Transitions to adulthood in a context of migration: From unaccompanied minors in Scandinavia to refuge seeking young adults in France

Discussions about migration, integration and unaccompanied minors figure prominently across Europe in public discourse and at policy level. Thousands of unaccompanied minors arrive in Europe each year.

Many are granted temporary or permanent permission to stay, yet little research has focused on their transitions to adulthood.

ComAge’s scientific significance lies in its aim to contribute to address this gap through investigating unaccompanied minors’ social and legal transitions to adulthood as affected by structural implications, imaginaries, and relational aspects.

This is of relevance to support further research on the topic, and for European policymakers and practitioners to respond to the needs and situations unaccompanied minors experience upon their arrival and stay.

Young Afghans are a timely and relevant case study to investigate transitions to adulthood as they are the largest group of unaccompanied minors claiming asylum in Europe each year since 2008.

To investigate transitions as affected by the ‘return turn’, i.e., increased use of temporary protection and focus on return, participants will be recruited among young Afghans who arrived in Scandinavia as minors and left for France to avoid forced removal as they approach legal adulthood.

ComAge is an ethnographic study drawing on in-depth interviews, participant/observation and creative co-articulations as a bottom-up approach that tunes into different forms, layers and modes of expression.

ComAge builds on the experienced researcher’s previous research on young Afghans’ journeys to Europe and the implications of age and social relations on their trajectories.