Keywords

Introduction

Navigation, recalling its Latin root navigare–‘to sail, sail over and go by sea’, denotes the practice of locating one’s position in, and following a planned route through, a fluid medium. Beyond its maritime context, the concept has been used in the social sciences as a metaphor to describe the gaining of one’s bearings in a shifting, unstable environment and finding one’s way to a chosen destination by understanding, predicting, and responding to uncertain and changeable conditions. Often the term’s maritime connotations are emphasised to highlight the turbulence, opaqueness, and unpredictability of the conditions to be navigated, such that one navigates “the murky waters of ethical decision-making” (Mower et al., 2015, p. 131), “the muddy waters of harmony-promoting censorship” (Skoda, 2013, p. 7), and “uncharted waters…” (Ellis et al., 2015).

The metaphor of navigation has been used to investigate the social (Vigh, 2009) and moral (White & Jha, 2021) movements people make in changeable or fluctuating circumstances, as well as to shed light on the intersection of people, practices and the changing contexts and social forces around them. In this chapter, we use the metaphor of navigation (Vigh, 2009; White & Jha, 2021) to discuss how former unaccompanied minors, now young, settled adult refugees,Footnote 1 move towards living well with others and establishing a good life in their host countries. We draw on data gathered in Finland, Norway, and Scotland, as part of introductory welcome events of an international research project, Drawing Together.Footnote 2 The aim of this project is to understand how former unaccompanied minors draw and describe their networks and relationships: how their social networks flow and evolve over time, and how they start building good lives in their new home countries. In our welcome events, the participants met online or face to face to discuss the importance of social networks and relational well-being in their lives. Their responses, taken as a whole, provide insights into their thoughts and experiences of navigating complex ‘seas’ of post-displacement circumstances.

In this chapter, we first provide a short overview of how navigation has been used as a metaphor to highlight different dimensions of people’s movement, and how the situations of young refugees might add to the multiple meanings of navigation. Then, turning to our findings, we discuss how living well involves not only movement towards individual goals, but also movement with, for the sake of, and in relation to important people locally and transnationally. We conclude the chapter by envisioning the destination hinted at in the participants’ discussions: a world worth living in for all.

Navigation

Navigation has been used as a metaphor or an analytic tool in different social sciences, including anthropology (Vigh, 2009), sociology (e.g., Crosnoe, 2011; Ng & Zhang, 2021; Olsson et al., 2006; Reyers et al., 2018), human geography (e.g., McQuaid et al., 2021) and migration studies (e.g., Kuschminder, 2021; Nunn et al., 2017). While some texts discuss navigation in a general sense, others home in on particular dimensions of people’s environment (e.g., social, cultural, educational, environmental, political, bureaucratic) to understand how those dimensions influence their navigation, or alternatively, look at people’s movement as social or moral practices. Our interest is mostly in what has been written about social and moral navigation, to understand how individuals in unstable circumstances navigate in relation to their social networks.

Social Navigation

Social navigation is conceptualised by Vigh (2009) as the movement through which “we organise ourselves and act in relation to the interplay of the social forces and pressures that surround us” (p. 425). Highlighting the mutable and constantly changing nature of the conditions enabling or constraining people’s practices, Vigh (2009) draws a distinction between social navigation and other metaphors describing more rigid spatial or environmental conditions, such as ‘field’ or ‘landscape’ (2009, pp. 426–427). This perspective of navigation as a movement within movement, Vigh (2009) argues, shifts one’s “analytical gaze… toward the way people not just act in but interact with their social environment and adjust their lives to the constant influence (in potential and presential) of social forces and change” (p. 433). This dialogical relationship of individual practices and the conditions which enable or constrain them is in line with most practice research (see, for example, Kemmis et al., 2014). There are parallels also between Vigh’s (2009) thoughts and what Kemmis and colleagues (for example, 2017, p. 53) refer to as the three-dimensional intersubjective spaces in which practices happen, that is, in semantic space, physical space–time, and social space, all constantly changing, and all mutually shaping one another. Likewise, Vigh (2009) pictures social environments shaping people’s actions and interactions, and these environments being as fluid as a shifting seascape; a confluence of predictable tides and reefs, and unpredictable waves, winds, and storms. Navigating these social seas, like navigating physical seas, can be a complicated task, dependent on one’s knowledge of its tides and on the strength of one’s ship.

