot. Eventually we were three in the room. But still I have the same problems I had the first day … if there is just one you dońt get along with in the room, it is a problem. The food is also a problem, sometimes the food is not edible, so we complain … Another concern is that the food sometimes is not enough for everyone. There are 25–28 of us and sometimes there is not enough food. According to the rules the food is supposed to stay for an hour, but when we come after 10 min it is gone. The others ate everything. (Samir, focus group 1)

Although the stay at the residential care unit is described as good, negative aspects of the place were raised. Samir says that the professionals are difficult to trust as their promises are not kept. Sharing a bedroom with other people that have not been chosen by the boys themselves is another example of limitations resulting in dissatisfaction. Similar argumentation is highlighted in Sirriyeh’s (2013) research when the women in her study often talked about home/or not home in terms of comfort and discomfort. Comfort was related to the experience of being able to move freely, both physically as well as the ability to be understood, to communicate, and the possibility to be recognised. It is difficult to feel ‘at home’ when one is not free to associate or not with those who share the space, and have access to the resources, e.g. food, in one’s home. Sirriyeh (2013) also argued that home should be a place for emotional authenticity compared to places where others expect you to act, feel and respond to things in a specific way. Thus, relationships are key to understanding people’s sense of home as well.

Sachís experience exemplifies how food represents an important component of the experience of home:

In the beginning [name of residential care unit] was also a bit chaotic and they closed the kitchen at night but after a few meetings we convinced them that this is not acceptable. If your child is hungry in the middle of the night, they go to the kitchen to have something to eat so this does not feel like home for us. They accepted it eventually. (Sachi, focus group 8)

Food is a strong symbol for belonging and has an obvious link to memories (e.g. Kohli, Connolly, & Warman, 2010; Söderqvist et al., 2016). Morrison (1996) argues that the meal needs to be understood as a social arrangement promoting socialisation and the collective. The boys in the focus groups give examples of how the professionals sometimes close the kitchen during the night. They compared the situation with what would happen if a child living with their parents was hungry in the middle of the night, stressing such behaviour (closing the kitchen) preventing them from talking about the residential care unit in terms of a home. Based on previous research, food might be understood as an example of one way of relating and defining home. Forkby (2005) argues that food at the residential care creates an emotional attachment and a shared history between those present. Moreover, Kohli et al. (2010) show that unaccompanied youth’s possibility to get hold of the food they are used to is not only a question of getting basic needs satisfied, but a possibility to connect the past with the present time.

Relationships

The most important person is my legal guardian, and he, I am the only boy he has as a legal guardian. And he does, like I believe that I am almost like his son in that way, he is very supportive, and he just tells me to stay in school. And doesńt demand much and he doesńt get mad at me or anything, so he is very kind, and just says that school is the most important thing. Compared to other boys or friends at school, he is very different. He doesńt feel like a legal guardian, it feels like … something else … like I am his son. When I am with them (the family of the legal guardian) and they have guests, they say that there are more people in the family now, this is how they (the family) introduce me. And the guests joke too and say that you are more people in the family. (Ali, focus group 2)

Ali provides an example of when the support from the legal guardian was experienced as rewarding. The relation is described as important and examples are given of how this relation differs from what could be expected of such a formalised relation. This part of Alís story can be connected to Ahmed’s (1999) way of describing the need to understand home as not necessarily linked to a specific time or place. Home and away do not have to be each other’s opposites. Naming a relation as family like may be a way to decrease the distance between places left behind and the current situation. The issue regarding belonging becomes visible when emphasising the fact that it is not only Ali himself who define the relations in such terms but also the legal guardian him, as well as acquaintances. External confirmation of belonging seems to be an important part of a relation (e.g. Gustafsson et al., 2012; Söderqvist, 2017; Wernesjö, 2015). Thus, it is not enough having a personal feeling of belonging it needs to be confirmed by others to be defined and experienced as authentic by the youths. Previous research shows that legal guardians interpret their task very different which results in some young people receiving much more support, both practical and emotional, compared to others (Stretmo & Melander, 2013). Creating a home within the residential care unit will always be characterised by specific conditions. Relations taking place within this setting are temporary and the contact with the legal guardian is, to some extent, based on a personal interest, as discussed in previous research. It is difficult to formalise the legal guardians’ engagement, thus the relations between them and the youth become conditional and unpredictable.

I have told the boss that I have been to others’ birthday parties at other residential care units. Soon it is my birthday, and can I have a party with friends, and have them over for tea. But if you want to buy a cake or bake or something, you have to do it at your own expense. We are children and young, so we want to dance and have fun, but we dońt have that, it becomes a very boring home. (Reza, focus group 4)

As his birthday is approaching, Reza is thinking about the kind of celebration he would like to have. However, in the residential care where he is living, staff do not arrange any celebrations. Nothing extra is done for birthdays. As the age, and hence birthdays, often are questioned by the Swedish Migration Board, this might be a sensitive subject for the boys. As Wernesjö (2015) and Åkerlund (2016) emphasise, friendships with others in the same or similar situation and with a similar background becomes an important aspect for the unaccompanied youths. Åkerlund (ibid) also includes the staff members as important in that aspect of relationships that matter, and in Rezás story we can interpret his disappointment about the birthday celebration (or lack of it) as a disappointment that implies that the relationship with the staff members is not that strong. In the case of birthdays, food, specifically cake, feels an integral part of acknowledging an important aspect of someone’s identity – the celebration of changing age.

