The Management of Time and Waiting by Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Girls in Finland

Abstract

This paper considers how asylum seeking girls in residential care in Finland construct their everyday lives while waiting for asylum outcomes. These girls, from various African countries, are shown to experience waiting as both debilitating and productive. First, our findings confirm the established picture of asylum seeking young people being in limbo, unable to influence the resolution of their claims. Second, we explore more hopeful ways in which they wait. We emphasise the complex responses and relationships they build in waiting times with each other and their carers. We suggest that waiting is not just 'dead' time, but is also lively in periods of uncertainty.

Everyday negotiations of belonging - making Mexican masks together with unaccompanied minors in Finland

“…Refugee minors are also often perceived as victims of their own past, which continues to define their care needs in many institutional settings. Unaccompanied minors end up living in a 'limbo of waiting' for several years, and this open-ended waiting may have long-standing effects on their later lives (Kohli and Kaukko 2017). Many of them experience loneliness and some suffer from post-traumatic stress or other psychological conditions.…”

Towards recognising practitioners working in out-of-home care as experts in everyday life: A conceptual critique

“…Children's influence on family life is regarded as an important part of Danish culture and as such is part of everyday life (Ringsmose and Kragh-Muller, 2017). The concept of 'everyday life' has been applied, for example, to studies of Mexican institutional care for children (Khoo, Espinoza and Skoog, 2015); to moral discourses among Finnish and Swedish mothers (Karlsson, Perala-Littunen, Book and Hultman, 2016); to Swedish and Polish fathers' practices (Suwada and Plantin, 2014); to refugee lives in Finland (Kohli and Kaukko, 2018) and Sweden (Bergnehr, 2017); and to clothing practices in Finnish day care (Paju, 2018).…”

Osallisuus turvaa hakevan reunaehdoissa

“…Hän kertoi, että kukaan ei enää pakottanut häntä mihinkään kuten menneisyydessä oli pakottanut. Lainaukset vahvistavat esimerkiksi yksintulleiden turvapaikanhakijalasten elämää tutkineen Ravi Kohlin (2011) havaintoa siitä, että turva-paikanhakijoiden turvallisuus voi syntyä tavallisesta elämästä -riittävistä puitteista ja arjen rytmistä -ja että se on edellytys etenkin nuorten turvapaikanhakijoiden sopeutumisen ensiaskeliin (Kohli & Kaukko 2018).…”