Social navigation, according to Vigh (2009), relates to one’s movement through immediate circumstances, reacting and responding to them as they unfold in the present. Yet, key to one’s present movement is the direction from which one has moved, as past events and experiences impact on one’s present circumstances. As Vigh (2009) points out, it also refers to the direction towards which one is moving, as one navigates through the “socially imagined” (p. 425), be they potential future circumstances or desired social goals. For recently arrived refugees, like the participants in our study, navigation “through the socially imagined” can be seen as the way in which, while finding their way through unfamiliar circumstances, they also strive to shape the world as they imagine it being desirable.

The concept of social navigation directs our attention to how people read, interpret, and predict fluctuating social conditions and the actions and intentions of others, as well as how they map these circumstances in such a way as to be able to steer a promising course within and through it. Through social navigation, we gain a sense of the intentionality and directedness of people’s movement, as well as the responsibility of those navigating. In some important respects, however, social navigation falls short of providing a full picture of young refugees’ navigation within social networks. Firstly, it seems to assume that one’s navigation is always driven by a striving to improve one’s circumstances or maximise one’s gains. In this view, one is never passively floating in a sea, carried along by the currents of circumstance; one is at the helm of one’s ship, steering it. In reality, though, people sometimes steer, sometimes do nothing, and sometimes stop altogether. Sometimes people find relief in not being in charge of their lives and need to drift a little to feel well. Secondly, as we discuss below, social navigation does not account for the moral and ethical ties that exist between people, enabling and constraining their navigation. In other words, navigation with others cannot be merely social; it is always also moral and ethical.

Moral Navigation

The ethical and moral ties that exist between people mean that they never truly move within social environments independently of others, but are constantly connected to others, locally and transnationally. As the anthropologist Lambek (2010) describes, we, as inherently ethical beings, “cannot avoid being subject to ethics, speaking and acting with ethical consequences, evaluating our actions and those of others, acknowledging and refusing acknowledgment, caring and taking care, but also being aware of our failure to do so consistently” (p. 1). This means that our practices cannot avoid having moral, social and political consequences for people around us. Ordinary ethics manifest within the everyday flow of people’s lives, “grounded in agreement rather than rule, in practice rather than knowledge or belief, and happening without calling undue attention to itself” (Lambek, 2010, p. 2). It is also bound to people’s hope, in their “attempts in everyday practice and thought to inhabit and persevere in light of uncertainty, suffering, injustice, incompleteness, inconsistency, the unsayable, the unforgivable, the irresolvable, and the limits of voice and reason” (Lambek, 2010, p. 4).

White and Jha (2021) use the metaphor of moral navigation to investigate the way in which people navigate as ethical beings through social environments involving relationships with others. Maintaining the social navigational notion of moving within a moving environment, this perspective draws attention to the interdependence that characterises people’s lives, and the processes by which people maintain, or attempt to maintain, responsibility for each other’s health, happiness, and prosperity through acts of caring and sharing (see also Gergen, 2009; White, 2017). Focusing on the relationality of social ties, moral navigation describes more than the movement towards individual goals through everyday social interactions; it also describes a movement with others towards a communal vision informed by moral perspectives that arise out of the ordinary experiences of people navigating their social circumstances. White and Jha (2021) characterise this kind of navigation as a morally committed “pursuit of what ought to be, demonstrating one’s belonging and status within a moral community by fulfilling one’s responsibilities, seeking to ensure that others also do what is right” (p. 251). Through this characterisation, they point to both a philosophical dimension of moral navigation, in the thinking about “what ought to be”, as well as a practical dimension, in the fulfilment of one’s responsibilities. The distinctions between ethics and morality vary, but we here follow White and Jha’s (2021; see also Mattingly, 2014) approach of using them interchangeably, recognising that both internal and external values, standards and rationalities are drawn on in the formation and maintenance of social ties.

