Abstract
Drawing upon a study of the experiences of asylum-seeking children and their families in Sweden, this chapter examines how children cope with their life situations while awaiting their asylum decisions. What influences the well-being of asylum-seeking children caught up in a tension between experiences of past and present exclusion and expectations of improvement upon arrival in the host country? The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with 18 children (aged 9–18) and 18 parents (one parent for each child). The interviewed families had been waiting for a decision on their residence permit application for several months and sometimes even years. Utilizing concepts such as resilience, social capital, trust, and social recognition, the ways in which social networks might function as important resources fostering the well-being of asylum-seeking children and their parents are assessed. Possibilities for social networking among the interviewed children were found to be often constrained due to their specific social and legal situation in the host country. They were also undermined by their family circumstances and factors related to their past experiences and the challenges inherent in their everyday life during the waiting period. Concrete measures to support asylum-seeking families and their children in order to foster their well-being are suggested.
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Notes
- 1.
The interviews were conducted by the author and Mirzet Tursunovic.
- 2.
All interviewee names have been changed.
- 3.
The quote is from another sub-study within the project (Ascher and Mellander 2010).
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Acknowledgements
The study on which this chapter is based was funded by the European Refugee Fund. The author wishes to thank her colleague Mirzet Tursunovic for all his help in conducting the interviews for the study.
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Björnberg, U. (2013). Caught Between a Troubled Past and an Uncertain Future: The Well-Being of Asylum-Seeking Children in Sweden. In: Moreno Minguez, A. (eds) Family Well-Being. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4354-0_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4354-0_13
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