Sense of Belonging among Youth in Kinship Care within a Transnational Space

When possible, young people who come to Sweden without parents to apply for asylum are placed in kinship care with relatives or other families within their social networks. These young people are often described as extra vulnerable with needs of support outside the foster home. Although there is not much research on this group of youth in Sweden, in particular not from the perspective of the young people. The aim of the project is therefore to study processes of constructing a sense of belonging from the young people’s own perspective, but also what impact NGO social work have on these processes. The project also explores young people’s transnational and local relations, eurocentric views on childhood, family and caregiving, and implications of the categorisation of young people as 'unaccompanied' or 'unaccompanied in kinship care'.

The study is inspired by ethnography and follows a group of young people in kinship care and social workers at a youth organisation over a longer period of time using participant observations and individual interviews with both the young people and the social workers.