In highlighting the unavoidable moral entwinement of people’s movement, White and Jha’s (2021) definition of moral navigation includes a dimension of relationality that is not addressed by social navigation. They see the self as “essentially forged in and through relationships” (White & Jha, 2021, p. 251), evoking an image, not of individual ships following personal courses amidst others, finding their way to personal harbours, but of ships travelling together in groups bound by ethical and moral ties. Complicating this image, however, is White and Jha’s (2021) reminder that these ties are not always clear, benign, or compassionate. Within wider communities, as well as among more immediate social networks, there can be competing goals or moral perspectives, and tensions can exist between individual and collective interests.

In considering how young refugees move towards living well with others and establishing a good life in their host countries, moral navigation can shed light on the connections between well-being, care, and social circumstances. Without oversimplifying the conditions that impact this movement, we can employ the metaphor to explore how our participants think about their social networks and ties between them. Employing this metaphor, however, raises an interesting question: if the destination of moral navigation is to become established within a group, what can we imagine the destination of the group itself to be? Here we may combine the ideas of social and moral navigation to envision a shared movement towards an imagined or desired future shaped by the communities’ notions of what ought to be and what is right. In short, we could imagine the destination to be both a state and process of living well together in a world worth living in. In this way, we are interested not only in social or moral navigation, but in relational navigation for living well with others.

Young Refugees in Finland, Norway, and Scotland

Our focus is on the social and moral navigation of young refugees in Finland, Norway, and Scotland. During the so-called refugee crisisFootnote 3 which peaked in 2015 yet continues today, the number of asylum seekers increased rapidly in Europe, with many making their way to Finland, Norway, and Scotland to find refuge. According to the UN Refugee Agency, most of these people were fleeing war, conflict, or persecution in their home countries, most commonly leaving Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea, and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa (UNHCR, 2015). Up to 10% of these arrivals were unaccompanied minors; that is, children or youths travelling without their parents or other customary care givers (UNHCR, 2021).

These unaccompanied minors moved through often lengthy asylum processes in their new host countries. At the same time, they were growing into adulthood with increasing independence. Those granted permission to stay, like our participants, started building new lives in their host country and within new communities. This process was impacted by multiple, intersecting social, economic, and cultural factors (Allsop & Chase, 2019) that differ across the three countries in our study. Compared to Scotland, the populations of Finland and Norway are more homogenous in terms of ethnicity and religion. Policy discourses concerning cultural diversity in Scotland are influenced in part by the UK’s colonial past which differs from the Norwegian and Finnish contexts. These historical differences have impacted the way policies have evolved within the three country-specific welfare systems. With Nordic welfare models, Norway and Finland provide more universal services to its residents than Scotland, whose model approximates the liberal welfare regime. The biggest differences in the Nordic and liberal welfare models relate to available social welfare benefits and therefore to individuals’ dependence on kinship and social networks. These differences are part of the social-political as well as material-economic arrangements within which the young refugees start building their new lives.

In the broader Drawing Together research project, we wanted to gain insights into how these young refugees form and maintain social networks in their post-displacement lives, and how their networks generate relational well-being. Throughout the autumn of 2020 we organised a series of events in Finland, Norway, and Scotland in which participants living in those countries met to be welcomed into our project.Footnote 4 These welcome events—held in person or online according to local COVID-19 regulations—were opportunities to start a discussion on the project’s focus. The participants were asked to write down their initial thoughts about what it means to live well with others, and to care for, and be cared for by others. This activity was dialogical and loosely structured, initiated by pre-designed prompts. The prompts differed slightly between countries in language and wording and included, for example: What does it mean to live well or to live a good life with others? What do other people mean to you, what do you mean to others? How do you look after each other? What does it mean to care for others? How do you show it [care], and how do others show it to you? Depending on the format of the meeting, the responses were collected on either post-it notes or via the Zoom Whiteboard application (Fig. 10.1).

Fig. 10.1
A text document presents a welcome event application with some text includes, what does it mean to look after each other's health, wealth, and happiness question mark, how do you show this to others question mark, and how do others show this to you question mark.

