Identity construction of refugee children : An ethnographic study from an intersectional perspective

Sammanfattning: Around the world many people are affected by war, persecution, rebellion, famine, etc. and are therefore forced to move and start a new life elsewhere under new conditions. The struggle for survival is one of the factors that force children to escape. Being forced into emigration and immigration is evident in people's lives and affect how their identities are constructed. My study is focused on how refugee young people are constructing their identities in the complex context in which they live. The intersectional perspective – maintaining that power relations are created and recreated in interaction with factors such as gender, age, ethnicity and location – is the basis for my study. I have tried to understand how these factors affect refugee youth identity construction. In order to answer my questions and get an idea of whether the refugee youth identity constructions constitute a transition to better opportunities or creating identification problems, I have conducted an ethnographic study in a multicultural school in a suburb in Stockholm. The selected group of study consisted of six refugee young people between 14 and 19 years of age who attend a so-called preparatory class. All of them live with their families and they all have been living in Sweden for less than one year. I have focused on six thematic categories: background, gender, and ethnicity, social network, future and positioning. My choice of perspective on identity constructions is based on the premise that people are constantly looking for social recognition. When meeting other persons they are positioning themselves in different ways, by testing limits and facing the consequences, thereby constructing their identities. Exercise of power and powerlessness are expressed in different ways in their daily lives in which they are seeking their positions in a restricted social network. The result of my study shows that the informants are located in a field of tension between the quest for liberation and identification problems in the paradoxical context that they are in. The dilemma, on the one hand their wish to maintain their ethnic identity and on the other hand to question it, is expressed in their relation to “Swedishness” and the Swedish language. The informants are also using different strategies when they try to construct and maintain their gender identities. Their life chances vary depending on the options available. My informants did actually create an immigrant identity that stands as an antithesis of being Swedish. They all agree that they are striving for self-realization and a brighter future, a future that not least could render them some symbolic capital. But the path towards such goals does not seem to be an easy task.