From a transnational point of view, the creation of self is central. Erdal (2012) talks about the negotiation taking place in what is called transnational spaces. What has happened in life before as well as the present time is of importance when creating and re-creating the image of yourself. For Reza we can see how his references to what a family is like linked to the relations he creates in the context he is a part of today. A family member is, for instance, someone that cares about what is of importance for him, such as his birthday. In these types of encounters, the negotiation of self is developed (e.g. Anthias, 2012).

Discussion

The aim of this study was to critically discuss the understanding of the concept of home, as experienced by unaccompanied youths. What meaning was made of the concept of home by the unaccompanied youths? What role may the unaccompanied youths’ meaning making of home play during their initial time in Sweden? Previous research in the field shows that staff in residential care units use the concept of home to relate to the young people living there (Söderqvist et al., 2016). There is, however, a duality and complexity connected to the concept, as discussed by Blunt and Varley (2004). A home is always a mix of various opposite components.

Based on a transnational perspective, the boys’ narratives need to be put into a broader context that stretches beyond the residential care unit located in Sweden. The experiences of the boys in our study, show the complexity of the situation in residential care units. Within the frames of the residential care units, it is difficult to create an environment that mirrors the emotional attachment the young people relate to in their understanding of home. It is difficult, and perhaps it is not even desirable. When staff members use the concept of home, un-home-like elements are rather emphasised. A closed kitchen with restricted access to food and limited possibility to have friends over, are emphasised by the boys as factors that are not home-like. As described through the boyś stories and experiences, perceiving a residential care unit as a home can create a possibility to unite as a group, however, it can similarly create limitations to unity and emphasise the sense of it clearly not being their home (e.g. staff control). This is in line with Collins’ (2005, 2008) theoretical emphasis on interactions, where we can see the symbol of home as something far more complex than the staff’s description.

As mentioned earlier, the core of Collins’ (2005, 2008) theory is emotions and the understanding that interactions with others create joint symbols, infused with emotional energy, as a way of understanding and interpreting the world. Both the physical space and the meaning of food become important symbols of power in this context. If space is seen as a social construction as suggested by Anthias (2012) we argue that the structure and the content of the ‘room’ is being redefined both in the dialogue between the boys and the professionals, and in the professional’s actions such as when closing the kitchen for the night. Ahmed (1999) asked us to question the often taken-for-granted division between being at home and being away. The unaccompanied boys staying at the residential care units may in one way be understood as being away from home related to the migration to Sweden, but at the same time the unit constitutes the only home available for the boys in Sweden now. The importance of food may therefore be regarded as handling contradictions such as belonging and alienation, with both held within the concept of home (Blunt & Varley, 2004). The kitchen may be understood as a created symbol attached with emotional energy from both the youths and the professionals. By limiting access to the kitchen, it implies limitations to the youths’ sense of belonging, moreover it sets boundaries for the youths’ possibility to interact and to be active agents. As the kitchen is restricted in the residential care units, the unit itself becomes something other than a home.

Ralph and Staeheli (2011) stressed the importance of home as both something local and something flexible and mobile which also emphasises understanding home as not only a physical building, but also involving social relations (Archambault, 2012). Moreover, Moskal (2014) three significant standpoints are related to the meaning of home; predictability, continuity and coherence. The boy’s narratives touch upon these issues in different ways. While the physical building provides a certain predictability, continuity may be easier to fulfil within the frames of the residential care unit through the quality of the social relations. This raises concerns about what may be possible for the professionals to do within the frames of the residential care, to meet the youth’s needs of creating a home-like environment temporary.

As noted, relations were a central theme in the narratives. The migration to Sweden means being physically far away from family and other people of significance for the youths. Anthias (2012) argued that relations are being changed in transnational processes. Through the development of technology, the easiest way for the boys to stay in contact with family members might be through internet and social media (e.g. Pries, 2001; Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). Erdal (2012) emphasised dual obligations and loyalties and claimed that an ongoing negotiation takes place. It is therefore possible to argue that the obligations and the loyalties for the boys occur over national borders and social spaces. Thus, the meaning of home is constantly undergoing a process of change and the approach and understanding of home differs during the initial time in Sweden. The relations created takes place in the very local context. The relations formed with the professionals are both forced and temporal and include a power differential, as the professionals in many cases have the major responsibility for everyday care. Similar relations are created with assigned roommates, possibly a source of companionship or familiar feeling, but for some the opposite. The rooms are shared with people not chosen by the boys and sometimes not even trusted, in line with Ahmed’s description of a home as not always a safe place (1999).

Conclusions

A home is always a mix of various opposite components, it is never only a positive or negative place and space. Merely calling a residential care unit a home does not make it one for the youths, as we have illustrated through this study. To use the concept of home rather emphasises the lack of home-like elements in the units, provoking the boys rather than reassuring them. Staff in residential care units must therefore be aware of the different interpretations and reactions that their actions and communications generate, in order to respond to various needs. Instead of using home to describe the residential care unit, based on the findings we argue for the importance to let the boy’s narratives be the guidance. Rather than have the professionals continue the privilege to interpret, we argue for a co-construction of home as some kind of (temporally) joint symbol. Hence, a general implication for social work is the suggestion to lay a foundation for a transnational social work practice, using experiences of the youth. This would indeed improve the practices for unaccompanied youths.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ulrika Börjesson works as an Assistant Professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work at Jönköping University. Her research interest focuses on knowledge and learning in various Social work practices, such as elder care and areas of migration and integration.

Åsa Söderqvist Forkby works as an Assistant Professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work at Linnaeus University. Her main research interest focuses on issues of migration and integration connected to Social work practices and civil society