This work aims to make apparent the importance of family, throughout the life trajectories of a group of young people whose very juridical designation-unaccompanied foreign minors-seems to preclude the possibility of recognising and appreciating such importance. Here, we present the results of an ethnographic and participatory research with 'unaccompanied' foreign minors in Bizkaia (Spain). By using our chosen methodology, we were able to understand how, with their currently transitory lifestyles as children in care, they fulfil their own social, emotional and identity needs, needs that the Social Care System alone is unable to meet. This study also shows how digital media cross all the social relations of these children. Digital media become an essential methodological tool for studying the daily life of young migrants.
The aim of this article is to engage with unaccompanied migrant Maghrebi boys' styles of physical self-presentation, "looks," and hairstyles as a source of knowledge on the construction of masculinities. In order to observe such bodily expressive practices, we used general ethnographic methodology and, in particular, a workshop built around different artistic techniques. Since masculinity is inextricably defined in relation to specific agents and contexts, insights into unaccompanied migrant teenagers' enactments of masculinity are dependent on (1) the collective imagination lying behind such "looks" and bodily images, (2) the discomfort and tensions created in the institutional communities in which these minors live-especially among social workers, and (3) the dialogue and relationships that emerge between the aesthetic and bodily expressions of these young migrants' own culture and those of the other cultural groups that coexist, in our case, in a European city.
In this article, we explore the day-to-day importance of digital media, specifically the use of mobile phones in the lives of migrant minors—also known as unaccompanied foreign minors—in juvenile residential centres. For this study, we employed a general ethnographic methodology and, in particular, a workshop based on different artistic techniques that encouraged the young people involved to become active participants, committed from the start in the generation of the material to be used for the analysis of their daily practices. This approach emerged from the recognition of the importance for these young people to feel included and connected. Migrant adolescents take refuge in their mobile devices to participate in the youth microculture, both locally and globally. In addition, they are able to access different social networks that allow them to play out the personas they wish to adopt. Finally, we recognise the importance of digital media in allowing them to maintain close and affective relationships with their relatives, fellow citizens, and communities in their country of origin.
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