Circulation of care among unaccompanied migrant youth from Guatemala

Abstract

From ethnographic research with unaccompanied children in the United States and Guatemala, this paper explores emergent and, at times, conflicting narratives of care that young migrants encounter while in U.S. federal custody. They are depicted as ‘ideal’ victims deserving of care and simultaneously as unauthorized outlaws subject to state discipline via detention and deportation. In contrast, Guatemalan youth and their families speak of migration as a cultural elaboration of care in which they are agents of caregiving, employing transnational migration as a collective and historically-rooted survival strategy. By examining the multiple conceptualizations of care that young people encounter and embody, this paper problematizes theorizations of ‘care’ by tracing the conflicting meanings assigned to it. Informed by the perspectives of young migrants and their families, the paper suggests ways that service providers might better serve them.