Being inside out: the slippery slope between inclusion and exclusion in a Swiss educational project for unaccompanied refugee youth

Annika Lems

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2019.1584702

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article discusses how important social markers surrounding the figure of the unaccompanied minor, such as ‘integration’ and ‘deservingness’ are negotiated and made sense of by unaccompanied refugee youth and their teachers in a Swiss integration class. Starting from the premise of the classroom as both, a project of future-making and control, I investigate the ambiguous potential of education in creating and obstructing refugee youth's pathways into the larger society. By zooming in on the interactions between teachers and students in an educational project in Switzerland that was specifically designed to cater for the needs of unaccompanied refugee youth, I show how a project that is celebrated amongst practitioners as a best practice example for integration in fact creates an insurmountable number of new obstacles for the young people. I suggest that the ambiguous treatment of unaccompanied refugee youth as vulnerable victims in need of protection and integration on the one hand and as threats to the economic and cultural integrity of the Swiss ‘national order of things’ (Malkki, Liisa. 1995. “Refugees and Exile: From ‘Refugee Studies’ to the National Order of Things.” Annual Review in Anthropology 24: 494–523) on the other, produces paradoxical dynamics whereby young people find themselves left outside whilst seemingly being ‘in’.

Highlights

This brief conversation snippet has much to say about the multifaceted quandaries unaccompanied refugee youth in Switzerland face
Based on insights from seventeen months of indepth ethnographic fieldwork with refugee youth in and beyond two integration classes in Bern, Switzerland, I will suggest that the ambiguous treatment of unaccompanied minors as vulnerable victims in need of protection and integration on the one hand and as threats to the economic and cultural integrity of the Swiss ‘national order of things’ (Malkki 1995) on the other, produces paradoxical dynamics whereby young people find themselves left outside whilst seemingly being ‘in’
The sense of exclusion inherent in these conversations stood in stark contrast to the celebratory tone teachers and social workers used, who described the model of the integration class as a crucial step towards the young people’s inclusion into Swiss society

Summary

Introduction

This brief conversation snippet has much to say about the multifaceted quandaries unaccompanied refugee youth in Switzerland face. Based on insights from seventeen months of indepth ethnographic fieldwork with refugee youth in and beyond two integration classes in Bern, Switzerland, I will suggest that the ambiguous treatment of unaccompanied minors as vulnerable victims in need of protection and integration on the one hand and as threats to the economic and cultural integrity of the Swiss ‘national order of things’ (Malkki 1995) on the other, produces paradoxical dynamics whereby young people find themselves left outside whilst seemingly being ‘in’.

Results

Conclusion