RGS-IBG Conference 27th-29th Aug 2008
** 2nd CFP: TOO MUCH, TOO YOUNG? THE EXPERIENCES OF ASYLUM SEEKING AND
REFUGEE CHILDREN **
Session sponsor: Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Group
Session organiser: Dr Heaven Crawley, Director, Centre for Migration
Policy Research, Swansea University www.swansea.ac.uk/cmpr
Session abstract:
The experiences of children and young people who claim asylum in the UK
and other European countries have, over the past decade, raised particular
issues for academics, policy makers and practitioners. Once protected from
the worst aspects of asylum policy by virtue of their status as children,
there is growing evidence that in the rush to prevent actual and perceived
abuses of the asylum system, children and young people are routinely
detained, refused access to the protection and services to which they are
entitled under international and domestic legislation and liable to be
removed to countries ordinarily considered ‘unsafe’. There is also
evidence that the way in which the asylum process deals with children’s
experiences of conflict reflects a particular conceptualization
of ‘childhood’ and a series of assumptions about what it means to be a
child in different geographical spaces.
This session will focus on children’s experiences of the asylum system
(and its associated structures and agencies) and on the processes by which
children rebuild and reconstitute reconstituting their identities in the
UK. This could include children’s’ experiences of school (and other
statutory) services, children’s perceptions, understandings and memories
of their home countries, children’s’ relationships with other children and
with the wider ‘community’, and the ways in which asylum seeking and
refugee children are represented in political discourse and the media.
Call for papers:
Contributors to this session are invited to submit abstracts for papers
which explore the experiences of asylum seeking children from a range of
theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives. Contributors are
particularly encouraged to consider the ways in which the experiences of
this particular group of children and young people can be heard and made
to matter in the current political and policy context.
Abstracts (max. 200 words) should be sent to [log in to unmask] by
31st January 2008. All those submitting abstracts will be informed of the
outcome of the process by 14th February.
If you would like to discuss the aims, objectives and format of the
session before submitting your abstract please contact Heaven Crawley on
01792 602409 or email [log in to unmask]
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