Meloni, Francesca and Humphris, Rachel (2021) Citizens of Nowhere? Paradoxes of State Parental Responsibility for Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the United Kingdom. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34 (3). pp. 3245-3263. ISSN 0951-6328
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Abstract
Social workers are confronted with a contradictory task: that of acting as state parents for unaccompanied asylum seeking children, in an era of hostile migration policies and austerity. Mobilizing Young’s (2006) concept of ‘responsibility’ we ask: how is state parental responsibility towards unaccompanied minors given meaning, and with what consequences, for both frontline workers and unaccompanied minors alike? Drawing on interviews with frontline workers and unaccompanied minors in the UK (n = 107), we delineate three modes through which responsibility operates: namely outcomes, capacity and morality. We argue that the underlying logic of responsibility shifts the blame from sociopolitical structures to migrant children themselves, with crucial consequences for questions of social justice.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | Funding information: Field research was supported by the Economic Social Research Council (ESRC), grant number ES/L009226/1. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Unaccompanied minors, children, migration, responsibility, duty of care, policy, social workers |
| Subjects: | L500 Social Work |
| Department: | Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing |
| Depositing User: | Becky Skoyles |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Apr 2019 10:03 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Dec 2021 17:15 |
| URI: | http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/38851 |
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