IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v119y2020ics0190740920321101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Responding to misrecognition – A study with unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors

Author

Listed:
  • Korkiamäki, Riikka
  • Gilligan, Robbie

Abstract

Theories of recognition have received increasing attention in studies of children, young people and social care. However, the concept of misrecognition, as the opposite of recognition, is less featured. This article studies the experiences of misrecognition using evidence from the lived experience of underaged unaccompanied asylum-seeking boys in Finland. Drawing from conceptualizations of (mis)recognition and qualitative data created with 18 unaccompanied asylum-seeking boys living in residential care, we firstly look at how the boys articulate their experience of being seen as ‘refugees’. Secondly, we study how they respond to the refugee label. The findings show that the refugee stigma is mainly experienced as misrecognition, which influences the ways the young asylum-seekers strive to construct agentic identities. Four ways of responding to this misrecognition are identified: adopting a diminished identity (resigning), standing up against misrecognition (resisting), acting to prove the prejudice they encounter wrong (conforming), and claiming ordinariness (performing). We argue that the misrecognition experiences of unaccompanied asylum seeking minors offer a valuable lens for deepening our understanding of young people’s responses to adverse conditions. Their varying responses to misrecognition provide important insights into how social work and the care system can be more attentive to the experiences of marginalized children and young people.

Suggested Citation

  • Korkiamäki, Riikka & Gilligan, Robbie, 2020. "Responding to misrecognition – A study with unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920321101
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105687
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740920321101
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105687?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sirriyeh, Ala & Ní Raghallaigh, Muireann, 2018. "Foster care, recognition and transitions to adulthood for unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in England and Ireland," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 89-97.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kauhanen, Iida & Kaukko, Mervi & Lanas, Maija, 2022. "Pockets of love. Unaccompanied children in institutional care in Finland," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Riikka Korkiamäki & Catherine Elliott O'Dare, 2021. "Intergenerational Friendship as a Conduit for Social Inclusion? Insights from the “Book‐Ends”," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(4), pages 304-314.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rip, Jet & Zijlstra, Elianne & Post, Wendy & Kalverboer, Margrite & Knorth, Erik J., 2020. "Cultural matching factors, child factors and fostering factors associated with successful foster placement: An explorative study into the perspectives of unaccompanied refugee children, their foster c," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. Nho, Choong Rai & Yoon, Sukyoung & Ko, Juae, 2018. "Voices of refugee children in Korea," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 606-616.
    3. Groarke, Sarah & Arnold, Samantha, 2018. "Approaches to unaccompanied minors following status determination in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS83.
    4. Gilligan, Robbie, 2019. "The family foster care system in Ireland – Advances and challenges," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 221-228.
    5. Gimeno-Monterde, Chabier & Gómez-Quintero, Juan David & C. Aguerri, Jesús, 2021. "Unaccompanied young people and transition to adulthood: Challenges for child care services," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Kauhanen, Iida & Kaukko, Mervi & Lanas, Maija, 2022. "Pockets of love. Unaccompanied children in institutional care in Finland," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0190740920321101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.