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ABSTRACT
This article examines how unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan experience migration as a space of both freedom and loneliness situated between competing moral frameworks: family projects, neoliberal discourses of independence, and a quest for new ways of being. While migration is devised as a family strategy to financially sustain the household, it also creates new desires for young people: to study, to have fun, and to fulfil individual goals. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the UK, I analyse how youth find themselves caught in moments of moral crisis as both an ethical dilemma and an experience of self-transformation – caused by the tensions between family expectations, social policies, and a search for independence. I argue that young people often struggle to find the moral ground to exercise freedom and to make the good choice, without the guidance of their parents and within neoliberal politics of self-governance. This article considers youth’s aspirations and imaginaries of ‘good life’ within different communities of belonging, and it highlights the importance of the role of kinship for understanding how youth conceptualise their future, and ultimately exercise choice.
Acknowledgements
I am profoundly grateful to the young people who have shared their stories and moments of their lives with me. Thank you to the Becoming Adult research team, especially to Elaine Chase, Habib Rezaie, Gullivan Zada, Mohammad Zameree, Shafiq Hussaini, and Semhar Haile for their invaluable support and stimulating discussions. I would like also to thank Annika Lems, Kathrin Oester, Sabine Strasser, and two anonymous reviewers for their generous and insightful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 At 18 years, young people move from being supported by a social worker to being assisted by a personal advisor. The latter has the role to advise and assist the care leaver until the age of 21, or until 25 if young people are continuing in higher education. Young people I met during fieldwork considered the support provided by personal advisers as inadequate and very limited, consisting in only sporadic meetings (i.e. once a month or less). Many young people experience this transition as abandonment or a betrayal by social care institutions, especially if a significant and beneficial relationship previously existed with their social worker.
2 In the UK, there were 3043 asylum applications from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) in 2015. Overall, UASC applications represented 9% of all main applications for asylum. The countries with the highest number of applications were Eritrea (694), followed by Afghanistan (656) and Albania (456).
3 In order to be granted protection in the UK, young people must fall under the juridical category of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC): being under 18; applying for asylum in their own right; and having been separated from both parents and not being cared for by an adult.
4 The majority of young people, as they arrive after the age of 16, are not fostered by a family. Moreover, due to the national shortage of foster carers, however, local authorities often use centralised private fostering agencies. Practices of care provision may vary according to different local governments and allocation of resources.
5 Young people can receive support until 25 if they continue in higher education. Local authorities, however, only support former unaccompanied minors who have established a protection claim for asylum.
6 More precisely, youth are no longer looked after by local authorities when they have been refused refugee status and have exhausted their appeal rights (‘Appeal Rights Exhausted’ or ARE).
7 Project Research Title ‘Becoming Adult: Conceptions of Futures and Wellbeing among Migrant Young People in the UK’, funded by ESRC, grant number ES/L009226/1. Full ethical approval was obtained through the University of Oxford CUREC process for social science researchers. Further information about the project and methodology is available at www.becomingadult.net.
8 Interviews were usually conducted in English. Sometimes, in cases the respondents did not feel confident speaking in English, interviews were conducted in the respondents’ mother tongue (e.g. Tigrinya, Farsi) and were translated and facilitated by a native research assistant. Interviews were recorded, with the consent of respondents.
9 The two stories that I present here are part of biographical interviews and informal conversations I had with these two young people. While pertaining to individual singularities and specific life trajectories, these two accounts are also representative of larger trends in my field research in relation to the ways that young people experience their transition into adulthood and migration.
10 Hazaras constitute the third largest ethnic group of Afghanistan, after the Pashtuns and the Tajiks. They are originally from central Afghanistan and, unlike the majority of the Afghan population, most of them are Shiite Muslims. The group has been politically and socially marginalized in Afghanistan.
11 Karim used the word kalan to describe this stage of adulthood. Hazaras have two different ways of describing adulthood: kalan and jowan. Kalan describes a set of responsibilities associated with adulthood, but it is not strictly linked with age. For instance, a young child who takes responsibility for his/her family (such as caring for a sick relative or working) can be considered as kalan. Jowan describes the stage of young adulthood when people are ready to get married (usually ranging from the age of 17 to early twenties).
12 In England, local governments have the sole institutional parenting role vis-à-vis unaccompanied minors and looked after children; responsibilities for care and safeguarding are primarily taken on by social workers.
13 The notion of haram refers to acts which are forbidden or proscribed by Islamic law.
14 I refer here to religion as a set of beliefs in a ‘higher power’ or ‘God’, and to the ways young people used the term. In this article, I don’t engage with institutions and community practices associated with faith, but rather with individual everyday faith practices.
15 The current UK policy does not recognise unaccompanied children’s right to be reunited with their parents but regards it as a matter of discretion to be exercised only when there are compelling and compassionate circumstances.
16 Under European regulations, unaccompanied minors who have been recognised as refugees have the right to bring their family members into the host country. Under Council Directive 2003/86/EC on the Right to Family Reunification, EU countries are required to allow the entry and residence of family members of the minor’s first-degree relatives in the direct ascending line.