Temporalities in asylum childhoods: time politics and children’s rights in Sweden’s asylum reception and resettlement

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study of time and temporality can provide a critical understanding of the migration process and be analysed to understand temporal governance and migrants' lived temporal experiences. This article draws on Cwerner's understanding of time politics and Griffiths' theorisation of temporal tensions to consider how temporal governance and temporal regulations affect children's lived temporalities. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in the tradition of the sociology of childhood to explore children's lived experiences of time and temporalities in the Swedish asylum reception system and the resettlement process. The article shows how the children's lived experiences entailed different dimensions of time and temporalities and considers how time politics and temporal tensions affect childhood conditions. The article particularly explores children's lived experiences of the temporalities embedded in migration politics concerning school and housing. The article argues that children's lived experiences of time and temporality may contribute to an understanding of how the time politics embedded in the asylum reception system and the resettlement affects the conditions of asylum childhoods and in turn has an impact on children's rights.