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Repositioning of ‘self’: Social recognition as a path to resilience for destitute asylum seekers in the United Kingdom

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Abstract

Resilience is increasingly seen as an asset for health, especially so for people living in marginalised spaces, where ill health is often associated with a lack of agency and a passive approach to tackling life’s adversities. People who find themselves destitute following the asylum process are a group who occupy a vulnerable position and the purpose of this study was to interrogate the ways in which resilience is revealed within this context. In this paper, the dominant casting of asylum seekers as ‘vulnerable’ is challenged in order to explore new contours of resilience. This ethnographic study explored the lived experience of destitution and the findings demonstrate that contrary to the nascent literature that foregrounds vulnerability in destitution, resilience can be found within these narratives of struggle. Importantly, agency is demonstrated in the multiple ways that the participants actively sought to reject the label of ‘asylum seeker’ and were able to use identity work to achieve internal and social recognition. This ‘struggle for recognition’ developed resilient outcomes in the harshest of conditions.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to especially thank Mr Omer Siddiq Abdalla, Mr Khalid Bashir and the 24 men and women who volunteered to take part in this research project. Without their honesty and strength this research project would have not been possible. My sincere thanks also to Professor Ann Crosland for her support and encouragement, and finally my thanks to the University of Sunderland Health and Wellbeing Research Beacon who funded this research.

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  1. University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK

    Fiona Cuthill

  2. University of Edinburgh, Doorway 6, Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG, UK

    Fiona Cuthill

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Correspondence to Fiona Cuthill.

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Cuthill, F. Repositioning of ‘self’: Social recognition as a path to resilience for destitute asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. Soc Theory Health 15, 117–137 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-016-0025-y

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