Caring at the margins
Exploring informal care practices for unaccompanied minors in the Dutch asylum system
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13899514 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maha Naami (0000-0001-9492-2505, Maastricht University, corresponding author), Valentina Mazzucato (0000-0002-3008-6541, Maastricht University), Katie Kuschminder (0000-0001-5071-1060, University of Amsterdam) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-12 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Adolescence and Youth (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0267-3843 • E-ISSN: 2164-4527 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02673843.2025.2546923 |
| OpenAlex | W4413179528 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
For unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Europe, the formal care they are offered can be rigid and bureaucratic, lacking the flexibility necessary to adapt the care to their needs. Researchers have documented how some caregivers do 'extra,' self-funded voluntary work, which we call informal care. However, much remains unknown about this informal care happening at the system's margins, what it consists of, and how it is performed. We develop a typology of informal care based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork among 50 caregivers and 22 North African unaccompanied minors in the Netherlands. We describe caring interactions and categorize different caregiving patterns that aim to create trust between caregivers and care receivers (i.e. the minors), helping the youth to regain their dignity. The article demonstrates how informal care fills gaps left by the formal care system and contributes to explaining the diverging outcomes of care for unaccompanied minors
Criminology · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Nursing · Psychology
Providing informal care in a changing society
Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education
Rethinking Care Theory
Cultural Competence of Professionals Working With Unaccompanied Minors
Crossing the border from boyhood to manhood
Caringscapes and belonging
If we want, they help us in any way’
Unaccompanied minors in the Netherlands and the care facility in which they flourish best
The gendered burden of transnational care-receiving
Caring practices
Classed Landscapes of Care and Belonging
Challenges in the Guardianship of Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum
Reflections on being a recipient of care
Legal care work
Alternating temporalities experienced by North African unaccompanied minors in The Netherlands
The Pivotal Role of Women in Informal Care
Necropolitics and the Slow Violence of the Everyday
| Highly cited | No |
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