Example from the Scottish welcome event exercise

Full size image

The welcome events were conducted during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The safety measures related to physical contact and movement differed in our contexts, which influenced how we could collect data. The situation could also influence how the young people saw their social network, and the ways of keeping in touch. The discussions were mostly in the host country languages English, Norwegian or Finnish, although some participants wrote their responses in other languages. All responses were translated into English for data analysis. The responses were analysed thematically, guided by the social navigational notion of moving within moving environments and the moral navigational emphasis on moral and ethical movement with others. In particular, we looked at what the data revealed about the types of social and moral movements participants make in the formation and maintenance of their social networks. Finally, we took some liberties to imagine what the destination—a state of living well together in a world worth living in—could look like based on these short responses. The findings are structured around these themes.

We acknowledge that the data at hand consists of short, written notes, so we cannot make far-reaching interpretations of what individual participants meant to communicate through them. Furthermore, the data is purposefully selected to illustrate the metaphor of navigation. It is not based on a systematic analysis of the views of the participants as a whole, as our welcome event data does not allow us to do this. However, these short notes work as illustrative examples of how young refugees’ responses point towards “what ought to be” (White & Jha, 2021, p. 251) as they describe their lives in new communities.

Findings

Our interpretation of the data identifies three types of movement that participants make in forming and maintaining their social networks, each of them comprising social and moral elements:

  1. 1.

    the participants’ movement with others,

  2. 2.

    the participants’ movement for others,

  3. 3.

    and the participants' movement in relation to others, specifically people important to them locally and transnationally.

The participants’ movement with, for the sake of, or in relation to others does not happen in isolation from their context: both the current circumstances of their host country, as described above, as well as their past experiences with forced migration, have impacted their movement. Yet overall, it seems that navigating together with those important to them has helped the participants manage in the moving sea of their host country's social environment. It also seems that while the types of movement, whether it was moving with, for the sake of, or in relation to others, were intertwined and overlapping, each had some particular features.

Moving with Others

In navigating with others through their post-displacement circumstances, our participants intentionally and purposefully formed ties to, and maintained ties within, social networks. This is what we mean by moving with others. The groups consisted of family, some of whom were in the same country as our participants while others were far away. It also consisted of new and old friends as well as other acquaintances made through sports, hobbies, volunteering, work-related activities or from organisations related to participants’ asylum process.

As suggested by the responses,Footnote 5 moving with others could take the form of everyday companionship, in which reciprocal caring and sharing takes place. Much of this movement involves shared activities. It could be socialising in general, such as “hanging out together” [S] or “do[ing] things together” [S] as some responses describe, or more specific activities such as exercising, learning a language or cooking together. Part of this spending time together, as alluded to in one response, is “paying attention to what makes others feel good” [S]. It is also about paying attention to what others, and the participants themselves, need:

Practicing English together – because I need to speak to make friends and to feel safe. [S]

I cannot be silent – I want to speak so I have to learn English. [S]

The shared experience of learning a language can be seen as moving with others to navigate the challenges of integrating into new cultural and social environments.

The benefits of moving with others can be gleaned from participants’ descriptions of what it means to care for, and be cared for, by others. In these responses, being cared for was closely connected with being safe. Participants described the sense of safety not only as something that comes through learning the language or learning to cope in society, but also as having emotional safety. “Giv[ing] one another safe space” [F] and not leaving people “alone” [F, S] were cited as elements of living well. These relationships, as other responses confirmed, provide support by preventing participants “feeling isolated in daily life” [S], offering them “reliable companionship” [S], and feelings of being “valued” [S] and needed by others. Overall, they show that “you have somebody who cares for you” [F].

It is impossible to say how much these responses differ from what another group of young adults without refugee backgrounds would have given, but it is noteworthy that, in pointing to the importance of safety and the care and closeness of trusted companionships in their lives, many of these young refugees have experienced a distinct lack of these experiences as they fled their countries unaccompanied, to arrive in countries where some of them had no acquaintances and where none of them spoke the dominant language. Regardless of the motivations to give these responses, the feeling of safety and trust in one’s social network was emphasised.

