The (unaccompanied) minor as mobility: the tactics of young African migrants in Italy to contest spatio-temporal control

ABSTRACT

This paper critically explores how young migrants in Italy utilise their status as ‘minors’ to construct a ‘better future’ as they transition to adulthood. It draws upon data captured through ethnographic fieldwork with young African men who have made the perilous illegalised journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. I use this data to evidence how these young men engage in unruly mobility within Italy to negotiate the migration regime and resist the immobility, temporal suspense and racialisation of their bodies. These findings contribute to debates in children’s geographies by theorising the multiple temporalities of youth and transnational mobility. More specifically, the paper reveals the inherent contradiction in how mobility represents and is narrated as a resource, and yet can become a trap for young migrants.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• unaccompanied asylum-seeking children
• youth
• temporality
• race

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the staff at Giallo for allowing me to volunteer and research within the reception centre, and huge and special thanks to all the young men who participated in this project and shared their thoughts and experiences with me. Thanks to my supervisors Yasmin Gunaratnam and Les Back for support during my PhD, on which this paper is based. Thanks also to the editor and reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions which strengthened this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All names and places are pseudonyms.

2 As the category of ‘unaccompanied minor’ has legal and normative consequences, I use this term where it represents these institutional frames. UNHCR and UNICEF (2014, 22) consider unaccompanied children to be any person under the age of eighteen who is outside his or her country of origin or habitual residence and who has been separated from both parents and other relatives and who is not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so. Otherwise, I use ‘young men’, as the majority were aged sixteen and over. For discussion, see Menjívar and Perreira (2019).

3 The SPRAR system has since been replaced.

4 In this case, the mayor of Verde who has mainly a symbolic role (see ISMU Foundation 2019).

5 Accessing young women migrants was not possible primarily because social care institutions are more protective of young women (Wernesjö 2020), leading to several procedural barriers.

6 I have chosen to use the term migrant as a neutral term, not connotating any false binary between forced/ voluntary movements, but rather recognizing the spectrum of immigration statuses, and that these can shift and change (Ngai 2005).

7 Named after Sandra Zampa, the MP who presented the bill. The law brings migrants children’s rights into line with those of citizen and EU children in Italy, providing for support up to a maximum 21 years of age where needed in order to achieve independence, as decided by a Juvenile Court.

8 Humanitarian Protection (a two-year renewable status) was widely granted to protect unaccompanied minors who did not meet the conditions for refugee status. It was abolished by Law 132/2018. On 5/10/2020 a new Immigration decree was passed which reinstated a similar status, 'special protection’.

9 Legislated by article 13 of Italian Law n. 142/2015 deriving from article 20 of EU Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection. Although the latter does state that duly motivated reasons for the abandonment will be considered.

10 Clearly, this is also a very gendered portrait of masculinity, which it is outside the bounds of this paper to explore. For an initial discussion, see Allsopp (2017).

11 I myself visited a camp in South Italy and found it to be a functional space, offering education and employment opportunities and access to ‘documents’.

Additional information

Funding

This paper draws upon doctoral research funded by the ESRC and was written thanks to time granted by the Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Scholarship.