Everyday geographies of belonging : young refugees and 'home-making' in Glasgow

Abstract

vThis thesis explores everyday geographies of belonging of young refugees living in Glasgow, Scotland. The young participants are aged between 15-25 years and have arrived in the city within the last three years. A multi-layered understanding of young refugees’ sense of belonging and ‘home-making’ in Glasgow is enabled through 18 months of fieldwork based on participant observation with two refugee organisations in Glasgow; thirty individual interviews and five group discussions with young refugees; and three participatory projects. In this thesis, I suggest that by exploring belonging through the lens of the everyday it is possible to account for young refugees’ experiences at the intersection of national politics of belonging and an emotional and embodied sense of being ‘at home’. I can thus demonstrate the ambivalent nature of belonging experienced by young refugees living in Glasgow, and render visible the constant tension between exclusionary politics of belonging shaping young people’s everyday spaces and lives, and daily practices of home making and community building. In accounting for young people’s lived realities, this thesis makes an important contribution to current scholarship, which has tended to be policy-focused, seldom providing in-depth insights into young refugees’ everyday experiences of belonging and home. This thesis follows young people’s narratives in three separate empirical chapters, which together account for the complex interplay of different dimensions and scales of belonging in young people’s lives. I begin by discussing limitations and barriers posed by national politics of belonging for young people’s ability to develop a sense of being ‘at home’ in their new environment. Having thus set the context, the remaining two chapters explore a range of different everyday practices through which young people carve out spaces and ‘communities’ of belonging in tension with these limiting circumstances. Whilst overall focusing on everyday experiences of belonging, I conclude by drawing attention to the potential of the everyday to provide a basis for - albeit almost inaudible - claims to belonging