Many responses pointed to the help one receives from others, but some also described how one helps others. Thus, they suggested that well-being was considered by participants as reciprocal rather than something that others around them donate to the young refugees. Through their social ties, they saw themselves as being able to positively influence other people, “contribut[e] to make someone’s life better” [S], and “keep … each other safe” [S]. So, what they appreciated receiving from others seemed to be just as important as giving back. That these acts of caring were described as opportunities rather than responsibilities hints at the reciprocal nature of ethical ties. As one participant wrote, “when you share you feel good” [S].

The responses also highlight the interdependence of social ties; that looking after another requires looking after oneself. “First of all we must be safe and able to manage yourself, then you are able to help others” [S], one participant wrote, while another described caring for each other in terms of being “a fundament to both yourself and others” [N]. This is in line with what White and Jha (2021) observe about the maintenance of social relations as part of moral navigation. Its relationality is clear as it benefits the receiver as well as the giver, as can be seen in the responses below:

[Through language learning] you can keep yourself well and then others [S]

Managing relationships is about how to live healthily – exercise, activity, motivation [S]

Important to do exercise together – to chat together [S]

Several participants mentioned the hospitable act of inviting people to share food and drink.

Food/ Inviting someone round for dinner [S]

Treat (in the sense: treat others a cup of coffee, etc.) [N]

Food and cooking for people is a way of showing care [S]

These statements become more significant when considering the socio-economic context of the participants, most of whom are students or working in low-paid jobs. Hospitality, as some other responses suggest, plays a deeper role in navigation than simply spending time together. Guests, one participant wrote, “are not coming for the food only, but for a chat and to help you work through ideas about the future and about concerns” [S]. Another response, written in Persian, described guests as “the light in one’s eyes (original: )” [F]. So, while this participant is hosting for the sake of the guests, the participant also benefits from it.

Moving for Others

In addition to instances of everyday companionship and mutual support described above as moving with people, some responses inferred compassionate actions and intentions that, while perhaps undertaken as part of movement with others, may be more fittingly described as moving for others. Some responses described compassionate actions in general terms, such as “helping the people who are in need” [F], or “I give to people close to me: Love, Information where it is found, Strength!” [F], while others suggested that caring for others made one’s own journey better, while others implied that it was a moral responsibility:

As a human being you want to see people happier and healthier [S]

As a human being we owe to each other to be nice... because we share the same Earth & space [N]

In many responses, moving for others, in the form of being, is hinted at in the way participants described how they communicate care through body language or mere silence.

Showing support through smiling/body language [N]

Show love [N]

Show understanding [N]

Support others as well as I can – both physically and psychologically [N]

Make you smile [N]

Bring joy together with others [F]

Being nice to each other [S]

Help and look after each other’s mental health [S]

For the participants in our study, being in contact meant that they were present for others. Presence for others was particularly associated with listening to, or witnessing, the other:

Just being present, in silence and in voice [S]

To listen and just be present [N]

Just listening – so being silent when people want to speak [S]

Someone being there, being a witness [S]

The notion of being there for others was also alluded to in terms of showing others that one is available to provide comfort and care, as well as to give them a shelter, which might be a physical or an emotional shelter. Others described the intangible benefits of these exchanges:

If a person needs you, you show them that you are there [S]

Offering help to those in need [S]

Being a shelter for someone who does not have a shelter [S]

Being reliable in someone’s life [S]

As exemplified by the response, “Being present—even if you can help or not—… is more important than solving their problem” [S], participants seemed to see presence as an important aspect of caring for the emotional and psychological welfare of others.

Moving in Relation to Others

Movement with others and for others can both be seen as relational in nature. When we move with those around us, we move in, and negotiate with others, a common direction. When we move for others, we gain a sense of the direction in which the other wishes or needs to proceed and help them move along in that direction. This highlights the moral dimension of such navigation. All our actions change something in the lives of individuals and societies around us with a range of consequences both positive and negative. In this perspective, we can think of morally committed actions as those that aim to consider the direction of the movement as carefully as possible, aiming towards the best possible outcome not only for the actor themselves but also for their social network and the wider world.

Some responses, however, alluded to a type of movement that stems from a different form of relationality than those mentioned above. We refer to these as a movement in relation to others. These movements are not necessarily interactions with any particular people but instead movement in the way participants try to find their own position in relation to others. For example, many participants referred to their roles and responsibilities, as members of families or communities, as informing their movement through various social and moral environments. In a response to the question “What does it mean to look after each other's health, wealth and happiness?”, one participant wrote: “Being a good citizen—not breaking the law” [S]. In another response, a participant associated being “a big brother” with “know[ing] I matter” and being “a reason to be happy” [F]. Finally, a third participant summarises a similar thought by writing:

Me --> a hero for my family!

Family --> Sun for me [F]

Being a good citizen, friend, or a brother seems to define many of these participants’ understanding of what they need to do, in relation to others, to live well. Many refugees and migrants support family members living in precarity. For these people, family is an important consideration when everyday life choices are made, for example, in relation to education or work. One’s position in their own social environment directs their movement within broader society and makes living up to the expectations of their families or communities an important value. Yet the sense of responsibility can also reach beyond one’s immediate networks, as this response points out:

We need to think about ourselves individually—or our close families—but we also need to think beyond our own circles [S]

These participants have come to Finland, Scotland, and Norway as unaccompanied minors without their families. Some have been welcomed by people who see beyond their ‘own circles’ in contexts that may be hostile towards newcomers; new friends or neighbours or professionals have become important for participants. It is impossible to say from these short notes whether this extended hospitality is something these young refugees wish to pay forward by offering hospitality to someone else who needs it. Finding this out is one objective of the larger research project to which this study connects.

A World Worth Living in for All

What we have described above are movements with others, for others, and in relation to others. They all hint at a form of social and moral navigation in which young people ponder how they should live well with others. Their responses go beyond talking about what is—about the world they live in now. Moving “through both the socially immediate and the socially imagined” (Vigh, 2009, p. 425), the participants also talk about “what ought to be” (White & Jha, 2021, p. 251), describing what they imagine to be a world worth living in for all.

In a world worth living in for all, we can imagine seeing the types of practices described above: people moving with, for, and in relation to others. A list of qualities that the imagined world requires can be gleaned from participants’ responses:

Love for all, hatred for none [F]

Having patience [F] / patience- accept most things [N]

Truthfulness [F]

Trustworthy [F]

Honesty [F]

Kindness [F]

Help each other [N] / Helping the people who are in need [F]

Respect [N] / Respect other peoples’ lives [S] / Mutual respect [F]

Compassion [N]

Empathy [N]

It is hard to disagree with these general, unanimously positive qualities. Who would not want to live in a world of love, kindness, compassion and empathy? They could be anybody’s description of a utopia: a desired, alternative social reality where present injustices can be overcome and life is fair (see also Kiilakoski & Piispa, in this book). Some of the responses allude to a very broad understanding of this imagined utopia. For example, many participants seem to extend their concern beyond humans:

Looking after each other is not just about humans – we also can look after animals [S]

We need to think about ourselves individually – or our close families – but we also need to think beyond our own circles [S]

Mother earth – this year has taught us that the earth provides us life – climate crisis is something real – we need to hold that with us [S]

We share the same Earth & space [N]

These responses can be read as acknowledging that social and moral navigation are not solitary acts, and they do not happen independently of the broader sea of life. We can imagine participants’ ships bearing not only ethical ties to a group of other ships, but also ethical ties extending to animals and to the physical world itself. The ethical ties of care and responsibility that participants hold to the “Mother Earth” and the “Earth & Space” impact on how they navigate in the world. By caring for animals, for example, one is moving for them. Recognising the reality of climate change, as one of the responses did above, one is moving in relation to a physical world under threat. Yet, more than this, what these responses speak of is a kind of relationship with the non-human world that participants see as fitting for a world worth living in for all; a relationship based on, as the responses above describe, “thinking beyond our own circles” and “sharing the same Earth & space”.

Discussion

Without attempting any deeper or more specific interpretations of short responses that are read without a full understanding of their context, what we have inferred from the data is that the young refugee participants hold thoughtful and considered perspectives on what it means to live well with others as they build new lives in their host countries. In our analysis, we discerned three types of movement which together constituted the participants’ shared navigation towards living well. There was moving with others, referring to the reciprocal and hospitable sharing and caring of everyday companionship, giving mutual benefits of support, encouragement, motivation, and mutual respect. There was also moving for others, referring to the compassionate actions and intentions of participants towards helping and caring for others through being present, showing care, and being in contact. Finally, there was moving in relation to others, referring to the performing, or living up to the roles participants play as members of a family and community. Viewing participants’ networks of relationships as their moral communities, these movements can be read as “demonstrating one’s belonging and status within a moral community by fulfilling one’s responsibilities”; an integral part of moral navigation according to White and Jha (2021, p. 251).

Unlike many other young people in Finland, Norway, and Scotland beginning their voyages into independent adulthood, our participants have set forth on their voyages in foreign countries far away from their familial networks. As former unaccompanied minors, they already navigated through the turbulence of displacement and asylum. In their current situations, they are faced with yet another, unforeseen kind of turbulence in the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 may have shaped their responses about how they miss contact with others, and how they think about the role of important people in their lives. It is impossible to conclude this from the data, but we can see that the young people’s responses about the importance of connections are thoughtful.

While the COVID-19 pandemic presents a new situation for all, other parts of the social sea may be more familiar to young people without refugee backgrounds, for whom predictable and favourable currents may already be mapped and shared by their families. For the participants in our study, the sea in which they move may at first be murky and uncharted, with unpredictable cultural, political, and bureaucratic cross currents (e.g., Nunn et al., 2017), but the short responses show that many of these young refugees have figured out a way to navigate within it. The participants discussed how they should be, and how they should act, in this navigation to live well with others in their communities. In the process of learning this they have bound their ships through ethical ties to groups of other ships. Some of these ties are old, carried from their country of origin and maintained transnationally. Other ties are new, formed locally in host countries with friends, acquaintances, and support workers. Through the ethical ties of care, compassion and responsibility that bind the ships together, participants may help others and be helped by others.

Considering navigation as a relational practice sheds light on the dynamic nature of living well with others. Movement is always part of the formative years of childhood and youth—young people move away from childhood into adulthood, away from the familial networks toward independence. For the participants of our study, this movement had the added elements of moving across borders, most often doing this without choice, taking all these steps rapidly and at times within the context of violence or social disruption (Kohli, 2014). Their navigation skills had taken them to where they were when we met them, and the responses at hand offer glimpses of how they see this process. The moral perspectives of these young people's navigation suggested that for them, the “pursuit of what ought to be” (White & Jha, 2021, p. 251) includes qualities such as love, kindness, compassion, and empathy, not only for those in one’s own social or familial network but for others, including strangers. They also included care for animals, and a sense of responsibility for the world that we all share. In describing how they, and others, “ought to be” in living well with others, participants were imagining a world worth living in for all.

Most studies exploring former unaccompanied minors’ relationships focus on the early phases of settlement (Kaukko, 2017; Kaukko & Wernesjö, 2017; Kohli, 2011). Our study adds to the current knowledge by exploring the experiences of young people who are settled. Overall, the analysis suggests that young people in Finland, Norway, and Scotland see themselves as active agents in forming reciprocal and supporting networks; they have people in their lives that they can rely on, and that rely on them in return. This is in line with the findings of Eide et al. (2020), who explored how former unaccompanied minor refugees understand their networks over time. They found that young people’s capacity to assess the trustworthiness of others and assert agency in building relationships developed over a period of two years. Our findings add to this by showing the sense of interconnectedness young people may develop, and the intersubjective dimensions that social navigation implies.

Our data does not allow us to do any direct cross-context comparisons or say anything definite of where moral or social navigation starts and where it leads. The different prompts and questions shaped the data, as did the varying group dynamics. To muddy the water further, COVID-19 forced some of these activities to be done online. Complexity and messiness in the data was to be expected, due to the dialogical and changing nature of the data creation. More importantly, the welcome events were aimed at starting a dialogue, not finishing it and capturing its essence in writing. However, taken together, these notes point towards young people’s views of living well with others. Acknowledging the risk of sounding sentimental, we can conclude that this little piece of data paints a picture of a changing world where people are, through relationships based on reciprocity and care, navigating towards harmony in a world worth living for all.